Vorshlag Low Buck 1992 Corvette NASA TTC Project Build Thread, aka: DANGER ZONE

Terry Fair @ Vorshlag

Check your intake gasket to head seal. Common failure on the l98.

See you at TWS.
I promise I'll see you in my mirrors and get out of the way.

Cool thread.

Project Update for May 26th, 2015: Its been pretty busy around Vorshlag and I've been buried in the CNC room, but with a bit of extra help in there for the summer I can finally sneak into my office and write a few project build forum updates.

This Week at Vorshlag for May 8th, 2015 - including a bit on the C4 at the 6:40 mark

We haven't had time to work on the C4 other than extracting the drivetrain. Again, we only work on our "shop cars" when we have a gap in our customer work schedule, which hasn't existed. So I snuck the C4 in line for a few hours of shop time and had the guys yank the motor and it was sent off to be rebuilt. We've also had more conversations about "the internet protest", which was actually FIVE things, and we're aiming to fix all of those before our next event. I will go over some upcoming car prep and document the issues of the protest in great detail.

Motor Rebuild Time

Yep, after 24 hard years this old LT1 has seen better days. Too much crankcase pressure makes for excessive blow-by and smoke, which precludes us from making a lap without a black flag. There's not much to share in this section other than the motor is finally out and shipped to the engine shop, and how that came to be.

With but 6 weeks until our next event, I couldn't wait for an opening in the shop schedule any longer, so I asked Brad and Ryan to get that LT1 out of the car as quickly as possible on May 6th. Within a few hours the drivetrain was out and the motor was on a pallet, ready for truck shipment the next day.

After pulling the driveshaft, c-channel drivetrain brace, transmission and shifter out, they could finally lift the motor out of the engine bay. Its a TIGHT fit in there, with a cross brace right next to the front balancer. Its almost impossible to stab the motor and transmission into the car tied together, unlike in some other cars.

A sharp-eyed reader noticed the "throttle body airfoil" (top right), which we don't have points for. Its coming out.

The motor was stripped down to the basic long block, it was bolted to an engine stand I had built years ago for easy GM V8 transport. Many LS1s have been shipped on this shipping stand, but this is the first LT1. This frame was then bolted/strapped to a pallet, wrapped in plastic, and all 480 pounds was shipped to the guys down at HK Racing Engines in La Grange, Texas. One thing someone on Facebook noticed in a picture I posted (and called me to warn me about, thanks Dave!) when the engine was out was an aftermarket "airfoil" in the throttle body. With a 24 year old car, sometimes a previous owner's mods get missed. No excuses - this airfoil is coming out. We want this car to be PERFECTLY legally. Squeaky clean. As a business owner in motorsports I cannot afford to be caught cheating in competition, and I'd rather lose a race than knowingly break a rule.

HK has pulled the top of the motor apart and told me "it all looked fine". By now they should have some .020" overbore replacement pistons, rings, bearings and valve springs ordered, which should freshen things up a bit. I think they will find some broken piston rings when they tear the bottom end apart, since we noted a lot of scoring in the bottom of a few cylinders as well as "too much" ferrous metal grit in the bottom of the oil pan.

I'm going to clean the living snot out of the engine bay while the motor gets rebuilt

Erik Koenig is a master engine builder, and also a damned good racer. I raced with him for a couple of decades and he knows how to read a rulebook. I sent him the pertinent pages, we discussed what we can do (and what we cannot) in TTC, and he's all over it.

Yes, this car is still for sale, now at a lower price!

Problem is that I didn't give him a lot of time, so making the June 15th Hallett event is going to be tight... if the motor isn't back in by then I'm NOT racing our TT3 Mustang at Hallett (it is very much for sale!) Yes, this TT3 car has won 4 tires every time we have shown up to a NASA event in the past 2 years, and did so again a few weeks back at TWS - winning by a huge margin after taking only a single lap on Sunday - but that car is out of competition, for me. :( If you know of anyone potentially interested, please send them to this link - Thanks!

No more "back up ride" in the TT3 Mustang, as it still has perfect paint that I want to protect for the next owner!

So, I've already used my "4 drops" in TTC for the regional championship, so if we miss this June Hallett event in #DangerZone I'm just not going to worry about TTC regionally for this year. With our summer break coming, we won't have another NASA Texas event after Hallett before NASA Nationals East, so I will have to go to an out-of-region NASA event or use non-NASA events to test the car before Nationals. I've still not had more than 2 laps in a row in this car all season, dang it.

Changes Planned To Be 100% Legal

I mentioned a couple of the things that I was told were protested against #DangerZone in my last post, but have since seen a a more complete list of items in an email from Greg Greenbaum, NASA's National TT director. In private correspondence Greg passed on an alarming number of things that some reader of this build thread wrote in about to protest (five).

As I mentioned before, some are cage issues - three in fact. One was a very picky, gray area issue that I have been "all but told" is allowed on this car, for safety concerns in this narrow cabin. As I showed in a previous post (again, I am hiding nothing) parts of the roof side bars next to my head are a hair outside of the window plane, but otherwise they'd be inside my helmet. I can't sit any lower without going through the floor, either. Its this way or no cage, and after my accident last year I'm not keen on driving un-caged race cars.

We always tie in both sides of "NASCAR" door bars to the frame, for symmetry and safety. But in NASA TT-letter classes it is +2 points

The other two cage issues are shown to be illegal in the rules... sort of. First, the passenger side door bars clearly cannot be tied to the frame even though they are allowed on the driver's side (up to 3 places). I read the rule wrong, where it said "drivers-side" I thought "both sides", stupid mistake on my part. It still seems odd that the cage rules would make for an "asymmetrically safe" cage. So our plan of putting a passenger seat in this car and taking riders is out, since we can't make the right side of the cage as safe as the left without taking +2 points (and bumping up a class). Easy fix with a saw and grinder.

The third and most unclear of the cage protest rulings has to do with the two optional tubes that the TT cage rule above states can be added to the firewall or foot well areas. Our two tubes are apparently placed too high to be called "tire intrusion protection" (but the rule says nothing about tire intrusion, of course, that is something you have to assume). What the rules wording says isn't full concept of what the rules makers meant, however, as I'm told after this ruling that it should read as follows:

"Two additional attachment points for either two foot-well bars or two bars to the front firewall BELOW THE TOP OF THE TIRE (one on each side) may be added without TT Modification Point assessment".

The "below the top of the tire" bit was what I was told is inferred in this rule. Shame on me for not knowing that. The two NASA race directors I showed this cage layout to thought we had them in the optimum place, but they were also wrong. So apparently we have to read and interpret the rules then always ask for a clarification for anything (or risk a DSQ at an event). You were warned: there are the written rules and then there are the unwritten rules. Again, this is an easy fix - We will cut those two tubes out, move them down below the top of the tire, weld them back in place, and then be double-secret legal. :D

Item four brought up in the protest was our upgrade to 1996 Corvette Base Trim Level front 13" disc brakes, over the 1992-95 BTM 12" front discs. Again, we did our homework and found that all 1996 model Corvettes came with the 13" diameter fronts, which used to be an optional upgrade on base coupe Corvettes from 1989-95 under the Z07 or Z51 options. But since this car is listed on the same line as all 1992-1996 Corvettes, non-LT4, non-ZR1, we can "update" to the 1996 base trim brakes for zero points (normally +2). Yes, its a loophole but hundreds of racers look for loopholes to exploit - that's called racing. Luckily the National office agreed with our documentation here and disallowed that particular protest.

Shocking Thing About OEM Shocks

The last issue that is being ruled against (item 5) has to do with the OEM Bilstein vs the replacement Bilstein dampers we used, which I am gonna lose. See, we don't have the points left in our TTC class points budget to add better dampers (+2), so we elected to stick with the OEM units and changed spring rates instead at +3. That was a gamble that some thought was strange, since we could have done double adjustables shocks (which we sell) for +2 points instead of springs (we don't sell the VBP spring).

This was how the car looked while cornering on the B6 Bilsteins + 245 R7s + stock bars and springs.

After driving the car on the 245mm Hoosier R7s at MSR-Houston (above), with the B6 Bilsteins and stock springs, then looking at these pictures... I felt the car had too much roll and dive. Sure, we could have gotten some of that dialed out with adjustable shocks ($3350 MCS monotube TT2 doubles), but probably not as much as I'd like. Tripling the front and doubling the rear spring rates made a bigger change, in my view (and I drove it this second way at MSR-Cresson), so we took a gamble and went that route. I will just have to deal with the less-than-ideal damping offered by the stock replacement Bilsteins. Ideally, of course, we'd change BOTH the spring rates and shocks. That is if we had the points budget, which in this case we just don't. ALL the rest of our points are for the tires - because TIRES ALWAYS MAKE THE BIGGEST IMPROVEMENT IN LAP TIMES.

Tires matter SO MUCH and virtually everything we do to the suspension is just to keep the tires happy

So, let's look at the OEM shocks. As I stated before, this 1992 model Corvette base model coupe came with Delco-Bilstein 46mm piston monotube dampers at all four corners, and amazingly the 24 year old original shocks were still on this car when we got it. Unfortunately, two of them were blown, which is to be expected after nearly two and a half decades of use and abuse. So we purchased replacement Bilsteins as close as can be purchased today, and put them on for a "zero point" replacement.

Wrong. Not the original dampers, not legal. This is what the ruling was on item 5.

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Could we have rebuilt the OEM Delco-Bilsteins instead? Sure, but there were two problems with this idea. First, the time frame we had to build this car back in January (2 weeks) wasn't going to give us enough time to have the old shocks rebuilt. While we are a Bilstein Motorsports dealer, we still don't have the $5000 fill rig necessary to refill the Nitrogen charge in this particular style Bilstein (and that's all it works on). Secondly, if we had said we had these shocks rebuilt, who would have believed we had kept the OEM valving?? We make and sell shocks for a living! That would have been the first thing people assumed - shock guys, cheater rebuild.

These have been sitting in a box in my office since January, in case we were forced to rebuild and use them.

The proof about what came in the 1992 model base coupes is shown below, which are some pages from GM documents which I haven't shown before (Jason researched and found this cache of GM documents for the 1992 model Y-body). There are hundreds of pages of period documents on this version of the C4, so have fun digging.

We knew these Delco-Bilstein monotubes were the stock dampers but apparently some folks didn't even believe that. So I'm showing this now, since I was warned that I'd lose a protest even if we put these old blown out shocks back on without showing documented proof of the OEM fitments. Guilty until proven innocent, but I guess with a build shown this publicly I should expect this level of scrutiny.

After looking for the exact OEM replacement shocks back in January we found that we could no longer buy these Delco-Bilsteins anywhere, for any amount of money. Not from GM, not from Bilstein, and there were no "New Old Stock" dampers available anywhere (if you find any, please send the link my way!). So, from my SCCA background on similar "stock replacement equivilent" issues we "assumed" that a close alternative replacement to the OEM dampers would be allowed. So we looked and found a set of shocks that were the closest and still available new: Bilstein B6 monotube dampers that are listed in the Bilstein catalog for the 1992 base trim level Corvette. These are a whopping $85 per corner, retail, and we paid less that that with our direct dealer account.

And while I didn't go into this excruciating level of detail before, I hid none of this. We showed these B6 dampers in one of my first posts here, but I didn't show that there are about a dozen choices for the C4 from Bilstein... they make some for the base model, others for the Z51, some for different years, there's a B6 and a B8, and of course fronts and rears. This array of cheap Bilstein monotubes is what we chose from to get the two part numbers shown for the 1992 base model coupe, shown above left.

These are painfully similar to the OEM Delco-Bilsteins - they have the same 46mm pistons, same 50mm body diameter, the same shaft sizes, same body dimensions, and no external valving adjustment. You can see the details in the images below, which were captured from the "GM Heritage Center" database of records for 1992 model Corvettes at this link.

I have cleaned up these scans from 24 year old literature published for this 1992 model Corvette, and even highlighted the mention of Delco-Bilstein (its referenced on 6 different pages) and even the dimensions of the shocks. And the swaybars - which are still the OEM units. These Delco-Bilsteins are functionally identical to what we have been using (the $85 B6 dampers), but that's not good enough to be legal as +0 point shocks, they have to be the actual 24 year old Delco-Bilsteins, which we'd need a TIME MACHINE to get a hold of a new set in 2015.

GM doesn't keep original stock parts on hand for more than 10 years, but they instead have a "generic replacement part number" that supersedes the original 1992 shock part numbers. This replacement part number is shown for all 1989-1996 Corvettes without the adjustable (FX3) dampers. Its a $28 piece of crap twin tube shock that is so dissimilar to the 1992 model OEM damper that its almost funny. Not gonna happen on my car, no way.

Anyway, long story short - we are now sending the old and blown OEM dampers (shown above) directly to Bilstein, having them rebuild them, and then asking them to include documentation that they didn't alter the valving in any way. I'll have them seal the shocks in tamper-proof tape if they can, too. And someone will probably still accuse us of cheating, oh well. These "cheater" B6 Bilsteins will be for sale here soon after - cheap!

I wish I could take people for a ride in this car on track with these B6 Bilsteins. Well, with no right seat that ain't gonna happen. Any way, the C4 on these shocks rides like a big underdamped mess at speed. This is not a great set of dampers, not by a long shot. But they are just the closest thing we can find to OEM that isn't leaking. At $85 per corner, you get what you pay for. But that's not good enough - I have to use actual OEM shocks, not OEM replacements, or take +2 points (and move to TTB). And the burden of proof is on the DRIVER.

Whatever the answers to life's big questions, we're going to make SURE this car is squeaky clean at Nationals. If I get protested over some bullsh*t non-performance hidden rule detail, I'm going to share it here for all the world to see. Hopefully, after this 5 part protest and the resulting changes we will make to 4 items, it will be smooth sailing from here on out.

What's Next?

We're desperately trying to get the motor back and installed in time to make Hallett June 13-14, but time is not on our side. I'd also like to get the following changes, modifications and completed before NASA Nationals East:

• Since my red Suzuka trade fell through after the fact (not my fault), we have to install a new driver’s seat (black Cobra Suzuka GT width Kevlar seat just arrived)
• Add a massive oil catch can + breather system to the motor
• Add oil temp sensor (OEM dash) and level gauge (external)
• Order the 1994-95 wiring harness and switch to a 95 Corvette ECM to help with tuning
• Install poly bushings throughout + machine offset Delrin bushings where needed
• Design and build front brake cooling + new braided brake lines
• Add windshield defroster box and new aqueous foam fire systems to complete safety updates
• Build support frame for rear plexiglass hatch and install
• Move full sized battery to rear cubby hole + rewire main battery cable with main power kill
• Make aluminum covers for ABS and battery cubby holes
• Move ballast weight rearward
• Take car for interior paint + cage paint, exterior repairs + left side and front end paint
• Complete the new livery package with stripes #RAMPAGE
• Spend last point on proper custom cold air and hood venting

Lots planned before Nationals, and some of it might be protest bait, so we might hold off if it seems unnecessary. Again, the way that the internet protest went down was a bit weird, but look at this build thread - the pictures, the details I'm sharing, the SMACK talk in my first post? I probably should expect this level of scrutiny more often.

That's all for now - will update once the motor is back!

Thanks for reading,

Terry Fair @ Vorshlag

Project Update for August 21st, 2015: Its been almost 3 months without an update, and while we have knocked out a few things on the C4, mostly we have just been waiting for the rebuilt motor to arrive. We're less than 2 weeks from NASA Nationals East and I had hoped by now to have the motor in, a few race weekends of tuning under our belts, and ready to go to VIR "fangs out". But a big delay on the motor has crushed our hopes and dreams a bit, heh. Read below to find out where we are on this project.

But first, in celebration of Grassroots Motorsports magazine's annual "Wear Your Helmet To Work Day" (Aug 21, 2015), I give you our submission we took this morning at Vorshlag. This shows almost everyone here "working" on the 69 Camaro Pro Touring / Track Car we're building for a customer (latest update here). That was fun and GRM shared our picture at the top of their page of submissions on Facebook. Installing an intake manifold on the roof like a pro? I think we nailed it.

The Best Laid Plans...

So back in early May I had hoped for a quick 2-4 week turn around on the very basic rebuild on the 24 year old LT1 motor. Paid up front to help speed things along at the machine shop, too. I really wanted to make the June NASA event at Hallett, because if I could have made that event (and scored points both days) we could have salvaged a chance at winning TTC in the Texas region season points battle. We only get 4 "drops" for the year in region, and with the issues we had at MSR-Cresson in March I didn't get any points either day, so that's 2 drops. Then we missed the "last ever" NASA event at TWS in April (we ran the TT3 Mustang for one last time), so that's 2 more TTC drops. Making Hallett would keep us in the points...

Nope, that deadline came and went. Its been 14 weeks since the motor shipped out to the machine shop, but I keep hearing "pretty soon". Pretty disappointed, and if the motor doesn't arrive in the next handful of days we miss NASA Nationals East (13 days from today). We are moving forward with every hope that the motor shows up, then we can thrash to get the drivetrain reinstalled, get the dyno tune re-checked, install the new Peterson oil catch can (below), then rush out to ECR or another local track for some shake down testing. If it looks good there, then we'll pack up and tow 17 hours to VIR for NASA Nationals EastSeptember 4-6, 2015.

But seeing that we would have to leave in less than 13 days, and I have no motor, I kind of doubt we will make it. Some valuable lessons learned, mostly "take your motor out the day after it breaks" and "use a local engine builder" who is close enough to knock on their door. Daily. Oh well, fingers still crossed. Let's go ahead and cover the work we've done in the past 3 months to this car. Even if the motor returns after Nationals is over, we will still try to make the 2 remaining NASA Texas events for 2015, just to see how it does in TTC before the chassis is re-classed in 2016 (likely to TTB or even TT1/2/3).

Did want to give a shout out and congrats to Dave Schotz. He took his TTC C4 (built at the same time as our's) to the 2015 NASA Nationals West a few weeks ago and won both PTC ant TTC in his Corvette. He also took the wins in PTC and TTB in his 4th gen Firebird. That's 4 championships in one weekend! Way to go Dave.

The fact that he won TTC/PTC in a C4 pretty much guarantees that the car will be re-classed next year. So that's not good news for us if we miss NASA East this year. We had one shot...

Old Shocks Rebuilt and Reinstalled

If you couldn't tell from my last post where I discussed the "the 5 Point Mystery Internet Protest", I didn't agree with many of the items that were ruled against this car - ruled upon sight unseen, after being protested by a competitor with their name withheld. Oh well, now we all know what to expect when you race in the same class as the _____. (you can fill in the blank)

We got to spend $450 getting the 24 year old factory Delco-Bilsteins rebuilt by Bilstein-USA. Since we paid for a rush it only took 5 weeks to get them back, hoping that the motor would arrive in that time. Money well spent - these sat around for only 2 more months before we even installed them.

Biggest difference in the OEM vs OEM replacement Bilstein dampers sets? Blue vs Black dust boots. #CheaterShocks

We made sure to get documentation from Bilstein, showing that they only replaced the seals and wear items. The original shocks' shims and pistons were left alone. But who cares? Nobody believes anything they read on the internet anymore. These pictures are probably only good for use against me in a future internet protest, hehe. ;)

Olof swapped out the "new" $85 Bilsteins replacements for the $450 rebuilt 24 year old Bilsteins in 1.27 hours of non-billable time. They look identical to each other, but we didn't bother to dyno both sets to prove how equally pitiful the two sets felt. I'm sure they are just as floaty as the "new" set was.

8.5 BTM (Base Trim Model) Definition, Updating and Backdating Rules For the purposes of NASA TT Modification Points assessments, the term BTM will be defined as follows: Any part that is identical in size, shape, and functional characteristics compared to the part that originally came on the vehicle, from the manufacturer, as a standard feature of the base trim model as it is listed in section 8.2 Base Classifications (factory options and specialty model parts are considered non-BTM) or is listed as a standard replacement part by the manufacturer (OEM). Some parts that are produced by aftermarket manufacturers as generic replacement parts may not require a points assessment provided that: they are the same size and shape, and have the same functional characteristics as the BTM part, and that they provide no significant improvement in performance, longevity, or reliability. If it is determined in impound that such a part does not meet the above description, the driver may be disqualified. Consultation with the Regional TT Director prior to competition is advised for any driver using a vehicle with replacement parts that fall under this exception.

This is sufficiently vague as to mean "we can pick when we want a replacement part to be legal". We learned from this ruling and the precedent set that: unless you are using the original, as-delivered factory base trim level shocks on your TT letter car, you should just take 2 points for whatever shocks you have installed. There is no "OEM equivalent" for these mysterious and mythical parts called "dampers". You were warned. :)

Remove Cage Tubes

Speaking of wasted hours, Olof spent another 2.4 hours taking these roll cage bars out. Yay.....

Again, I completely disagree that these two optional bars forward to the firewall aren't 100% legal (again, without taking points we didn't have). They were installed as no-points tubes to the letter of the rules, but the "unwritten" wording is what got us. They weren't below the top of the tire, which is true - even if that phrase is nowhere in the NASA rule book.

These two optional bars connecting the door bars to the frame on the passenger side weren't legal without taking points. I still think its silly to encourage asymmetrically safe cages, but we pulled those two bars out.

Once the 4 tubes were cut out the flapper wheel on the electric grinder was used to get the stubs of tubes smoothed flat. It took time and made a huge mess, but there's now no sharp edges to catch a driving suit or cut your skin, if snagged. And more importantly, there's no nit-picky visible items to protest. #CheaterCage

Cutting and grinding the cage to get these tubes out made a lot of metal dust, which went everywhere inside the car, so Olof spent another 1.15 hours cleaning out the entire interior. With some oil that was spilled in the floor on the passenger side (when "Old Smokey" was giving its last death throws at the NASA MSR-C event), and piles of metal dust, it made a real mess. But he got it cleaned out and ready for the replacement Cobra Suzuka GT seat - which is here and going in later today.

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Engine Bay Power Wash + Seat Swap + Firewall Re-seal

Having the drivetrain out sure makes for a perfect time to clean two+ decades of crud out of an engine bay. This one had it all - oil, dirt, funk, and grease. Brad rolled the car out back and fired up the pressure washer in 105°F heat and got it blasted clean under there.

Once inside I used my "WD40 all the things" trick to shine up the old painted surfaces and rubber. Let that soak then wiped it down.

After the cage tube removal mess we cleaned the glass inside and out with Windex and newsprint, to polish the glass. First time I've been able to see out of the glass in all directions without looking through some film of decades-old funk.

Today Olof installed the new Cobra seat (the red one went away) and then re-sealed the firewall. There is an aluminum panel where the old factory blower motor/heater core box was in the engine bay, and it leaked a bit of oil into the passenger foot well when the motor smokified. That's finally water tight and should be leak free.

Now we just need a motor...

Aluminum Griffin Radiator Upgrade

One of the things I had hoped to do at VIR was take a lot of laps. I have never driven that track and it has a LOT of turns, so I was hoping to make every session from Friday-Sunday, to learn the line and hopefully put in a good time. I was going to take 2 or 3 sets of tires on 2 sets of wheels, too.

[QUOTE=2015 NASA TT rules]8.3.I.c.3) Radiator upgrade/shrouding/fascia modification (drilled or cut holes/slots) that only provides increased airflow to the radiator or oil/transmission coolers (without aerodynamic or engine air intake improvement), and/or radiator core support modification/replacement

To ensure that the car ran smoothly for longer stints on track at VIR, I wanted to upgrade the radiator. This is FREE in TT-letter class, by the way, for all of you rules Nazis looking at this build (see the "No Points Mod" rule above, which is from page 35 of the 2015 NASA TT rules).

The stock radiator is already pretty sketchy design, with a tiny aluminum core and glued plastic end tanks. They fail over time at the tank to core junction. This looks like the original piece, too. So I looked at direct fit C4 radiators that were all aluminum and beefed up in size. $545 for one, $625 for another, and all of them would take 6-8 weeks to be built. Nope!

The OEM radiator is bundled with the A/C condenser (already removed) in this fiberglass, factory duct box. It has no filler neck, as the car has a remote coolant reservoir tank higher in the engine bay. The two fans and shroud look sufficient, and don't do anything at speed anyway. I measured the radiator core size and did some searches...

We used the generic Griffin aluminum radiator for a mockup in the 69 Camaro (left), which fit that frame spacing well

Summit Racing catalog has 2,312 different aluminum radiator listings just from Griffin. So I picked a NASCAR style Griffin radiator of the same basic height and width, with the same inlet/outlet layout, but with a massive 3" thick dual core. This was a $175 retail part, now we just had to modify it to fit this car...

Olof then modified the "generic" radiator to fit inside the C4 shroud and frame layout. The lower radiator hose was angled, so that was cut off and the hole plugged. It needed to move upwards a few inches to clear the front cross beam (see below), so he drilled a new hole and moved it there. Then he modified the fiberglass radiator shroud/housing/mount to clear the inlet on the top left corner. The radiator neck was cut off and capped, then a matching "steam line" was added. This was done with a weld bung and re-using the fitting that came with the Griffin, which was threaded into the water neck for the overflow port.

It worked out great and took a total of 4.05 hours in total for Olof to: remove the OEM radiator assembly, modify the radiator (cutting and TIG welding), pressure test the modified Griffin unit, modify the brackets/mounts inside the fiberglass shroud, and reinstall everything. In the end we got a LARGER capacity Griffin radiator that fits better and is bigger than anything we could have bought that was a direct "bolt in" for the old C4.

During that 4 hours of work Olof also made an aluminum cover for the gaping hole in the side of the fiberglass box where the A/C bits passed through (visible above left). The new radiator was bigger in every dimension just enough so that it barely fit in the fiberglass enclosure, and there wasn't even room for rivets to hold this panel on - so it was bonded with epoxy and held in place while it dried with the green tape. There were also weather-strip seals added next to the new radiator to better seal it to the inlet/outlet sections of the fiberglass duct - that should be better than the factory airflow management in the radiator box.

We're really ready for the motor....

What's Next?

I just heard back from my engine builder minutes ago, and he says the last "hard to find OEM LT1 engine parts" are finally there. He's supposed to be wrapping up the motor this weekend, then bring it personally to our shop since its so late (no time for pallet shipment). So I'm hoping he's right, and we might, just might, get this car together in time to make VIR in 2 weeks. They need my entry for TTC to "make a class" at Nationals, so others are counting on us to be there, too.

We had a lot of other plans we would have implemented if this car was put together 2-3 months ago, like we had hoped for. Things that are small incremental improvements in weight balance, airflow, safety, etc. But with virtually no time left to test even if the motor showed up tomorrow we're holding off on more changes to the car. Too many changes means too many risks of something done that fails - and I cannot afford for any failure if we make it to VIR in 2 weeks. I need an uneventful weekend with lots of track time, some good lap times, and no trivial protests.

Now we just need a motor...

More soon,

Terry Fair @ Vorshlag

Good luck getting it together and good luck at VIR.

what were the exceptionally hard LT1 parts to get?

keep it comin terry/jason, ive actually been eyeing a C4 build. really looking forward to hearing impressions once you start getting in a lot of laps with the new suspension.

edit: also what are your alignment specs (if you dont mind), youre using all factory components there still right?

I think Terry's issue is that he is under extremely hard scrutiny so whereas others might just order parts and build the motor up and say "stock" he'll probably need to provide invoices that state GM stock part no's etc... NOS level E36 M3 b/c everyone waits until it'll screw him the worst to protest what he does.

Mad_Ratel wrote: I think Terry's issue is that he is under extremely hard scrutiny so whereas others might just order parts and build the motor up and say "stock" he'll probably need to provide invoices that state GM stock part no's etc... NOS level E36 M3 b/c everyone waits until it'll screw him the worst to protest what he does.

Bingo, somebody in his classification is keeping a close eye with a finger on the protest button and making it more work for Vorshlag to get the stuff done. More time spent hunting OEM NOS parts means less time developing the car or getting track time. Considering how well their Mustang has done over the years, I am very interested in seeing how this C4 does once they get it sorted.

Same thing with Stock Eliminator class cars in drag racing. Pretty much all stock engine except the cam is open game as long as it is within the stock lift specs (lobe and duration are open to interpretation), but they'll spend thousands of dollars and countless hours sourcing the absolute best OEM NOS parts to put together an engine to race with.

There's a couple guys with V6 Firebirds that are doing 11s and 12s in this class in the 1/4 mile with what is effectively a "cam only" car. Good luck getting your hands on those cams though lol!

Yeah I'm sure thats the case, I'm just selfishly trying to get a feel for generally how hard parts are to find for these cars; sort of wondering if enough LT1 specfic parts are odd ducks it might be equally worth it to start with the bemoaned L98 just because its closer to the 350 CBC design and that huge aftermarket.

Sorry for the late "October" uypdate - I forgot to port this one over to GRM forums. There's a lot of reformatting that has to be done, and its still a bit hacked up when brought here, but here is my October 2015 update.

Project Update for October 16, 2015: Its been another 6+ weeks since my last post, and it has been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. The rebuilt motor finally showed up on October 6th and was a week long thrash to try to get the car together for a track test October 10th at ECR and a NASA race weekend Oct 16-18 at TWS. We had already missed the September NASA event at MSR-H so we are really pushing to get the car to the last 2015 NASA event in Texas. Unfortunately things did not go to plan and we're scrubbing this race. Let's cover what has been done since my last update to explain...

Note: After writing this update over the course of 2 weeks of work on the car, I had my thread update completed in a private section of our forum - which we use to compose and edit these mega sized build thread posts. Jason had edited everything the night before I scrubbed the event, and the morning I was going to post this (Wednesday the 14th) our forum crashed and has been down ever since. Its so borked that the server is auto-generating 20,000 error message emails a day, driving me nuts, and I have two teams of tech gurus working on fixing it (we've had that forum operational for 13+ years and its never gone down like this). Luckily I had this post open on a window on my pc, so I could copy the text, but it lost all of the UBB code for formatting, images and links. In a rush to rewrite this post now I won't link all my pics to larger images like I normally do and might miss some links I had in here before.

You will notice in this series of posts that I'm not sharing any pictures of the inside of the rebuilt motor and censoring some images where those bits are visible. I'm not going to stop sharing pictures in this build thread, as it is still part of showing "what can be done on a budget" and "what race prep we can do" at our shop, but I'm not giving any more ammunition to our competition!

Rebuilt Motor Arrives

Let's talk about TT-letter class allowable engine rebuild rules. Here they are:

NASA TT Rule 8.3.i.c 18. Engine rebuild with head shave, block decking and 0.020” overbore provided that compression ratio is not increased by more than 0.5 and displacement is not increased by greater than 1.49%. Forged pistons and internals are legal; however, they must be of equal or heavier weight than the BTM parts, and points must be assessed for de-stroking, and/or increased displacement and compression ratio if greater than the limits listed above. (Note: 0.020” overbore with OEM rods and overbore pistons will yield an increase in displacement of approximately 1.1% for most engines.) If forged internals used are lighter than the BTM internals, then Dyno Re-classing (Section 8.4) should be used to prevent disqualification. 19. Engine balancing and blueprinting 20. Removal of the engine balance shaft and/or balance shaft drive mechanism 21. Non-BTM valve springs and retainers, piston rings, and rotary apex seals

My engine builder worked with me at length throughout this build, and sent plenty of images during the rebuild process, but I'm not showing any those here. NOPE.

This engine is a NASA letter class legal rebuild, with nothing out of the ordinary. I'm not going to get into the specifics of what we had done to this LT1 engine, but I will say that it was a 100% legal rebuild. No grey areas, no loopholes, just a solid TT-letter class legal engine rebuild that will likely pick up zero horsepower, only reliability. This engine would survive the most brutal tear-down protest. It is also very well built, uses all new parts, and was not cheap. The engine builder even made fun of the fact that we were having to use OEM rockers, pushrods, rocker studs, guide plates, etc. "I've never had anyone ask to use the stock stuff before!" We went over the rules with him in detail, and he is a racer himself and understands how important rules legality can be.

The engine took over 5 months to be rebuilt partly because so many of the 1992 model specific OEM parts were tough to procure (this "GenII" V8 engine family was only used from 1992-96 and the Corvettes used different parts than the Camaros or Impalas of this generation), and there were parts changes for almost every year of this LT1 - we can use any 1992-96 LT1 Corvette engine, but only as a complete assembly - no mixing and matching of parts like camshafts, heads, etc. We stuck with all 1992 stuff, but it wasn't necessarily the best choice.

There were nationwide searches to find some of the items needed, which took a lot of time. I'm not going to bore you with the trials and tribulations of building a 25 year old motor with many of the OEM parts, but it was a bit of a nightmare. And the engine builder admittedly had some inexcusable delays on his part, but it finally got here as an assembled longblock at the 11th hour, just in time to make the last NASA Texas race of 2015. Yes, this was long after 3 more NASA Texas events passed + NASA Nationals East was missed, which I was none too pleased about. We missed almost the entire NASA race schedule, but we hoped to make the last event here...

Parts Cleaned, TB Airfoil Removed, New Plug Wires + Wrapped Manifolds

The longblock was placed on the engine stand mid-day Tuesday October 6th and then the washed and cleaned Moroso oil pan was installed with a new FelPro gasket and some RTV. Then it was onto several other checks, then the intake manifold and valve covers were cleaned up on Wednesday...

These would be installed after the motor was back in the car, to save time. Some deadlines were looming: be at True Street for dyno checks and possible re-tune that Friday, then out to ECR on Saturday for track testing, then any last minute updates the following Monday-Thursday, then load up and head to TWS for a NASA weekend the next Friday-Sunday. Plus our shop was full of customer cars that all had their own deadlines, many going to the same TWS race weekend.

While the guys were putting the LT1/ZF6 drivetrain in the car Wednesday morning, I took the intake and valve covers to [URL="https://www.facebook.com/FrictionCircleFab"]Friction Circle Fabrication[/URL] in Lewisville to have these 25 year old parts cleaned in their UltraSonic parts cleaner. These dirty bits were soaked in the 155°F degreaser solution and agitated for 90 minutes, but they came out super clean. In hindsight we should have scraped more of the burned oil residue off the valve covers mechanically before going in the ultrasonic - would have saved a lot of time.

It is a good feeling to know your new engine isn't going to be filled with trash that fell off of some dirty part you reinstalled. And there was some serious crusty, nasty stuff on the bottom of the valve covers and inside the intake. Old, burned-on oil residue plus liquid oil in the intake - from the massive blow-by - which was being pumped back into the intake via the PCV system.

When I returned with the cleaned parts, Ryan installed the intake manifold (which was a chore - long story) plus the 25 year old OEM injectors. The stock injectors were cleaned and flow bench tested at [URL="https://www.injectorrx.com/"]InjectorRX[/URL] in Houston back in August, and as you can see with the test results above, the flow rates were all over the map. Three of the units were also leaking and all of them were clogged before, but after they were (ultra sonic) cleaned and rebuilt they all flowed the same. Good insurance on a set of OEM injectors this old - and yes, we have to use the stock parts here, or take more class points we don't have.

The aftermarket throttle body airfoil, which we didn't know was installed until someone noticed and pointed it out from one of my build thread pictures earlier this year, was removed when the intake manifold went back on. The one NASA event where we (unknowingly) ran this airfoil on the car and actually got a class win, we had the points for it (+2 points), as we hadn't done spring upgrade yet (+2). These throttle body "air smoothing" airfoils were super common to run "back in the day" on the TPI and LT1 V8s built from 1985-1996, due to the abrupt shape change of the twin throttle body set-ups GM liked to use back then. Nowadays the LS-series GM V8 engines use a single round throttle blade, which feature smooth inlets and MASSIVE throttle blades (and flow) in comparison.

Anyway, the airfoil is no longer on the car, and is sitting on my desk as a paper weight.

With the valve covers and intake off, you get a big helping of NOPE

Before the motor went going into the car we replaced the AutoZone plug wires with some 8mm Taylor wires made for this LT1 Corvette - these are a bit easier to change with the engine out of the car. The old plug wires were still fairly decent looking, but why chance it when the motor is out? Spark plug wires are "free" per 8.3.I.c.6, for any rules lawyers that are reading, and the costs were around $65. I tend to use Taylor plug wires on everything we build around here. New NGK split electrode spark plugs were also used - we've seen good results from these and they don't have itty-bitty iridium or platinum tips that can fall off.

The OEM exhaust manifolds were also wrapped with DEI header wrap before going on, to keep a little heat out of the engine bay. As we've done throughout this build, if it has to come off or for some other reason we have to touch a part, we're going to make it better - to the limit of the rules and within sane budgetary constraints. Header wrapping the manifolds is legal per NASA TT rule 8.3.I.c.23. Ryan used an old hot rodder trick to wrap these manifolds - he pre-soaked the DEI wrap in water, to make the material more pliable during installation. It was wrapped tightly around each tube tightly then secured with safety wire at the ends. The water boils off quickly during start-up, if the wrap hasn't completely air dried by then.

Drivetrain Installed + Oil Catch Can/Breather Install

The re-installation of the engine is pretty boring work, but it does eat up time. And like everything else, doing this work on a Corvette is more cumbersome than most cars. The ZF6 speed was pressure washed and cleaned up (previously covered in oil from the old RMS leak) before it was bolted to the motor. Everything we touch on a race car goes on clean, even old OEM parts. Dirty parts help hide leaks, cracks and other issues.

Assembling the triple disc clutch to the flywheel, stabbing the transmission and hydraulic TOB, and getting everything into the car was handled by Ryan and Brad. It takes more time to line up the clutch plates and get all 6 pieces lined up together, but this is not hard for our crew. A metal clutch alignment tool is a must for these multi-disc clutches, by the way - we use an old T56 input shaft.

After the drivetrain is in place, the big aluminum C-channel that connects the diff to the transmission goes in (which also functions as the transmission mount, just like on a Miata), as well as the stock aluminum driveshaft. Then the OEM exhaust system goes in, the stock shifter is installed, various wiring harness plugs are attached, etc. No pics of that as Brad was helping and I was across town. This car still has the original OEM mufflers and catalysts, which we visually inspected very closely before the motor went in - the catalyst matrix is still intact after all these years, somehow. Changing the manifolds, cats, mufflers or even the tail pipes costs points in TT-letter classes, so it all has to stay bone stock.

After the engine was in place, we did one more (zero points) upgrade I had planned on for a while, and one we do in a lot of customer's race cars (see above) - add an oil catch-can/crankcase breather. This is something smart to add to any car that sees track time or extended RPM use. The way we plumb these, and how we specify the catch can itself, depends on if its an emissions legal street car (above right) or a track-only race car (above left). A street car isn't supposed to have an open vent for crankcase fuel/oil vapors to get out to the atmosphere, so street driven cars are plumbed with a PCV system to pull excess crankcase vapors out during deceleration and route them back into the intake manifold, to burn them in the engine. Liquid oil in the crankcase vapors is trapped within media inside the catch can, which can collect in the can and be drained out after track days. On a race car you don't have to do with a PCV system - and you don't want to.

This is how much smoke was coming out before the engine rebuild... that's all blow-by

One of the main problems we had with the LT1 motor in the Corvette earlier this year was tons of blow-by. Combustion by-products getting past the piston rings and valve guides/seals then pushed into the crankcase. This was only realized after the leaking oil pan gasket and rear main seal were fixed before our second 2015 NASA event in this car. The blow-by was from worn out rings, three valve guides that had lots of play, and valve seals that had crumbled over two and a half decades. It was smoking so badly we couldn't make one lap without being black flagged.

This is the Peterson 08-400 catch can / breather tank we used

Since I didn't want to take any chances after having "that smoking Corvette" for two NASA race weekends this year, I ponied up for a Peterson Oil Catch Can / Breather a few weeks earlier. It has two -12 AN fittings for inlet, a -6 for a drain (which comes plugged), and the built in breather in the cap. Even comes with a nice mounting clamp. So when the motor was back in the engine bay Ryan and Brad mounted the breather can on the firewall, then plumbed some -10AN bulkhead fittings to both valve covers (because that's what fit the OEM hole on the passenger valve cover).

One fitting went in the factory PCV suction line on the passenger valve cover but the driver's side cover had to be drilled. We have removed the PCV valve and function completely. These factory LT1 "center bolt "valve covers are magnesium and tricky to work with, but they were drilled handled properly and plumbed with -12 sized push-lock 300 psi hose and -12 AN fittings into the Peterson tank.

Now both valve covers vent will excess crankcase pressure to this oil catch can, without the need for a vacuum source to "pull" the vapors out. This Peterson catch can has an integral breather in the lid, which is what makes it not street legal. We have completely done away with the PCV system, so now it is less troublesome and won't allow oil and/or unburnt fuel vapors to be returned to the intake track to be burned - which can cause detonation. And if you get a lot of blow-by it won't send liquid oil back into the intake, which is really bad.

First Fire + Weird Ignition System Issues?

After the breather tank was plumbed, all of the engine fluids were topped off and some Royal Purple break in additive (zinc) was added to the 10W40 Mobil1 synthetic oil we used for initial break in (normally I like to run 15W50 in race cars). The ignition coil and the fuel pump relay were disconnected, then the engine cranked for 10 seconds, and it made 20+ psi of oil pressure almost immediately. After that the coil and fuel pump were hooked back up, the fuel pump was triggered a few times (key on/off... on/off.... on/off) to prime the fuel pressure in the lines and fuel rails, and then it was cranked. And cranked. And nothing. No start.

Then began a full day chasing the starting problems. First we assumed the obvious: it was Optispark related. This is the name for the system GM tried (and failed) at making a better distributor with in the GenII V8s, with a weird unit is driven off the timing gear at the front of the motor. This is widely known as a problematic system. The GenIIs camshaft drives the water pump, also strange, which feeds the motor with coolant in the reverse order of any other motor on the planet. The water pump is right in front of the Optispark, and if any coolant/water gets in the Opti, it usually dies. The LT1's two main bad ideas were the Optispark and reverse flow cooling - they were both abandoned in the next generation engines by GM (GenIII LS1).

Checking fuel pressure, computer issues, wiring harness breaks at Vorshlag (left) and True Street (right)

The other issue we kept running into was thought to be VATS related, or Vehicle Anti Theft System. There's a chip in the ignition key that tells the computer "Hey, I'm legit!". Without that handshake the fuel pump won't fire. It intermittently worked, so we have to disconnect the battery to clear it up. Something I thought was removed when True Street tuned the car, but the SECURITY light kept flashing. The VATS on my 1999 GMC truck was doing the same random faults a few months ago and Sean from True Street plugged in and turned that mess off, too. GM "VATS" is pretty much a "leave me stranded in my own car" system.

continued below

continued from above

The Optispark previously used in this C4 was an aftermarket $500 MSD unit that had less than 3 hours of use on it, so I doubted it could be bad. Maybe a ground wire was missed, or a wire cracked during the install (from age) on the factory harness? Ryan and Brad broke out the factory 1992 Corvette manuals and went through the Ignition Troubleshooting Flow Chart, step by step. Everything they checked worked, we just didn't have spark. Voltages were checked in the harness and into the Opti at several locations. The coil was swapped out for an MSD LT1 unit we had in the shop. No help.

Finally we broke down and ordered a stock replacement $150 Optispark unit from O'Reilys, which showed up 10 minutes later. It was 3 pm the day before our scheduled dyno day and track test, so it was worth the peace of mind.

This small victory was short lived - the problem never really was in the Optispark

We plugged the new unit into the engine harness, put the coil lead near the cylinder head, and spun the drive on the Opti... pop-pop-pop. We had spark, so it was proven to work. So out came the nearly brand new MSD Optispark unit, which meant the water pump we had just installed had to come back off. Order more gaskets while that's being swapped in. While the MSD Opti it was off the car they did the same "off the car" test and... damn it, the MSD unit worked like this, too. So I had to make the call... put the problematic MSD unit back on or have them install the brand new OEM replacement Opti? I told them go with the brand new unit.

By this point we had called and spoken to several LT1 experts and got suggestions from "bad ground", "bad ignition module", "bad ECM" and of course "Its the Opti!" It is almost always the Opti, but I doubted that more and more as we tested the old MSD unit off the car and it came back as good.

Another short lived victory - it started with the new Opti, but ran poorly

After a long day of troubleshooting the engine and with the new Opti installed, the engine fired up and ran briefly with the water pump off, so that was good. Then the water pump and coolant hoses had to go back on, the coolant get filled (with distilled water + Redline water wetter) and burped again, and the front of the engine went back together - drive belt, intake tube, etc.

What should have taken an hour to wrap up that Thursday morning ended up taking all damned day. The engine was finally started, it ran (poorly), the coolant system burped, temps checked out and loaded into the trailer for a dyno test the next morning. It was 7 pm and everyone was glad to go home.

Still, it just wasn't running that smoothly. The engine was idling way too high, way up at 2000 rpms, and it had a throttle tip in stumble. Our LT1-expert Ed stopped by and got the set-screw on the throttle blade set to turn ever so slightly and now it would idle at 1600 rpms, but it wouldn't go lower. Hmm. Also, after the engine warmed up, it wouldn't start again easily. It would crank, but wouldn't fire. Something still wasn't right. After 10-15 minutes of cooling down (it barely got up to operating temps) it would fire up, but once it was warm again and we shut it off, then tried to restart it - nothing. Just cranked, no fire. What is going on here? We scoured the car looking for other issues - grounds, broken wires, etc.

The guys at True Street had been ready for us to come by mid-day Friday for a dyno check and re-tune, but with the Optispark + other issues, we were delayed by several hours and missed their deadline. I called them at 4 pm and told them we were going to miss that window. Luckily they were hosting a big "dyno day" setup the next morning, so I planned to get there early and be first in line.... then head to ECR for a member day track test right after that.

Dyno Check at True Street, Saturday October 10, 2015

Loading the car into the trailer with a triple disc clutch is a PITA, but we hadn't stopped long enough to make front (or rear) tow hooks for this car. So when we got to True Street Motorsports at 8 am Saturday morning, an hour before they opened, Amy and I just rolled the car out of the trailer. Then I tried to start it...

NOPE. It cranked like a champ, but once again the coil wasn't firing. It won't start now, even cold. We fought with it for a solid hour, clearing the battery and trying again and again. It got to where the battery was losing voltage, and it still wasn't starting.

I thought about asking the guys at True Street for a hand, but they were all busy getting their shop cleaned up and ready for 200+ people, who had started arriving in droves. They had a food truck setting up, and cars starting to get dyno'd when we decided to abort the dyno test and load up.

Missing this open track day at ECR was a huge disappointment, and it put me in a foul mood for the rest of the day. I knew we would have to spend more (unbillable) hours the next week to get the C4 running "right" and starting consistently before going to NASA @ TWS the following weekend, without any test time on track. With a new motor, new radiator, and new crankcase breather. Testing this many new things during a competition weekend sounded like a bad idea, and it is.

More Testing At The Shop + True Street

Monday morning we unloaded the Corvette at Vorshlag again and Ryan and Brad spent most of the day tracing circuits and testing everything, wiggling the harness, and looking up issues with these cars. More and more evidence started to point to a bad ECM - the 25 year old engine computer might be at fault. My ops manager Steve started chasing down replacement 92 Corvette ECMs and that search went well into Tuesday. He called dozens of wrecking yards and LT1 re-programmers, parts suppliers and GM dealerships across the country. Nothing, nada, zip - no 1992 Corvette ECMs anywhere.

Just to eliminate any last "part problems" we ordered a new ignition module and replaced it. This was mounted it to the coil/module bracket with proper Heat Sink Compound. Then we spaced the module + coil bracket away from the cylinder head for heat protection from the engine. No change.

Sometime around mid-day Ryan had done some sleuthing online and found a number of 92 Corvette owners with eerily similar problems. One suggestion was to remove the PROM chip inside the ECM housing and re-seat it. Another said to "whack the ECM a few times, hard!" After doing those two things the car started up again, but still ran a bit rough. More tests were done, but it at least ran. We called True Street, who were backed up with tuning work for 3 weeks... I begged, and they agreed to call me back if they had an opening. As luck would have it they had a last minute cancellation and were able to sneak us in for a dyno check-up. I towed the C4 up there Tuesday after lunch and they got to work.

After I left, it wouldn't start again. Sean played with things, checked some codes, and late that day they had found a bad TPS sensor. With the TPS unhooked it would start, but you can't drive the car like this. We had replaced the TPS with a new sensor back in February, after I noticed a weird "throttle dead spot" at the January NASA event. Hmm... red flags were going up.

I spoke with Paul Costas later that night and told him the symptoms we were having, and he related a similar issue he had on his 92 Camaro (which is a GenI TPI V8, but used a similar vintage computer and EFI tech). About a year ago 92 started running poorly and burning up TPS sensors. He talked to an EFI expert familiar with this vintage GM EFI hardware, who said when these ECMs go bad they often lose their reference voltage outputs for 5V circuits like the TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) and IAC (Idle Air Control). He told Paul to test voltage signal at the TPS while driving... and sure enough it spiked way above 5 volts several times, which was what was burning up the sensors.

And we've just burned up another TPS sensor, and the car had a weird throttle response issue when it would run. And the idle was super high (IAC circuit) at some points. I was more convinced than ever that the ECM was dying and emitting some weird reference voltages. But with no replacement ECM for this car to be found nationwide, the chances of making TWS looked slimmer by the hour.

I was stewing over this for days and mid-day Wednesday I decided to scrub the TWS event. We had ECM problems and there was no way to fix it in 24 hours we had left. Crap, crap, crap!

What's Next?

Long term plans had always been to convert the car to a different ECM and harness from a later 1993-96 Base Trim Level Corvette. There were some EFI changes through the 1992-96 LT1 Corvette era which included:

• 1992 was the first year of the TL1, speed density air metering, and had the weakest computer with the least number programmable inputs
• 1993 was still speed density but had a more powerful computer with more inputs to alter
• 1994-95 was another step up in inputs and computing power with the added change of a move to Mass Air Metering, but still OBD-I. Yet these can be reprogrammed via the OBD-I port, no more E-PROMS.
• 1996 was another big change, such as the move to OBD-II standards, the ECM had a significantly more powerful processor, a LOT more data channels and programmable inputs, and also no longer relied on an E-PROM to change programming.

Checking with all of the parts suppliers we use it appears that new AC Delco ECMs for the 1996 Corvette are readily available, and around $200 (with the core charge). The other years are "iffy" or just downright impossible to come up with reliable units. So it looks like I am going to be chasing down a good 1996 LT1 Corvette engine harness, ECM, Mass Air Sensor, and intake tube next. We could not hope to pull this off in the one day we had remaining before TWS, so that event had to be scrubbed.

We had ordered new R7 Hoosiers, procured a 2nd set of wheels (for the scrub set of tires), event fees were paid, Amy had taken off work, arrangements for the weekend were set, and lots of money thrown at ignition parts that weren't bad - but hey, "that's racing."

Some of you might question scrubbing this 3 day race weekend - since the engine "technically starts" now. Sure, you can unhook the TPS and it might start, but it cannot be driven like this in anger. It is not reliable, and will almost certain break and/or run poorly once we get this thing on track. If we plug in the TPS it will burn that sensor up in short order.

I'm not giving up on this car, and it will likely be run in 2016 up until our "Shop Car" LSx BMW is complete. So look for us at NASA events in January and more likely some TEST EVENTS before then, to verify the new engine and ECM changes we have in store. My next update will be after we make the wiring harness and ECM changes.

Cheers, Terry Fair @ Vorshlag

Project Update for January 5th, 2015: Its been a couple of months since I touched base on the progress of Project #DangerZone, our 1992 Corvette race car, and a lot of little things have happened - both to the car and to the NASA base classing rules for 1992-96 Corvettes. We've made some updates to the C4 to hopefully make it lighter (pre-ballast), run cooler, and more importantly - be more reliable once it returns to track use later this month. The C4 is also looking like my only primary race car for 2016, so we're getting a bit more serious with prep on this car and might add a few other racing groups to run the car in. There's only 3 weeks until the next NASA race we want to make in this car (NASA @ MSR-Houston event Jan 23-24) plus a test day at MSR-Cresson the weekend before (Jan 16th at MSR-C). I'm only going to cover the work completed up until now then catch up on the finish work before these two race dates in the next update.

NASA RULES CHANGES

As some of you might know we've started a BMW E46 330Ci build for NASA TTD class. That project has gobbled up some time and we switched chassis before we even began major race prep on the first car (325iC), which slowed us down a bit, but it was the right move going from the 325 to a 330 (the latter of which was classed better and makes a lot more power). You can read up on that car here, which we've named Project #JackDaniels. I explain the name in that thread.

Normally in December of each year, NASA will release an updated rule set for Performance Touring, Super Touring, and Time Trial classes - all 3 of these groups use essentially the same set of rules. PTB-PTF wheel to wheel classes equate to TTB-TTF and ST1/2/3/U equate to TT1/2/3/U. Sometimes the rules aren't published until after the first of the year but this time the 2016 NASA TT rules came out on time, with nearly 8 weeks before our January 2016 event.

The C4 listings above are what we built this car around, and those haven't changed in many years (we know because we have been eyeing this car for TTC for 4+ years). But due to how well Dave Schotz did at NASA Nationals West in his PTC/TTC C4, and how much we riled up a few folks with our forum build thread (even though it really only completed one race weekend), we were expecting either a points penalty (*), class change (TTB?) and/or minimum weight change (increase) to these C4 base classes. So here are the 2016 changes...

All changes from the previous edition of the rules this year are shown in [COLOR="Blue">blue[/COLOR]. As you can see the minimum weights for 3 of the C4 models were changed, all higher, including our 1992 LT1 base model. We have to add 57 pounds to our weight or else take points for weight loss, which gets expensive. As you may know we had maxed out this build on points from the beginning. Somehow I never really covered that in this thread...

This post on our E46 TTD build thread explained in great detail how we came up with the classing, tire size/compound, chose modifiers and found rules exploits for both the TTD car and this TTC car. I won't repeat what I wrote there in total but if you care to learn some of our secrets, please go here and check it out.

Here is a quick summary of our TTC class build for this 1992 Corvette, based on the old 2015 rules. After we saw the base classing (TTC*) and weights we looked at the Power-to-Weight (P-to-W) ratio assigned to the class (12:1). The * cost us 7 of the 19 class points we had to spend, so we have 12 to play with to stay in TTC. Then we looked at the base tire assigned to the class (255mm). Going up in size costs points, down in sizes nets points back. From there we looked for modifiers to the P-to-W ratio... and found a big bonus (+0.8 ) if we ran a small 245mm or smaller DOT tire (see Appendix B in the rules). 1 point was also gained back because that's 10mm below the TTC class starting tire size of 255mm.

This modifier effectively moved the P-to-W from 12.0:1 to 11.2:1. Luckily the stock LT1 motor could still hit that revised P-to-W limit without any power modifications. This meant we didn't have to burn class points on exhaust or headers or camshaft swaps or intake mods to max out P-to-W. We spent ALL of our remaining points on suspension changes (springs at +3 points) and tire compound (R7, +10 points), plus our point gained back for 245s (-1) and it worked out to the 12 point mod limit for TTC with maxed out power limit.

Let's show those P-to-W calcs "the NASA way" for our TTC Corvette:

• Weight must be at or above the listed minimum classing weight of 3203 pounds, from the 2015 rules
• That 3203 number is also just above the minimum "competition weight" modifier numbers, which start at 3200 pounds
• We chose a 245mm width DOT legal tire (+0.8 P-to-W bonus)
• The stock engine made 284 whp peak (highest of 3 pulls)
• 3203 lbs / 284 whp = 11.28:1 (P-to-W) + 0.8 for (245 tire modifier) = 12.08:1

TTC Class "minimum" adjusted P-to-W is 12.0:1, which this car is just a hair over. That's what you want to do - aim for the P-to-W limit and find any modifiers you can to help that ratio along the way. Avoid modifiers that hurt, then use your points to run the best tire compound/width and fix any suspension issues, and add aero if you have any points left. Again, this is more detailed in the E46 TTD thread, linked above.

So that was our TTC strategy for this C4. Now we have to recalculate for the higher 2016 minimum weight bumps, which honestly aren't that bad and are not unexpected. I have to agree with these changes, even if I don't like them. This will mean we have to run even more ballast on the same 245mm tires, which worries me. We haven't dyno'd the fresh LT1 motor but I'm also worried it might make too much power, even at this higher weight (and with the 11.2:1 P-to-W ratio we can now make 291 whp). Even with it only running briefly due to the ECM issues it felt STRONG - and yes, it was a 100% legal engine rebuild. We shall see soon enough.

Sadly our E46 TTD build gained a 7 point penalty with the 2016 rules, which I'm not at all happy about. Really borks the planned build. So of the very few changes made in 2016 both of our TT-Letter builds were impacted. I'm just that lucky, I guess. :)

BRAKE COOLING MODS

Meanwhile in last two months, before we got the new 2016 rules, we have been working on some reliability mods to the C4. Of the 2 race weekends we ran this car I never managed to make more than 2 laps in a row. So the stock Z51 brakes haven't been pushed hard enough to overheat, but I'm worried they will be taxed once we get the car on track without a leaking or smoking engine. Why worry? Well because I'm a Left Foot Brake fanatic (learned in my autocross background) and I tend to abuse the crap out of brakes.

With an R7 tire compound I don't have to get my best laps in on lap 1 or 2 like we did on the A7s in TT3 last year, so yea... brakes might become an issue. So one day when we had the C4 up in the air for harness removal (see below), I asked Olof to pull apart the front brakes on one corner for a better look. We had built brake backing plates with cooling ducts for a C4 before and he kept the templates we used that time, so this shouldn't be a whole lot of work.

After he made a flat plate that fit around the hub we discussed where to route the hoses, what sizes to go with, and what shape for the duct at the backing plate. We decided to use 3" oval tube for the inlet, aimed at the hub and inside the rotor face. He built these 2-piece backing plates below.

With only a 13" rotor there wasn't room for a 4" duct, and with the track performance of this car a 3" cooling hose should be enough. Now there's also lower piece to this backing plate added to help seal off the hub section so that the incoming air goes where we want it to. It also allows for a bit of a heat shield from a ball joint that is very near the inside rotor face, shown below.

The spacing from the backing plate to the rotor face (shown in the picture above right) is what we try to stick with, which allows a decent seal to the incoming air but shouldn't ever rub. The goal is to turn the rotor into a centrifugal air pump, with the incoming air forced into the hub area inside the rotor and the curved vanes of the rotor pulling air through the rotor and out radially. This can increase effective braking during a session considerably, as well as extend brake pad and rotor life substantially.

As you can see above left, even the oval shaped 3" duct doesn't put the incoming air completely inside the rotor face, but its as close as we can get without nearly flattening the oval shape. Another thing that we did while the hubs were off was install extended length 3.25" ARP wheel studs. We couldn't find a bullet nosed ARP stud any longer than the itty-bitty stock studs, so we'll just have to start each lug by hand with this fully threaded ARP (it's not like we're doing fast pit stops). The reason why I wanted long wheel studs will make itself known in my next post.

While doing the front stud install we would normally swap in new hubs at the same time, for other cars. But for the C4 we kept the original front hubs - they were still low mileage, still felt tight, and the aftermarket options are total CRAP for this chassis. The only good aftermarket replacement hub for this car worth using is a racing hub made by HPE that costs $699 per corner, and I'm not sure if their solution is even TTC legal, so we'll keep the stockers on there for as long as we can. Brake cooling aimed at the hubs tends to extend their lifespan quite a bit on track, too.

Backing plates are only 1/3rd of the brake cooling solution - you also need INLET ducting at the front of the car and then brake hoses to join them. After looking at the front end of this C4 I wanted Olof to "keep it simple". Why? Well we're likely replacing the bumper cover later in the 2016 season since the stock cover is pretty beat up. We had discussed about re-purposing the turn signals, adding NACA ducts in the old headlight doors, or even NACA ducts under the front bumper... but I wanted to keep it very simple. "Just make a 3 inch round tube and a flange", which is exactly what he did.

Remember - this might not be the permanent inlet duct solution, just a quick one for now. The inlet ducts were relatively easy to make and I had a specific place I wanted them placed. The front of the C4 has a LOT of "front overhang" (see above) where the nose pokes out about a foot in front of the factory front lower air dam (the air dam feeds air to the radiator). All of the radiator cooling is drawn in from under the giant overhang, but there is still some dead space on both sides of the radiator inlet that goes unused...

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That's where I had Olof place the inlet ducts. "Just drill a 3 inch hole and bolt them in right there", I told him. The inlets are directly underneath the factory headlight holes, taking in high pressure trapped under the nose that isn't being fed to the radiator inlet. There's ample room under the hood (with the flip-up headlight assemblies gone) to route the hoses up and over to the brake backing plates.

Due to concerns Jason and I both had about air pressure bleeding off laterally towards the edge of the nose and bypassing this brake cooling inlet, I had Olof make a little aluminum "brake canard". This is a little air dam that forces some air into a closed pocket to feed the brake inlet. Yes, I know this might incur some aero penalty for TTC. We are going to test with and without these in place and we will add rivnuts in place of the rivets used to attach these little air walls, so we can test with and without them installed.

The brake hose routing looks fairly straightforward, but of course we haven't tested it on track yet. It might rub the wheel at full lock, but since the car is still in the air with the wheels off we haven't checked that yet. A piece of the plastic inner fender liner was trimmed to route the 3" hose below the top of the wheel, but we will see how it fits when the wheels and tires are mounted and its back on the ground.

Last but not least the car is getting a new set of factory lower air dam plastics. Again, we bought these many months ago just never got around to it. The old bits are beat up and the left sides is held on with Gorilla snot and is half falling off. The new air dam bits will help push more air into the waiting duct for the radiator or the two brake inlet ducts.

POLYCARBONATE REAR HATCH

Another piece I had purchased way back in January of 2015 that never made its way onto DangerZone was a pre-formed and pre-cut polycarbonate rear hatch from Five Star Bodies. This 1/8" thick, pre-trimmed, formed rear plastic glass was to replace the 46 pound OEM glass rear hatch section.

Removing weight was the primary goal, but with our new 2016 minimum weight numbers going up now this might not make as much sense.

Of course we did this before the new weight numbers came out, heh. Oh well, being able to move weight from up HIGH (stock glass) to down LOW (ballast) is always a good thing. I'm eyeing that 80 pound hood as well.

Once the glass was removed from the factory hinge at the back of the B-pillar factory roof structure, Olof drilled two matching holes in the trimmed-to-fit and pre-bent Plexiglass. Then he built a frame to give it some support at the lower front corners out of thin wall 1/2" tubing. The two Quik-Latches just arrived and those will take the place of the (broken) rear hatch release. Now we can get into the rear area without crawling through the cage and yanking the emergency release cable in the back.

WINING HARNESS & MAF CONVERSION

So if you've read this thread before you know we had some trouble with the original 1992 ECM (Engine Control Module, or computer) after the rebuilt motor went in, that caused us to miss our last NASA race of the year - the car wouldn't start reliably. After days of diagnosis and parts chasing we had finally realized it was a bad ECM. Well we cannot find a new 1992 ECM, anywhere on the planet. 1992 Corvettes had a "one year" ECM - 93 was different, 94-95 was different again, and 96 was also unique. There are no 1993 ECMs left either, but back in October we found plenty of 94-95 Corvette computers available, both new and rebuilt, and our tuner said the later computers were easier to tune for track use. So the quest to convert this to a 1994-95 EFI harness was underway in October.

Instead of trolling junkyards for 20+ year old Corvette engine harnesses, which will bound to have some cracks and wiring breaks, we had a new one built using our 1992 OEM wiring harness for layout. We found several breaks in the existing 1992 harness already - which makes for nightmares when diagnosing EFI issues and the way this one will be built will be the perfect OEM replacement - 100% stock in form and function, just not with 25 year old wiring and broken connectors.

We had to find 1994-95 MAF, intake tube and other small parts to convert this car fully

We are trying out a new harness supplier, but they assured us it will be identical to an OEM 1995 Corvette harness and plug in, no issues. As long as it mimics the OEM harness and we use an OEM 1994 or 1995 ECM, this should be a zero-point change, as all 1992-1996 LT1 Corvettes are listed on the same line.

The harness took a few hours to label the connectors (any emissions or cruise control related connectors will be removed, which again, is legal for TT-Letter) and disconnect everything all the way to the ECM and firewall, and even some bits that went down to the ZF 6-speed. We should hopefully see the replacement harness by the end of this week, which will give us just one week to get the engine dyno-tuned again before an upcoming track test at MSR-C on January 16th.

That's what the engine bay looks like now, above left. The 1992 harness was been shipped off weeks ago (they have to re-use some connectors, which are not being made any longer) and it will look like the 1994-95 engine bay soon (above right). We already have an OEM replacement MAF and intake tubes, shown there. Luckily this 1994-95 stuff is available and not costly (new Delphi MAF was about $100).

I will show this all wrapped up and hopefully running well again in my next post.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Since this was only a partial update I'll have another that will show the completion of all of the above work (hopefully) posted after the next NASA event. That assumes a lot of things happen in a timely fashion over the next 2 weeks and that our test at an SCCA Club Trials event goes off without a hitch.

• Jan 16th: SCCA Club Trials at MSR-Cresson on the 1.7mi course CCW
• Jan 23-24: NASA @ MSR-Houston Time Trial event running the 2.38 mi course Clockwise
• NASA Texas schedule for 2016

Sadly these were the only two tracks we ran the Corvette at last year, but we'll be hitting them back-to-back weekends in January 2016. This time the car will have a newly rebuilt engine, no fluid leaks, better engine and brake cooling, and hopefully some reliability. There were major issues with the C4 at both tracks in 2015 - a leaking rear seal at MSR-H kept us to 1-2 lap stints before we were black flagged, and oil smoke from a worn out engine kept getting the car black flagged at MSR-C in one lap or less. No more of that nonsense!

We ran a 1:43.7 lap at MSR-H in 2015 (still the TTC track record) and hope to better that by a good margin this year. We never got an official time in TT at the MSR-C event but, but I did run a 1:25.0 in the TT Warm-up session, which was my only complete lap of the weekend in that car. That was 2 seconds faster than the old TTC record at the time, but another TTC car reset the record on Sunday to a 1:24.424 (Mark Schnoerr's E36 M3). Hopefully #DangerZone can go quicker than those times at both tracks? The SCCA Club Trials event doesn't really have "classes", per se, but it will be a good practice for when NASA comes back to this track in March 12-13, 2016.

That's all we have planned so far for the 2016 season - after the January SCCA and NASA track events we will see how we stack up in class for the year and go forward from there, either with refinement or possibly even changes to move to a new class (if the added TTC weight is a big hindrance). We will also have Amy's red 2001 BMW 330Ci at these two events, which is the new #JackDaniels TTD classed E46. For the C4 we have to have the rebuilt harness installed with a 1994-95 ECM (of course now there are none to be had, ugh!), the engine re-tuned to work with the 94-95 MAF, the Plexiglass rear hatch painted and latched, the front brake ducting wrapped up, and maybe some other small changes if there is time. Check back in a few weeks to see if some what happens...

Cheers, Terry Fair @ Vorshlag