Factory Five Roadster for HPDE track days.

[RIchard Shannon]

I bought a 2005 build Factory Five roadster from Barrett Jackson back in 2016. I love the car! It only had 1500 miles on it, included a full picture album of the build. It looks as if he used a 1992 5.0 as the doner. He completely rebuilt the engine, installed an Edelbrock fuel injection system. Looks like a new front end and rear end. No power steering, no power brakes. Car runs beautifully. But i would like to be able to use it as an HPDE car. It came with 4-lug wheels, which i am not thrilled with. I am going to install 5 lug axles. 19" wheels. I am thinking of a set of Wilwood brakes with some paid RSL1 pads. The question is, how safe is this for track day use? With no independent rear end, and a short wheelbase, is this car controllable? Was the frame truly designed to be tracked? The build looks to be very well done. I don't know what suspension he used.

Before i dump a bunch of money into this car i want to make sure it is worthwhile to make as an HPDE track car.

Baackground:

I own a 2020 GT500, 2017 Corvette Z06, 2009 GT500, 2008 Ferrari F430, 2007 Lamborgini Gallardo, and a 2005 Factory Five roadster. My family and i did a track day in 2019 at Gateway in St. Louis, very simple, no instructors, this was a need4speed event. We brought the Gallardo, F430, 2009 GT500, and the cobra. We all drove very slow i found out later. I have 5 "kids" All are over 20. They all REALLY enjoyed this simple track day! They shared the Gallardo, 09' GT500, and the CObra. I drove the F430.
For my next track event, i shipped the Gallardo to my FL home. Last year my wife and I did 2 track events at Miami/homestead with Chin Track days and PDG. These events had instructors and we learned how to really drive the car! The first day out I also boiled the brakes, several times. I then replaced the rotors with Giro discs, Pagid racing pads, and Motul 660. After this upgrade, i still boiled the brakes when pushing hard! I then bought a 2020 GT500 last march, i have not tracked it YET! Last month I again shipped the Gallardo to FL and did another Chin track day with the Gallardo at Miami/homestead and was solo qualified for the intermediate group. I found that the EPS traction control was frying the brakes and once I learned better throttle control i could go MUCH faster and have better brake longevity. I also installed Castrol SRF. I then decided to buy a 2017 Corvette Z06 w/ Z07 package for my wife. I installed Castrol SRF as soon as i received the car. We tried it out this weekend at a PDG event at Homestead/Miami. The Castrol SRF fixed the boiling issue in the Lamborghini! The Z07 Corvette is nothing short of an amazing car, after driving the Lamborghini most of the day, I jumped into the wife's Z07 (Which she absolutely LOVES) and in 3 laps cut my Lambo best lap BY 7 SECONDS!!

Now, i have 2 track events coming up while in Missouri this spring. I have a NASA event at Gateway and a NASA event at Heartland Park. ALL of my kids want to come! I have the 2020 GT500 for me, the Z06 for my wife, the Gallardo for my sons. BUT I have 3 daughters with husbands who would also like to attend. I am NOT letting anyone drive my F430. So that leaves the Cobra and the 09' GT500. I have already purchased a series of parts: upgraded brakes, radiator, sway bars, etc for the 09' GT500 to make it more of a track day car. Now I would also like to make the roadster a track car. My sons-in-laws absolutely LOVE it! So, any help would be greatly appreciated!

143980

[Gordon Levy]

Give me a call at 520-494-2745 and I can help answer all your questions and help you will the right parts.

[RIchard Shannon]

Give me a call at 520-494-2745 and I can help answer all your questions and help you will the right parts.


Thank You! will do it tomorrow!

[Rdone585]

That's quite a collection of performance cars. The FFR will be a lot of fun on the track, but not at all in the same way as the other cars you have. I would not put a new young track driver in a Cobra without an instructor and some seat time in the car before the event. You should spend some time learning to drive the cobra and on the track is a good place to learn. I suggest starting with street tires so you can learn to handle the car's dynamics properly before moving on to a faster setup. The skills you learn will dramatically impact the enjoyment you have on the track with these cars. If you push to high performance tires too soon it has the possibility of masking some driver mistakes and thus prevent you from learning valuable techniques and skills. Chin also runs Sebring (or they use to), I suggest you also consider that track among your choices.

[nucjd19]

The family that tracks together....stays together..... I love your stable of rigs!

[Hoooper]

Dont do 19" wheels for the track. Small sidewalls have been sold as the more "track" type wheel/tire setup but in reality it does not help you on the track. For tire availability I would say still go to 18s though as you have a reasonable selection of the right size tires in GOOD tires for track and street use. If you are letting people borrow the car on track and turning this into a track car, highly recommend improving the rollover and side impact safety by putting in door bars and a real roll hoop, and definitely leave the motor alone

[SJDave]

The risk of someone hitting you in the side on a HPDE day is incredibly low in my opinion, more likely to overcook a corner, countersteer and then back off the throttle and have snap spin the other way into a track barrier. So I would say make sure you have the submarine belts hooked up on the seatbelts and buy or rent some full face helmets with HANS device. A 50 mph head on into a barrier will cause spinal column damage if strapped in tight with a 5 point harness. Hooked on Driving now requires HANS device on any cars with 4, 5 or 6 point seatbelts. I used to run a 4 point in a BMW M3 so I could remain in a good driving position when cornering hard on race slicks, had to get a HANS setup 2 years ago to run with HOD. A regular seat belt with Air Bags is actually hard to beat in a crash!

I would add some headrests to the rollbar in case of a spin with rear impact, maybe have a local shop in Missouri fabricate a mount that attaches to the existing double wide roll bar and have an upholstery shop fab up some head rests.

If you want to be really careful install a fire suppression system or at least rent or buy some fire resistant driving suits (appears you can afford that) and install a hand held extinguisher on the tunnel.

Nice to have a 12 volt cut-off switch the driver can quickly get to in case of roll over. I assume the fuel pump "roll over" cut off switch is installed??

I run Motul 600 in my Mark 3.1 with Hawk HP+ pads, stock Mustang GT calipers and rotors....plenty of stopping power and fade free.

Nitto NT05's are a nice tire for newbies going to the track, available in most sizes for 17 and 18" wheels, I agree 19's are not needed and will reduce performance unless you need them to fit giant rotors and calipers, a little softer sidewall on the smaller diameters will help keep the car more stable when they hit the corner rumble strips.