A few weeks ago, I took a road trip from the Charlotte, NC metro area to my friend's in Englewood, FL. About 700 miles each way. My SS was flawless, getting about 29MPG. The sciatic nerve in my right leg really doesn't like these seats for long rides, but I think a little extra cushioning will help fix that problem. The car has over 112k miles now and, at over 8 years of ownership, it's the 2nd longest I have owned a car. The longest was a little over 9 years I had owned an Audi A4 that I had put over 203k miles on. I once had an 8th gen Honda Civic for about 6 years (72k miles) that I had bought new and that wasn't a whole lot cheaper to maintain than my SS. This is my favorite FWD car... in the world.


A 3rd coast sunset

 

Glad someone has some luck lol. Mine has been nothing but issues since day one with 56k on it. About a third of my problems I can actually blame the car, the other 2/3 was the previous owner.

 

They are great cars for sure, reminds me of when I did the trip from Nashville to El Paso when I got the car. 16 hours of driving and it did great other than the car being straight piped and was really annoying

 

I forgot to mention the performance of this car. I ran a 13.238@108.39MPH with just a custom intake and Trifecta tune at zMAX in 2017. Trapped 109.65MPH once. 110MPH in the 1/4 is extremely impressive. I also have 13 road course days on this car, 10 of them in 2013 when I last ran it, and I got so much attention at the track. People couldn't believe it was a stock tune and suspension, and they had never seen the Cobalt SS at an HPDE. I still get asked if I have the Cobalt when I go to events. I'm seriously tempted to show up to another HPDE with it now that I have sold my dedicated track car.

VIR Full - 04/15/13

Watkins Glen - 8/19/13

How I sometimes live my life

 

This is a similar life my Cobalt leads except I'm about to be on my 3rd transmission now. It's not holding up to the stress of the track or perhaps I have some bad habits. Still trying to sort that out. I have only about 15k more miles than you. I'm the original owner. Glad to hear you're enjoying your Cobalt so much. I am as well but lately the issues are piling up. I feel like there's always something on my to do list. I bought a house 18 months ago and have a 4 month old baby girl now, so time to work on the car has greatly diminished.

 

I'm definitely not going to run the 1/4 again unless I'm planning to replace the transmission shortly after.

 

Last time I went with my Cobalt to the drag strip was I think 2015. I think I've ran a total of ~30 runs in its lifetime. I've done about 15 track days now though. Coincidentally, I was also at Watkins Glen in 2013. My sig pic is one of my visits to Watkins Glen.


Overall, I have to agree with you, it's been a fantastic car and the maintenance hasn't been bad considering the abuse its taken.

 

What tires are you running when on the track and how much boost is your trifecta tune set for? I also frequently flat foot shift 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th when on the track, do you?

 

For the road courses, Sumitomo HTR Z II, which are summer tires. When I ran the 1/4, those were Dunlop Direzza DZ102. They only worked well because I ran in the prepped lanes. It was not even worth running on the unprepped lanes. The Trifecta tune hits 21-22 PSI. I didn't use it on the road courses because I didn't want to deal with too much heat. I used it once to hang on a Corvette on a straightaway because I was all over him in the corners and he wouldn't give me the pass. He just kept stomping on it on the straights and I'd be all over him again in the next set of corners. On road courses, I would shift normally with lifting off the gas when clutching. For the 1/4, there's no point in not using no-lift-shift.

 

Seems like the power plants themselves on these cars are pretty stout even moderately modified. I've been running 22-23 psi for almost seven years and have 120k and the motor doesn't use a lick of oil. It's on its 2nd trans and 3rd clutch. Never use clutchmasters lol. Went southbend stage 4 this time

 

I got my tune in 2013 and once I got it I've had it on at every track day event since then. Mine's tuned for 22psi, however, I'm not sure if this is an inaccuracy in the gauge or what but I generally monitor everything with an app and review it after and I see it spiking to 25psi. Heat has been a minor issue, I see that ranging from 205 - 230 on the track. I haven't had any issues though with heat and the tune I think might be killing my transmissions. I run a similar performance rated, Firehawk Indy 500 340aa wear rating. You mentioned you sold your track car, what were you running?

 

1999 BMW M3. When I got it in 2014 it was a street car with a few modifications. I did a ton to it and turned it into a race car, but never got to wheel-to-wheel. I just got tired of dealing with all of the effort required, money required, and how my hobby car sat for 97% of the year. Plus, I bought a 2012 Corvette Grand Sport and then my interest in the M3 evaporated.

 

Very nice! That's my dilemma. I'm breaking my Cobalt because of the track abuse, but building a dedicated car for track days seems like you said, a waste as it sits there for 97% of the year and of course, the money and time involved.

 

I would say what others told me at the beginning; if you want to eventually race, just buy somebody else's race car. If you do want to get a track car that's streetable, don't go too far with it, or at least make it easy to reverse much of. You don't want to end up with a car that's difficult to sell. I'd say the worst thing you can do for resale is build a car to the point that it's not streetable and is still pretty far from a full-blown race car.

 

That's fairly sound advice. Given the point in my life, I'm hitting up 3-5 track days per season and I know I won't be able to do anything competitive for a little while still.

 

These transmission just don't hold up long term with track days - especially if y'all were still on the stock LNF final drive. Even Powell has been through his share of transmissions in his Redline.

Which is why I'm investigating the F23 swap now.

 

Wouldn't the F40 be better? I thought it was additionally a beefier trans.

 

Depends on what you want it for; I want it for track days.

F40 gearing kind of sucks (1st gear is even shorter than the F35) and there's only 1 final drive option.
They're quite rare to find in the wild (just like an F35).
They're expensive.
Harder to work on (a requirement since they never came with an LSD installed).
And they're like 30 lbs heavier than the F23 and F35.

 

What does the F23 offer over the F35?

 

They're cheap, plentiful, and relatively easy to work on (disassemble, reassemble, etc). Also have a variety of final drives available - some rarer than others.

Oh, and they don't fall apart when you put 400 ft-lbs of torque through them.