Z06? Check. Wtb: gold chain and chest hair

Awakening this old thread.... hard to believe how long it has been since I last took it out!

there is a series out here called the wilwood corvette challenge.  I was aware of it a few years ago and  wanted to run in one of their events but when I would think about checking, the next event always conflicted with work. 
 

well, this year it finally has panned out for me to make a few of the events.  
I haven't done too bad but not as well as I had hoped. I have made a good friend out of it which makes it worth every penny and he happens to be one of the fastest guys out there.  
 

the event is a time trial format that is run in conjunction with a popular hpde group called Speed Ventures. My buddy typically sets the fastest time of the entire day in his c6z that is set up similarly to mine.  His is the yellow z 

the biggest difference is tires - he runs brand new Hoosier r7's and A7's while I am on 7-year old nitto nt01's.   He felt that good tires would make a big difference but it's hard to justify $2k plus on tires that might sit on the shelf for a year before I get to use them. And then maybe another year before I use them again after!

so we'll see what to do, but I've been able to run 3 events and two of them have been on a new track or a different direction than I have run before.  So I have a lot of learning to do but here is a pic from the last track day. 
 

it was at auto club speedway which is a very fast track- 155 on the straight into the first two turns (using the nascar track) before a hard left into the infield. And another straight at about 115 into a chicane and then another 135 straight into a hard right.  

I was nervous heading into the day but baby-stepped it and drove the car onto the trailer at the end of the day no worse for the wear. 
I ended up loving the track and am looking forward to running it again and shaving some more time off!

In an effort to chase down that delta between him and me, I finally got a set of monoballs for the control arms. 
 

I am wrapping up the passenger side and will attack the driver's side soon.  Unfortunately I pulled a dumdum and blew a seal on my lift after not reengaging the locks leaving the car just on the hydraulic pressure all night   
 

I'll put the car on the ground and fix the lift and then continue on the suspension. 
 

I will take more pics of the other side but I have a few. I have not been working fast as I have never done this before and was unsure about many of the steps.  But now that I've done it once it isn't too bad.   
 

im also doing new hubs and ball joints since I'm in there, along with a new upper rear shock mount and camber kit for the eccentrics. 
 

I also got to finally use my lathe!   The rear lower arm slid into the cradle pretty easily but the front was too wide.  I was contemplating sending one of the spacers back to the manufacturer to have them adjust it but I am not confident in my ability to accurately measure just how much to remove.  And then I remembered that I have a lathe that I got from a neighbor.  It is a newer, small and pretty unused model and I figured now was as good of a time as any to mess around with it. 
 

Turned out ok! (Pun alert). 
 

hope to wrap the front up today. 
 

those ARE sexy!

Don't forget to cinch up that toe link!

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

Don't forget to cinch up that toe link!

It's my experiment with active rear suspension. 
 

(thanks for the heads up - it's all good and tight now!)

Where did you get the mono balls? AMT or LG? 

I got them from GSpeed. I believe they are related to LG.  Iundedtand that Louis's son started GSpeed. 
 

they have a good reputation and were cheaper than AMT by a significant margin.  I like mark and, as long as this has taken, maybe could have waited until Black Friday sales, but I got these about 5 months ago. 
 

I have a new unopened set of delrin bushings I need to sell now 

"Then I remembered that I have a lathe"

Ha!  Seeing that I don't have one, I can't imagine forgetting if I did!

Car looks sinister.  The C6 and C7 in black are very distinctive.

jfryjfry said:I have a new unopened set of delrin bushings I need to sell now 

Hmm, you don't say....as I look at the suspension on my 125k mile C6 Z06. Whatcha want for them?

In reply to myf16n :

Email me at my username at yarhoo.  I'll help you out!  I have some other stuff you might be interested in as well. (Carbotech pads for z06 calipers for example)

In reply to NorseDave :

Yeah, it's a weird situation (how I came into it and a bunch of other stuff).  It's small and in the corner and I had never in my life seen one work in person much less operatesd one (well, not 100% true - in hs auto shop we would turn rotors and drums, so I have a general idea.)

turned out I got too excited and eager and took a bit too much off.  In my defense it is hard to measure clearances of the cradle when the arms don't line up and the fitment is funky.  At least it let me use my feeler gauges to see just how off I was and I did it right with a spacer from the other side.  So i will order another one which will probably be in before I get to that side. 
 

i remembered seeing this thing parked last time at your garage! 

In reply to jfryjfry :

email sent.

jfryjfry said:

I got them from GSpeed. I believe they are related to LG.  Iundedtand that Louis's son started GSpeed. 
 

they have a good reputation and were cheaper than AMT by a significant margin.  I like mark and, as long as this has taken, maybe could have waited until Black Friday sales, but I got these about 5 months ago. 
 

I have a new unopened set of delrin bushings I need to sell now 

They are quite a bit cheaper. Damn, now I'm considering them. Lol

I finished the passenger side and am on the driver's side, armed with confidence and knowledge from the first go round. 
 

getting the arms and spindles off was about 2 hours. 
 

the most challenging part is popping the ball joints but the tool I used is awesome. And I'm not as hesitant with it any more.  Snap it on and crank it until it pops.  and boy does it pop!

pulling the bushings is about 45 mins and the trick in this video makes it eaaaasy 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HtbRnwLPv0Q
 

I thought I put it here before but maybe not. (Wait.... I think I put it in the tips/tricks forum). 
 

  Just use a large bearing splitter on top of the arm but below the bushing.  Hand tighten and then put some sort of metal cup on top with room for the bushing to go into.  Then put a socket or something similar below the bushing and you push the control arm down and off of the bushing. 
 

it's super fast. 

Since I'm doing new ball joints I had to press them out.  Using a harbor freight ball joint remover/installer kit is very helpful for many of these steps.  I could use my press for the lca bj but not for the upper that is in the spindle.  
 

this is the arrangement that finally worked:

rhere is a 1/2" socket in the end to help keep the stud from flopping over.  
 

the most dreary part was cleaning the arms. A large wire brush in my shop sink and a few hours of work.  Ugh. 
 

then it's bearing install!

you heat them up with mapp gas for 3.5 minutes and drop the new ones in. Apparently sometimes they can move so I held them down while I sprayed them with water for a few seconds.  Then dunked into a bucket of water. 

make sure you test each bearing with spacers into each place on the cradles first. I had two that needed work. One was too thick, one too narrow. 
 

so I'm getting close to finishing up. 

The C6 is my favorite body style vette, and the only one I have gotten to drive.  Tanner asking to drive something of mine would be so cool.

Just did a time attack event yesterday and had a pretty good day. 
 

I ran my old nt01's which, at 7.5 years old, are no gumballs....   I got 3rd in class but was back and forth with a friend in a similar car who is usually 1.5 -2 seconds faster than I. 
 

the biggest bummer was I had a shock canister fall and get ripped off the car. 
 

I'm sure this isn't going to be cheap....

I must not have attached it properly.  Argh. 
 

I heard a loud clunk and on the next lap, I saw this pretty orange thing in the middle of the track.  I told the workers but they had already started the next session. 
 

I decided to keep running so I ran the broken hose into a catch can and was able to finish the day.  The fact that I couldn't tell any difference  means either A. I am not very sensitive to the car or B. the canisters are actually just unnecessary ballast. 
 

maybe I should cut the others off....

Sent the broken shock off for repair, had a bent wheel straightened locally.  
 

mounting the front canisters under the hood now.  
 

first up, drill huge hole for canister to fit through.  This was after about an hour of deliberation of where to run them.  
 

there isn't room to get the drill in so I did it by hand.  Fiberglass ftw. Took about 10 mins but not bad. 

this is the routing of the hose in the wheel well

and this is its new home   The pass side will be installed when I get the repaired shock back

next up is a shifter install  

I've heard that the shifters on these cars are less than stellar, but I've never had an issue with mine. However, at a recent event, I missed fifth gear twice and hit reverse. So I figured, maybe it's the shifter? After all, how the world could it simply be driver error? Ha ha.
 

Mgw is the gold standard, but I decided to go with a smaller, one-man company called Tmod.  Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. The bushings that the rod slides and get pinched when you assemble the box together so I clearanced them little bit. I asked the owner about it and he said that they wear in after a little while, but I would rather it fit better right out of the box. 
 

This is what I found when I got to the shifter and opened it up.

that yellow dust, I believe is remnants from a deteriorating, yellow heat/noise shield that sits above the shifter.

I have been putting this off because I load taking interior pieces apart.  My e36 is a royal pain for that, and I'm always breaking things when I try to take it apart.

Recently, I put a new head unit in our Toyota, and it went surprisingly well, so I was hoping that this might be similar. And it was! Pretty easy to get a part, and nothing broke.

not much interesting during the install so here's a final picture

while I had the center console out, I had easy access to the traction control button. 
Backing up a step, these cars have been known to have issues with the TPMS system if you don't have them synced to the car. So guys will throw track tires on and have run into ice mode or other unexpected and potentially very dangerous braking situations when the car decides that there's a problem since it doesn't see the tire pressures. 
 

there is a $400 electronic box that you can install that takes care of the TPMS issue, and also sets the traction control and active handling to off whenever you start the car. You can turn it back on, but it defaults to off which is nice at the track because you don't start turning laps and realize that you forgot to turn it off while sitting on the grid 

But most guys will just unplug the steering wheel position sensor as it also disables the TPMS system. Reportedly it shuts the active handling and traction control off as well but I know if my car while active handling seems to be off there is still a little bit of interference with traction control.

Reportedly, with the steering wheel position sensor unplug, you can still cycle through the different settings with the traction control button but my car never did anything when you hit the button. I've just assumed it was something inherent to my car with the sensor unplugged as different cars from different years seem to react a little differently

I first tested the different spades on the plug to see if it even made a connection with the button pushed, and there was no difference. So it seemed pretty obvious that there was a problem. With the button out I figured I might as well take it apart to see if there was anything wrong.

they're not designed to come apart but it wasn't too bad to finally get it into separate pieces. and when I looked down into the switch, I was happy to see what potentially could be the cause of my issue

while there's not much in there, the corrosion that I saw was enough to keep the switch from working. I cleaned it off and reassembled it and now it makes a connection when you push the button. I'm very excited to see if it actually works now, but will have to wait till I get my shock back and installed first.

Not sure how interesting these updates are to anyone else based on the lack of responses, but figured it might come in handy for someone with a similar car. 

Dusted off the old girl...

Congrats! Love the C6. It's got great looking lines. Someday I want to upgrade from my C4. 

I enjoy seeing your updates!  I also have a C6 Z06, and in the far distant future when I get the damn thing running again, your suspension posts will be very useful.  :-)

In reply to Kendall Frederick :

That's really nice to hear - I often feel like I'm speaking to an empty auditorium in this thread!   
 

the wilwood corvette challenge is a time trial series that runs at selected speed ventures hpde events.  My work schedule is unpredictable so I can't make a lot of the events but I started attending them a year or so ago and have enjoyed meeting the people. 
 

I thought I would find a bunch of slow, old guys but it's a bunch of fast old guys!  Well, not that old mostly.  But there are some super fast cars and drivers. 
 

I am pretty familiar with this track but not so much in the direction we ran it.  But the nice thing is that it's pretty safe - there are two pucker-spots for me running cw but ccw there aren't any. 
 

as I pulled in in the morning, I was overwhelmed by the amount of heavy, heavy-hitting cars.  I should have taken pics but will try to find some from the day. Regardless, I went from hoping to contend for a podium to just finishing mid-pack before the car was even off the trailer. 
 

as per my usual, when my run group was up, I waited until the end, and once on track, I went slow until I saw the leaders coming around to within about 15 seconds of me.  I wanted to give the car plenty of time to warm up and for me to get back in the mindset and ready. 
 

I'll back up....  I hadn't done too much to the car since the last event about 10 months ago, including driving it!   I don't drive it much and it's a shame - but a lowered, long-nosed car can have challenges and Los Angeles traffic often sucks - especially for a stick shift with a very grabby clutch.   My last complaint about my car as a street car is that mirror visibility is poor.   The heavy tinted front windows are part of that and maybe I should just remove the tint....  but with no backup cam, I am never 100% sure where the sides or back of the car are.  
 

enough of the whining...  that's just why I dont drive it as much.  But for this event, I had installed a new cluctch master cylinder.  It didn't change anything other than replacing a unit that GM had upgraded because they would spontaneously and without warning just fail.  I decided that wasting a track day because I didn't spend $100 to replace a known- to-fail part was silly.  
 

but the significant changes were the following two:

went from 8-year-old nitto Nt-01's to new Hoosier r7's.  I heat-cycled them about 4 months previous and they were an unknown. 
 

I also could finally turn traction control and/or active handling completely off.  Before it was mostly off but would interfere sometimes and I was pretty sure it was hurting my acceleration.  

I also finally put on a smaller, removable steering wheel.  I miss the suede cover on my old one and am going to see if I can somehow get one on my new wheel but the smaller wheel was hopefully going to be a good thing. 
 

I arrived with just enough time to go to the driver's meeting, unload, set up, get changed and drive around the facility to warm up.  But when I got there, the line to enter the gate was 20-minutes long.  
I finally arrived to hear them announcing my run group should start lining up. 
 

My buddy helped me unload and I was feeling a little panicky, ready to just drive in my jeans and jacket. But my buddy showed me that we still had 10 minutes so I was able to change into my fire suit, driving shoes, take a little drive up and down the hill, take a few breaths and go line up at the back. 
 

i decided to change into my gear obviously for the safety aspect but also because I wanted the psychological change from commuter to racer.  Maybe it was an actual effect and maybe not but at least it was safer!

the session went good - I never had any whoopsies or uh-oh's and no one caught me. 
 

I was pretty surprised when I saw the session's results and I was the fastest!  And by a second!   My chief competitor and nemesis (and good friend) was absent so while it felt amazing, I wished that he was there to have a comparison. 
 

the next session (2 hours later!  It was a very busy and packed day) I adjusted my tire pressures (2 had gone way up) and hoped to take a second off.  I was able to take 3/10's off and some of the other guys took a bit more but I was still in first. 
 

the third session I figured the track was slowing down and I didn't want to roast tires and the car for no reason, so I had my buddy ride along and was just going to take it easy.  So I let thr 2nd place guy ahead of me and then figured I'd keep up with him.  Well, he wasn't slow and I had a great time trying to keep up. 
 

In the end, following him took another 4/10's off but his time was I think less than 1/10 faster than mine so he got the overall ftd but he wasn't in our competition so I still had the fast time for the corvettes!   Plus I had my buddy and would like to think the addl weight was worth that tenth!

anyway, no mechanicals and a cool plaque made for a really good day

Here is a pic from the series' site about that last competition   I'm still really happy and on a high from it!

 As of now, besides trying to improve oil and water cooling, the only thing I can really think to do to the car is a rear wing.  
 

I mean I could list tons of things I could do but it is still a reasonable street car and a wicked fast track car.  

one thing I might do is paint the wheels....   I'm thinking either yellow or bright red..... I think the gold/bronze wheels look amazing but I'd like something a little more race car-ry for the track   My steeet wheels are bronze so I've got at least one set that look good like that  

Any votes one way or the other??