Originally Posted by wstar

Yes, seat time, you get it Auto-X is a nice intro, but if you're planning to do road-courses then start getting road-course seat time by the biggest bucket-loads you can.

I wouldn't even bother with aero mods at this point (splitter and/or a big functional wing). I've been doing road courses for 3 years now and I'm running a pretty decent pace and I still haven't added aero to my car. The aero mods aren't going to help you feel the car or learn to drive. They'll reduce lap times for a good driver, but (and I don't mean to be mean) you need to learn to be a good driver first, and then worry about aero.

If anything aero will hold you back in the initial stages. It makes the high-speed corners counter-intuitive because the limits don't change linearly with speeds. Even ignoring the non-linear effects of aero, there's also that it's just going to take time to learn the feel out the tires at the limit. Figuring it out on a mostly-stock Z is already going to be tricky and dangerous. Instructors and safety rules help a lot, but the bottom line is you'll end up spinning and/or going off track a number of times during the process in the long term. Doing that at lower non-aero traction limits is going to be way easier under lower g-forces, and less-violent. That and off-course excursions tend to eat splitters anyways.

Back on the seat-time thing: MSR-Houston was the first track I ever drove at. My first time out was in a very low-traffic open-lapping day with no instructor at all (which, in retrospect, was kinda stupid), and my lap time was about 2:09. Fast forward almost 3 years of gradual learning through an instructor-led process at DEs and I'm hitting 1:48-1:51 (diff tires). That's an 18-21 second reduction. Throughout the process I've done some upgrades on the car, but I've analyzed this stuff over time and at best 1/4 of my laptime reductions came from car upgrades. The rest just came with seat time.

Or here's another data point: DR_, another 370 driver here on the forums who's a much better and more-experienced driver than I am, still beats me by about 4 full seconds in best lap times posted at a different local track (TWS-CCW). What makes that hilarious is his car still has a full stock interior, no rollcage, and missing a bunch of the other extensive modifications and weight reductions my car has.

Like cossie1600 said, invest in some decent tires. It's hard to beat the RS3 as a good streetable tire choice. If you're really worried that something specific in your car setup is bad enough that it will inhibit learning, have an instructor drive a session in your car (in an advanced group if possible) with you in the passenger seat and then get their opinion on any necessary changes. It's hard to beat the input of an experienced driver actually driving the car. Also - it's a good chance to see what kind of times they run in your car. Even though it's a foreign car/setup to them, it will take you a long time to get close to their times...