In reply to enginenerd :
Good note on the abs. My initial inclination was to disable it but after talking to guys who have driven these fast, it seems that the abs works good. Which is actually exciting as I have never tracked a car that had good abs brakes.
Definitely keep the abs, there's no good reason to delete it. I had to chuckle at your "vette tax" comment tho, as you're getting alot of product for free from your sponsorships!
Glad you liked the trackspec hood louvers, you saw them in my M3 thread...
Holy update! I'm excited to hear how this performs on track. I went down a similar path with a C5 Z06, then it was too fast and I got scared and sold it.
In for mas updates!
damen
Not much of an update, but so happy to see something happen, even if it is temporary for now.... so far all of my work has been takin stuff apart and I'm still not done with that. Can't wait for the ceremonial switching of the ratchet's direction....
but yesterday, I picked up the wheels I'm going to run from an acquaintance. He had a vette and tons of cool stuff that he never installed before he sold it.
I didn't know about the stuff until a friend called and said to call him because he might be selling some good parts.
Turns out he has an unused set of wheels in the perfect size for me in exactly the color id want and in an awesome style.
I had already bought some inexpensive oem replica wheels close to the sizes I wanted and was secretly sad that they didn't look cool enough. I know, vanity.... I just always get cheap over cool and rarely do those roads meet.
So, while it is only a quick mockup, I give you [one of] the new shoes!
Wooo, looks nice
jfryjfry said:Not much of an update, but so happy to see something happen, even if it is temporary for now.... so far all of my work has been takin stuff apart and I'm still not done with that. Can't wait for the ceremonial switching of the ratchet's direction....
but yesterday, I picked up the wheels I'm going to run from an acquaintance. He had a vette and tons of cool stuff that he never installed before he sold it.
I didn't know about the stuff until a friend called and said to call him because he might be selling some good parts.
Turns out he has an unused set of wheels in the perfect size for me in exactly the color id want and in an awesome style.
I had already bought some inexpensive oem replica wheels close to the sizes I wanted and was secretly sad that they didn't look cool enough. I know, vanity.... I just always get cheap over cool and rarely do those roads meet.
So, while it is only a quick mockup, I give you [one of] the new shoes!
How wide did you go?
The wheels are 18x11 front and 18x13 rear. Tires are 315 and 335. They are shockingly wide :)
i just realized that I’ve had this car nearly 6 months and have not put a tank of gas through it.
But that day is coming! I initially took the car off the road to have the heads done as they have a reputation for dropping valves I was talked into doing a Cam at the same time.
to do that, I needed to remove the steering rack (that sits right in front of the balancer) or drop the cradle I decided to drop the front cradle because it would let me possibly access the clutch slave bleeder and add a remote bleeder because the stock bleeder is virtually if not literally impossible to access.
so what I’d read people doing is lowering the motor and torque tube once the front cradle is lowered to get some room between the bellhousing and the body and, with a lot of work and custom tools somehow threading the remote bleeder in.
well, then my friend got me connected with Centerforce clutches and they became a sponsor. So, in anticipation of the clutch, I just pulled the motor. Most guys pull the rear cradle with the gearbox trans and torque tube to do a clutch. But since the heads were off, I could reach the bellhousing bolts pretty easily Plus it would make the cam change easier.
Nothing super exotic here which makes these things so much easier to work on. This is before I replaced the cam. And of course the guide. And the lifters. And the.... well, I did buy a new cam chain which was supposed to be the bee’s knees. At $150 it had better be. But it wasn’t. It was considerably looser than my 90k mike chain. So I decided to just run the old one which was a pretty snug fit. Will I regret it? Probably :)
The old balancer was pretty nasty looking - peeling paint and rusty. Which doesn’t bother me but I read about these things wobbling and otherwise failing so I figured it is a perfect time to replace. I opted for a powerbond unit that is sfi rated and was considerably cheaper than the super nice ATI unit.
To install, I took the old balancer bolt (which is a one-time use tty bolt) and cut the head off. I cut the head off of another high strength bolt and welded the two together to make a long stud that I threaded into the crank and used a nut and washers to push the balancer on.
On the ls7’s there is no keyway on the crank; it is a tight friction fit that keeps it located but they're known to slip. So you can pin them by drilling a hole between the crank and balancer and putting a metal pin in there. I got a kit from an online seller in exchange for letting him know if his ls3 kit would work on the ls7. It would but the supplies bolt was too short. So I used the balancer install stud I made to hold the jig in place and drilled the hole through the keyway slot that the balancer had.
You have to seal up the keyway so oil doesn’t get out but it seemed like a good place to put it. I second guessed myself after I wondered if the balancer was balanced assuming the keyway was empty and by putting the pin in maybe I threw off the balance. But we shall see.
Here it is before pinning
One big issue is the oil starvation these motors can have with high-g turns. I hope to generate enough loads to run the risk so I have had the oil tank enlarged to hold appx 3 more quarts and added a baffle to the tank to help with aeration and starvation. This was the extent of my plans for oil control. Until I realized I was pulling the motor.
And up popped yet another “while I’m in there.” This involved dropping the oil pan and fitting a very nice Improved Racing baffle. I was advised that their crank scraper and windage tray were also good ideas for oil control although after I got it all in I must say that the factory windage tray would likely plenty suffice for me. I don’t care about the small power gain from the crank scraper and can’t see it making much of a difference with the starvation issue.
But their parts are beautiful works of art. I had to take a pic of them while cleaning them prior to install
Of course, I did these before I did the balancer so this is a little out of order
I put a little bend on the end to help oil coming down the front wall get into the pickup area less encumbered.
About this time, I had a 6-week break while waiting for the clutch. I decided to buy a cheap zr1 replica splitter and side skirt kit. I must say that this inexpensive piece makes it look so much better. Soon I hope to make a properly supported splitter/undertray. Likely out of plywood but we shall see.
Finally, after tracking down the guy who this was mistakingly sent to and just paying fed ex myself to go get it, I was elated to get not only a beautiful new clutch but an even more beautiful aluminum flywheel from centerforce!
I was finally able to get the motor in and it only took 45 minutes to get the input shaft to find it’s home. Complicating things is the fact that the vette has such a long nose that my hoist is about 3” too short on reach so the motor is slightly pulled away from the bellhousing instead of being pushed in.
but contrasting that is the best $30 I’ve spent in a long time and that was the engine leveler I got from homedepot. It is so easy to adjust the angle of the motor....
This thing is so tough to work on compared to my wife’s 72 bronco that we just stripped down for paint..... but now that stuff is starting to go on, the motivation is returning. And it had better! I’m signed up for the first event in it on June 3 and we have no shortage of family plans before then.....
In for stunt-driver-does-track-day-in-crazy-car youtubes...
Yeah, me too.... :). I have begun to wonder if this thing will ever move under its own power again.
Will my kids inherit a 60-year old abandoned corvette project?
Getting there... motor in and ready for the heads
So purty....if anyone needs any work on gm stuff, there is no one better than Kohle at American Heritage Performance. There are good shops for sure, but this guy is a genius and his work is second to none. He is in Los Angeles but ships stuff worldwide.
And halfway done:
Nice project! Just seeing this now. I had an orange Z for about a year that I had to sell so I could drive my kid around. I did the AHP head package with a mild cam too and got it tuned locally. Did 504 whp with just an intake, stock intake manifold and exhaust. Such a great motor! I had no problems with mine but was afraid of valve i$$ues...
I tracked mine a few times. Even limited by Pilot Super Sports, it was clear the stock brakes aren't up to serious track usage. I thought the ABS was great but I'm used to older Japanese cars. IIRC there was some talk on one of my Nissan forums about adapting Corvette ABS to older Nissans.
That's a lot of rubber you've got on the thing... These cars fit so much tire.
I will say that I prefer small and very nimble cars with very tactile control feel and the Corvette overall really is not my thing, but I really enjoyed my time owning one and wish I didn't have to sell it so soon. I really should drive a LS swapped Miata at some point, that might combine a lot of the things I enjoy into one car. I must say that I really enjoyed the powerband of the LS7 and it definitely is a little extra special compared to a run-of-the-mill LS motor.
As an aside, I will agree with you that some of the engineering and placement of things on these cars seems ridiculous. I replacye the cam with the engine in the car by tilting the radiator and AC condenser. I removed the power steering rack. A lot of the fasteners and layout drove me crazy, I expected the Corvette to be really easy to work on since they're used in motorsports so much and have evolved so much over time but it really did not seem to be the case.
I am on nissanroadracing and remember when you got your z. I couldn’t believe that you had to pull the heads right after you got it!
i, too, might just keep his for a season. We shall see....
the good news is swmbo made t possible to spend several hours over the last two days and I have managed to finish 95% of getting it back together.
Pretty, new pushrods
Of course the parts store gave me the wrong sized belts and I didn’t realize it until after spending 30 minutes fighting the belt to no avail.
Getting close....
So I now have everything done except the belts, coolant hoses, air cleaner, fluids and exhaust.
Since I’m waiting for these other parts, I tackled changing the battery. Yes, tackling. I tried for 15 minutes to pull the battery out of the box before to no avail. It is super tight with minimal room and no handle. A stronger guy might be able to do it but I could only get my fingertips on it and it would catch on the cables and on the edges. With a third hand, maybe.....
here is the trapped batt:
I heard about taping a handle on it and thought of the Sesame Street saying I used to hear: “it sounds so crazy it just might work.”
Voila!
jfryjfry said:
Viola!
Fixed that for you.
I finished my first event in the car and drove the car on the trailer so it certainly could have ended worse :)
actually, it wasn’t that bad but the car needs some attention. Although it’s not exactly the car’s fault.... I was running stock rear brakes and pads with a used stoptech front brake kit and an inexpensive set of coilovers. Several major items on the car are not stock and I had not driven the car even moderately hard before pulling onto the track so I take full responsibility :)
The braking felt vague and uninspiring, the handling was unsettled on turn-in and the rear would get loose with not-much throttle.
So I will be installing a full stop-tech kit f&r, moton coilovers, and reinstalling the stock rear sway bar. As well as double-checking the alignment and hopefully getting a chance to test at a track before the next event I do.
in the meantime, another pub pretty local to Los Angeles did a photo shoot, video and article on the car. Here are some links for perusal:
Images are available here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicoleeellan/albums/72157668264068807
In reply to jfryjfry :
Nice!
So after the track day and being so unhappy with the car, I just parked it for a while.
So what better motivation than to plan a private track day for guys in the business??
it had been pretty noisy just driving it - a lot of ticking that would come and go. I checked the pushrod length and it looked like they were too short Longer ones helped a little but it still seems noisier than it should be
I needed to get it going and try some things to get it to handle better. I had bought a big box of parts from a friend for a good price and it included a new stoptech trophy brake kit and a set of moton coilovers. I wanted to just try them and figured since my s13 took maybe 1.5-2 hours to install new coilovers that this couldn’t be much worse..... (cue minor key riff)
Getting the coilovers off wasn’t too bad. Just loosened the mounts and managed to pry the mounted ones off without dropping the control arms. But the new ones would never get in without separating the lower arm from the spindle. Which is a class a pain on these cars.
Luckily, I found that a slightly modified harbor freight ball joint popper will do the trick. But I will never get used to the bang when they let go.
Backing up, I realized that these are supposed to have helper springs which were somehow missing. My friend was surprised and said he could get me some but it would be a few days before he was home again. Of course, I didn’t have days so I contacted moton and the guys there were awesome and bent over backwards to overnight me a set and just invoiced me later.
So now I’m looking at the old units and realized that the upper mounts that are missing on my new ones are not to be found on the old ones. Doing some digging shows that for some reason, these were built with a different upper mount system.
I still had my old original shocks and went to town in typical grm style. I cut, grinded, drilled and fit the old upper mounts along with some parts from the existing coilovers to fabricate some upper mounts that would let me use this trick new units.
Got them all together and installed the new brake kit. I opted to just use the pads that came with it as it said they are race pads. So since this wasn’t anything more than a glorified test and tune day, I figured they’d work fine.
I was running a massive set of gm t1 sway bars front and rear but after the first event, I thought less rear bar might be nicer So I put my original rear bar on
I have borrowed a cloned tech2 that didn’t work before to bleed the brakes but, with a new card, and a motive power bleeder that I had to diagnose and repair, I was able to do the automated bleed procedure. It’s pretty cool but very wasteful of fluid. I used a full quart of srf brake fluid. Ugh. At least I’m sure it’s finally done right.
I had a real bear of a time getting the car on the trailer last time as the tires are so wide, they didn’t really fit in my ramps. So I flipped the ramps over and remounted the tabs that hold the ramp to the trailer. I also made some kinder approach ramps.
Still needed some 2x6’s to get the nose high enough but it was a lot better than before.
Impressions from the day - woooooow. Finally, the car I expected. It moves,, corners and brakes. I felt like I should be adjusting things but frankly, I didn’t know what to adjust. Everything was working so well that I just left it and gave a bunch of ridealongs to the other guys.
It did feel like abs was a little limiting but without a way to turn it off, I just worked with it. I asked my brother what he thought about the brakes and he said they were great. He is a very fast driver and rode along as well as drove it. So they’re probably better than I’m giving them credit for.
One thing that is really helpful is a good seat. I love tight seats and the containment seat I’m running fits me great. Between that and the 5-point harness, I expend 0 energy holding myself in place. Which I think makes it feel a little slower and less grippy than it actually is.
So no real issues the whole day At one point, there was smoke coming from under the hood but we couldn’t find it. It smelled weird, unlike any engine smell I’d ever smelt before... turns out the plastic door for the cabin air filter fell off and lodged on the exhaust Removed it and all was good
Ill try and toss up some pics here in a min
I had the slower guys and gals put a smiley or X on their rear window so others would know to give them extra room and grace. Not wanting anyone to feel like they stood out, I put one on, too
Showed some of my buddies the line I was taught
Derek Hill, son of Phil Hill, came out and drove the snot out of a stock automatic Camaro SS Not his first choice but it was available and it was an honor to have him out there. The most significant moment for me of recent memory was having him compliment my driving after riding along We worked together for months on a film called Lemans 66 about the Ford vs. Ferrari clash in the 60’s. He is a very good dude and I am honored to call him a friend
Great to see the wrinkles getting ironed out. Way to go and congratulations.
A few weeks ago I did my second competition with the car and had a really fun time. It was a Gridlife TrackBattle event - the first one they’ve done on the west coast.
But it almost wasn’t to be.
I was working on a show (a spin off of a movie that has quick & angry cars) in Hawaii and was supposed to be done on feb 26. The event was March 3. I figured I had a good chance of making it and the entry fee was very reasonable.
Well, the show’s end date kept changing and it was completely up in the air whether or not I’d be able to make it. Eventually we found out that we were going to wrap on March 2. At night. I had found that the last flight left at 11pm and landed at lax at 7 am.
So I grabbed that flight and we luckily wrapped early enough that I was able to go back to the hotel, clean up, and head to the airport.
I boarded and walked past a few friends who got first class tickets. They did not mind laughing at me as I made my way to coach. The flight was nearly full and I was sure that the seats next to me would be filled. But as the aisle emptied out and they closed the doors I realized that I had scored!
Better than first class! I made a list of what I’d need to do when I got home and laid down. I was asleep before we took off and awakened as we landed. It was amazing.
I got home as fast as possible, threw the race wheels/tires on, loaded up with minimal tools and supplies plus my helmet and driving suit, head and neck, etc. and hit the road.
It it was raining so I took it easy as I didn’t recall 315/335 r-comps scoring well on the wet Skidpad challenge.
Luckily the weather at willow springs was great, and I hurriedly met the organizer to check in.
I had given them the heads up I might be late and wanted to make sure they were ok with it. They got me set up fast and I was able to get on track for the 3rd of 3 qualifying sessions.
The way the TrackBattle worked was you had 3 qualifying sessions to get your best time. Then you were seeded in your class accordingly.
This sets up the battles. Let me say that I thought this part sounded a little hokey. Two cars “battle” on track? Run a lap together, switch positions and run another? Lame-o.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was really unique and fun!
They take the qualifiers (in this case, everyone) and bracket them up: 1v10, 2v9, 3v8 etc. The pair goes on track for a warmup and as they cross the start finish it’s a hot lap. If the gap between the two (about 10-15 car lengths, but whatever the following car wants to set) increases, the lead car wins. If it decreases, the following car wins. Then they switch positions on the next lap and it goes hot again as they cross the s-f line.
If there is a tie, they switch one more time. The winner advances.
Well, I was tired, had no real prep and only had a few laps on the track (I’ve never run streets ccw and it was like learning a new track) so I kept it well within the limits and qualified 3rd
For my first battle, I beat a guy who qualified several seconds behind me. Then I went up against the famous red conquest TSI that has been in GRM and all over the optima ultimate street car show.
He qualified 2 seconds faster than I so I figured he’d kill me. For the first lap he should have led but they waved me out first. I wasn’t surprised to see him closer as we finished our first hot lap. We switched places and I chased him.
First thing I noticed was how fast his car was in a straight line. He pulled away from me pretty easily. As we crossed the sf line to start he was a lot further ahead of me than I had meant for him to be.
I figured he would slowly disappear and that would be that. But as we negotiated the first few turns I was definitely closer. Then he pulled away on the next straight.
And at the end of that straight, I started reeling him in again. As we finally pulled onto the main straight I thought that there is a very good probability that I won that lap. He again pulled away on the straight and I was a little bummed to hear that he had barely squeaked out that lap!
I wasn’t bummed that I didn’t advance - I just wanted one more lap - the tie breaker. But next time :). Funny enough, I knocked nearly 3 seconds off of my qualifying time and was faster than all of his lap times except for that last one. A super fun “battle” for sure and made a time attack event many more times exciting than a regular TT event.
So he beat me and I ended up third in class! Definitely room to improve and I’m happy with how it ended Definitely worth the hassle it was to get out there
As far as the car goes, it’s amazing having a car that is so powerful and capable on track that is also completely fine taking the kids (well, kid - unless I squish one in the hatch) to school or driving to work.
I would like to put a wing and longer splitter/undertray on it but that’s about it. I don’t need it as I’m not quite consistently exploring the limits yet.
I switched some suspension stuff including going back to the stock rear sway bar and it handles so neutrally. Very happy.
I can’t upload video here (that I can see at a quick glance) but I have some short clips on Instagram @jfryjfry
Finally got the car out after hibernating for months. Working a lot and being tucked behind a sea of kids' toys and a project truck meant it hadn't been fired up or driven much in nearly a year.
took it to the track with some friends and put down some laps. It was much more enjoyable this time - maybe I'm just getting used to it. Hadn't done anything other than a little pedal modification.
at the previous outing I realized that heel-toeing was nigh impossible as the accelerator was too far down to reach from the brake pedal. So I needed to space it up.
they make aftermarket pedals/covers for h-ting with a little bump on the side but they are thin.
so I dug in my scrap wood pile and came up with a plywood spacer that worked great. I thought I had a pic but I'll get one tomorrow.
tanner Foust was there and after riding along asked to drive the "grip monster." I took it as a big compliment.
but what it really means is there is no excuse for weinie times. Ugh
In reply to jfryjfry (Forum Supporter) :
That's always the catch-22 isn't it? You eventually reach a point where there's nothing left on the car to blame, other than the nut behind the wheel!
Sounds like a successful day regardless.
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