Was not sure where to post this. Figured this was as good a place as any.
My v8 track car is basically sold. Deal closes July 24.
Have my Vette C5 Z06, but already missing my Monster.

To be fair, I've had very little seat time in the Z06 and it's running on 8 yr. old Firestone Firehawk All Weather tires.

Backing up a bit, I'm selling the Miata because I now want a non-dedicated track car. I want a car I can drive to/from the track and drive it around locally and enjoy what the car has to offer when off the track.

After sitting in the right seat as an HPDE instructor in maybe a hundred Vettes I've come to respect them. I bought a C5 convertible 2 yrs ago as a street car and really like it. I still have my almost Spec Miata(not driven it in 2 yrs-but my buddy tracked all LY) and my 99 street Miata and my Boxster. But my favorite car to drive the past few years has been the C5 conv. I even drove it to Amelia Is. Fl. this past March to the Amelia Is. Concourse D'Eelegance. Great car show, second only to Pebble Beach. It was a really comfortable drive to Fl from NJ.

Back to the Z06. Still have minimal seat time in this Vette. It's completely track ready with everything modified & upgraded. All the stuff that counts has been done. $13,000 worth of stuff. The engine is 100% stock. Exactly what I was looking for.

My seat time so far consists of driving it 185 miles from seller to my home. 20 miles to my buddies shop for a safety once over before heading to the track. Car needed only gas and although oil was fresh, changed oil/filter to establish a base line. Had it flat-bedded from shop back to me. Drove it to Pocono (90 miles). Ran the SouthEast Course. Never ran it before, never had the Z on track before and 8 yr old street tires. It was no fun. Great Miata track though. Quit after the lunch break. Continued to instruct my student till days end. GTI-great car for that track configuration.

Next day off to the North Course, a track I'm very comfortable with. Was able to get a better feel for the car but still limited by the 8 yr old FireHawks. Pushed them as much as I was comfortable with. Plan was to stay on the asphalt and that mission was accomplished. Quit after lunch when I felt I had no more to gain.

Comparing the Monster and the Z06, here's what I found.
1st of all in fairness I drive the Miata on Hoosier slicks (not R 6), but full slicks putting down about 11" to the ground on all corners.

Straight line speed I was much more comfortable topping out at 140 on the bowl in the Vette vs 133 in the Miata. That's because I have more confidence in parts not falling off the Vette vs the Miata. Although, I've never had parts falling off the Miata except when something broke like, hubs or tires blowing out. Overall felt more comfortable at those speeds on the Vette

Cornering:
No contest. Monster on big slicks with Fatcat Coilovers and not on 8 yr old street tires. Big advantage to Miata.

Here's one that surprised me. Torque out of the corners-advantage Miata. The torque coming out of the corners felt obviously less then the Miata.

Overall comfort. Obvious advantage to the Vette. AC, Music, Power Windows and with the modified suspension even on shitty tires, a great ride home. No trailer to load and unload. No worries about ******** cutting me off and trying to evade them with a trailer attached to the rear of my SUV.

In the midst's of completing the last piece of the Vette's track worthiness.
Picking up 18x10.5 wheels in a few days
Ordered Yokahama AD08R's (295x30x18) seems like a pretty good compromise between track/street tire.

Next test will be at NJMP end of this month. We're on Thunderbolt. Very familiar with NJMP so with these new tires this should be a true test.
I was actually hoping to get this in before the Miata was getting picked up. Just in case I wanted to keep it.
Maybe I can work on my wife in the next few days and get her to agree to me keeping the Miata too.

 

Wow I missed this over the summer but great thread. Thanks for posting such a detailed write up! I wish more guys would have seen it.

 

This is my second or third attempt at posting here. It times me out. Are we really worried someone is going to spam it up in here? Its a pretty small group?

Anyway, I owned a c5z6 just like you talked about above. Stockish engine (headers and exhaust), but super track track ready. Stop techs, rims, harnesses, race seats, momo wheel, c6 shifter (get one ASAP!), ya, about $15k of just track stuff. Bill steins and hotchkiss sways. It was a monster on track. Pardon the expression. While today there aree 600hp beasts, 4-5 years ago there weren't. I was able to switch drivers controls off completely after a year as there were two corners where I couldn't get them to stop coming on. I agree with your summary of it. Better high speed stability, way better ergo and civility when needed. Where I didn't like it was the heavy feeling, as you are throwing 3200lbs or so around and it was a fast car. Speeds trouble happens in usually spell some kind of very expensive fix. The heavy feeling also added to extra consumables. Pads and tires. I didn't drive the z06 enough to get yearly averages, but tires would be 1600/4 installed (I'm in Canada where things are stupid expensive here - except health care), and pads about 400-600/4. Stoptech rotors were above average and rears were stock.
BUT I never felt really comfortable in it. The door sills were high such that it felt like you were in a big heavy bathtub. I do have a lot of miles on track but I can't describe it or am not good/fast enough like the op to detail what was bad or not. I de modded it as we lost our race track (brutal corrupt/retarded councillors) and I sold it. The main reason why was because I couldn't afford another if I put it in the wall. Big boys needed on track. But also totally agree these cars need tires. When I put it back to stock, I found some old nos tires. I could barely drive it as fast as a sentra, driven very well.

I have had two monsters, but both were early conversions and were not to my liking. I loved the budget price of them ~10k. They were both rough and so not a fair comparison to an FM or current build, nor one fully sorted. But here goes. Also, I was only on the track once with one. So the exact opposite of op.
Blue one.
Early richL build (early m.net pioneer - came up with corrado bbk), anyway, car was well sorted to his liking, not mine. Clutch, steering angles, shifter were all indestructible but super heavy. Like omg, I hate driving this to work heavy. It was warmed up, headds, carb (perfectly sorted), beautiful exhaust, etc. But I took this on track, and apart from needing earplugs, it was terrible on track, my fault, as the suspension had 120k miles and some of it felt like it. I was cheap and didn't replace anything on it. The clutch, super heavy manual steering (aligned at least), the little bit of rust on the body caused me to sell it when I had an opportunity to buy another.
Red one:
Half the mileage on the body, never seen a winter, fuel injected, Martin build (better? - not sure now - it was a 1995/8 build - done by cardiac cobra in Vancouver), light shifter, light steering, so I bought it. Find out later it probably needs a headgasket (even after a $450 mechanical - old friend of the previous owner...hmmm), diff noise, transmission noise...too much for me to deal with. But, it was going to fail the out of province inspection (and potentially never set foot on a track - due to terrible exhaust routing and frame cuts near front. All this after sorting "crimp on" electrical gremlins.
Check those early conversions is the moral of the story. What I should have done was combined the best of both cars to have one like you guys mostly have.

I summarize it like so:
Z06
Heavy
$ consumables
Civilized
Fast
Roof - no sun, and not nearly as much road noise
Stability control - awesome while learning
Almost twice the price of a monster (maybe not anymore). 20k?
Ac, cruise, tilt, stereo, great hi way mileage (30mpg on the flats)
A bit of a corvette tax on part prices, maybe a canadian thing
A beast that might be able to be tamed by better drivers than I. I never found the limit.

Miata
Small, light, flickable.
Cheap consumables
Fast - ford 302 felt as fast as the z06, but no empirical evidence.
Maybe $10k sorted for a stockish ford 302.
Basically opposite of z06 points above.
But around town felt more fun at low speeds winding it up to speed limits.

In the end, I will keep my eyes for a fully sorted race ready monster but not for a few years, kids need to grow up...me too.