2005 Chevy Corvette build & upgrades & Nova parts donater thread

[woody80z28]

Adam - yeah sad to say some parts do have the Vette tax - and where more expensive then my Beretta days - but I can remember spending 600 for forged pistons for a 3400 - 600 for headers that where uncoated - then another 200 for coating - I can remember Spec Stage 3+ clutch being $375 & fidanza flywheel being 300+ - so like 700 total - when a Z06 clutch is low $400's w/ flywheel... and there good to 600 hp or so...

It is funny how some of the Beretta stuff is dirt cheap, and some of it is crazy expensive. Like $800 for axles on the Beretta when my $250 Mosers for the Camaro are rated for twice the power!

[bonecrrusher]

Darrin - your car was looking awesome @ RTTH's..

Eric - yeah its sad how much one off parts can be...

[bonecrrusher]

Well - been a long time since I've had an update so - heres a few updates:

Corvette - I have all of the body panels now, I still need 1 wheel and the plastic liner crap - I went to my body guy and got a quote for front bumper, 4 panels, and repainting both doors - and well - that project will be on hold for a while, lol!

G8 - really been looking into a brake upgrade - but that requires new wheels and tires - ugh.... Oh and I got door dinged pretty bad in the rear quarter panel on black Friday - pretty sweet eh! So I visited my body guy AGAIN... this time I'm giving him my business and getting the rear quarter fixed and the c-piller repainted since its all one piece - damn Zeta chassis, lol! Should be going in the week before Christmas.

Garage - picked up a tool box on Black Friday - set that up and have some of my tools properly put away now. I also picked up some a Corvette racing Jake flag - The ALMS team's marketing/promotional company had a blowout on last seasons items - that and I had a nice pro-touring poster to put up on the wall from DSE's open shop a few months back.

Everyone loves pics - so heres the garage again... LOL!

[bonecrrusher]

Not much of an update - the G8 goes in for paint tomorrow - sucks blowing that cash during the holidays.

I FINALLY had time to mess around with my new camera - heres a Daytime test vid I did today, mounted it to the dash inside the G8.



You can really hear the exhaust at 1:30 and 4:30 - still sounds way muffled from how loud it really is. Can't wait till I get a 32 gig SD card for this - I'm just using a 1gig card I had laying around in an old camera - so I'm limited to time length due to file size right now. I asked for one from the gf for Christmas - guess I'll see if I get it. I really look forward to using this on some Autocrosses, the Power Tour, and at least the RTTH's next year....

[madmax]

How do you like the G8? I have a GTO and have had the itch to move to something else, but there's nothing really out there that gets me all tingly... maybe I'll just mod the **** out of it...

[bonecrrusher]

I really like the G8 - I have had a Pontiac for a DD for the last 10 years - had a 99 Grand Am GT, a 2001 Grand Prix GTP, and a sad to admit - 91 Pontiac Sunbird LE back in High School - lol!

My GTP was my DD for 3 years - and I was looking to replace it with something, and back in March a truck pulled out in front of me and I ended up under his truck and it totalled my car. So timing worked out - I was going to look at the G8 that I bought the weekend of my accident - so I had the accident then I drove G8 home.

Quality - no issues so far - have about 40k miles on it now.
Gas milage - honestly gets better gas then my GTP - and you can run 87 in it. I had to use premium with my Supercharged GTP. Around 19 City and 28ish highway.
Performance - puts down 10 less whp then my Corvette, but its like 700 lbs heavier...
Interior - leaps and bounds better then my interior in the GTP, and I like it better then the interior of the 2010+ Camaro.
Exterior - darker color is a PITA to keep clean. Looks a hell of a lot better then the GTO/GTP...
Sedan - honestly I prefer a sedan over a coupe - its much easier putting things in the rear seat, and well that just sucks with coupes.

Compliants - no HID's, no fold down rear seat, no bluetooth, no homelink - the radio is very generic.

Resolution - get an HID kit @ $40 shipped, nothing can be done about seat, bluetooth - get a kit, homelink - I already bought a sunvisor out of an Audi and tore the guts out of it and put it in spare visor I got off egay. So for $100 bucks I've made the car up to my standards of what it should have had. Easy and cheap fixes, really.

Theres my honest opinion.

[woody80z28]

I was looking at those same cameras...let me know how you like it once you use it some more. I'd want to mount mine on the inside and the outside for 1/4 runs and other stupid driving. haha

[bonecrrusher]

Will do... plan on ordering that 32 gig card in February.

I think I am headed to the 12 Hrs of Sebring race in south Florida in March.

[bonecrrusher]

Its been awhile since I've updated - been a long couple of months... nothing really new project wise. I'm not feeling all that great today - went out last night for my birthday celebration and well had a few too many beers. But I shot some vids and pictures from an Autocross that I participated in on Saturday up at Zmax Dragway in Concord, NC.

Getting the car ready - changing the oil and swiping out the clutch fluid - I FINALLY had the time to use my race ramps... and lifting a lowered car is a PITA. I used them on the G8 and while that was decent - it really cut down on the oil change time on the Vette.


Some pics from the AutoX:




More pics can be found here:
http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/n...s%202_19_2011/

Now for the vids:
These videos are unedited, and the sound sucks - I dont know why the sound is so terrible...





My results of the AutoX:

427 Craig 2005 Chevrolet Corvette Blue 91.778 87.170 85.025+3 84.366 85.606+1

So I did fairly decent I managed to drop my times, and I killed a few cones.

I probably won't be modifying the car anymore until after the Power Tour is over.

I've got the 12 Hrs of Sebring coming up, the Land Speed racing event @ Maxton NC, and the Food Lion Autofair car show @ Charlotte Motor Speedway.

[bonecrrusher]

This past weekend was a very interesting weekend...

I headed down to West Palm Beach for a bit of vacation, and to get away from the Carolinas.

The weather was awesome and made it down there in about 9.5 hrs. If you go there - I highly recommend checking out CityPlace... lots of bars/shopping/clubs/food. Plus it was 2 miles from my Hotel, and well they had a free shuttle service - definitely needed after going to some of the clubs there, lol.

Saturday we got up extra early and headed out to Sebring, FL - thats about 2 hrs from West Palm Beach.

We attended the 12 Hrs of Sebring, which was a lot of fun - but man that is a dirty/nasty/grimey/dusty track. My car and I where very nasty by the end of the day, lol.

Link to all of my pics:
http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/n...ebring%202011/

The Corvette corral was cool, and it was pretty cool seeing the factory Corvette ALMS racing team do there thing.

My only complaint about Sebring - it's not really spectator friendly - it was hard to find a good seat w/out being on bleachers, a motor home, etc.

Heres some pics and vids from Sebring:










Some race footage:


The race was fun and all - we left about 6pm and headed back to West Palm Beach after a slight detour due to my factory Nav unit.

We slept in Sunday a bit, and got on the road about 9am.

After about an hour outside West Palm Beach my rear tire decided to get punctured and explode @ 80mph. I tried the Green Slim fix a tire crap, and well the hole is so big - it didnt help! Awesome!

It being a Sunday, and no one having a Corvette tire in stock anywhere - I was stranded in Florida, 700 miles from home!

So after about 30 mins of calling around, I had a flat bed tow truck on the way, a truck rented - and a 4 wheel auto transport trailer as well.

14 hrs later... $200 bucks in gas... and I don't want to say how much for the rental - we got the car unloaded at 1am, and I had to be up at 5am for work the next day... so I'm still pissed off about Sunday so the car its sitting in the garage w/ a cover on it..... I'll get to it this weekend.

I will say this - I am glad I have my race ramps - they let me angle the steel ramps from the trailer good enough to back them off w/ no issue and no scraping the front bumper.

Pics of my PAIN from Sunday.... lol.

[woody80z28]

Ouch! That's a b*tch. I've been there before though...broken & towed home from the drag strip.

[bonecrrusher]

Yeah that tow/U-haul/truck fuel about trippled my budget for that trip... LOL!

At least I have towing on the Vette - so I sent that claim in today.

[bonecrrusher]

So - I need to make a decision on the whole wheel thing - I've shopped around the cheapest I'm going to get a new KDW will be 300 minimum w/out install or taxes or anything.

So I decided to pull the rear Z06 wheels that I've had in storage out and bolt them onto the car. First I just wanted to see how it would look, second I wanted to make the car moveable, and third - get the car of floor jack and jackstands.

I bought a set of rear Competition Grey z06 wheels probably 2 years ago now, RPO code Q44, and they had some stock runflats on them. They are in decent shape and I'll probably get a summer of driving out of them. So this solves my popped rear tire issue, but now I have mismatching wheels - I found a front wheel for 100 bucks on ebay last year, so I decided to put that on the front as mockup and see how it will look. I like the look - plus this puts me 1 step closer to putting the z06 wide body kit on finally.

Oh - and I have a line on the last front wheel - I am going to call and order it Monday. Last time the guy quoted me $150 for the wheel shipped, while thats not bad I may have to get it painted to get matched - I'll find out when I get the wheel.

Now for the pics:

Screwed rear KDW:


325 width vs 285 width


Both wheels for mockup:


Rear mockup:


Front Mockup:


Side shot of both wheels:

[bonecrrusher]

I ordered rims - and I got this dub box this afternoon when I got home from work, pretty sweet!

24's baby!

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Not!




I got this wheel - brand new for stupid cheap. It is polished - so its going to go to my body man sometime this week for paint. I ordered this Monday afternoon, and it was at my house when I came home from work. Not bad for 2 days shipping from South Florida! I also ordered Q44 painted center caps from GM on Monday - since finding used competition grey center caps are near impossible. Plus they where only $9.50 each!

So hopefully this will all be done painted and swapped before the Food Lion Autofair at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2 weekends.

[bonecrrusher]

Got the front wheel mounted, still need to get that last wheel to my paint guy on Monday. I'm digging the new wheel direction.

[formula]

Man I can't decide which wheels I like better. Both sets look great but the comp grey z's really look awesome on that color.

PS I bought a c5z today :D still got those repro zr1s? hahaha

[bonecrrusher]

They will be for sale shortly.

[bonecrrusher]

Not much of an update - partstaxi finally shipped my center caps, so those should be here in a few days, and I dropped my wheel off to my paint guy. He should get it painted tomorrow, and I plan on taking my current wheel over there Wed night so that he can move over the TPMS sensor and the tire to the newly painted front wheel.

My 90 pound box from Sears finally showed up today - 4 days after it was going to get here! I ordered this cabinent almost 10 days ago! So I spent a few hours assembling my last Gladiator brand cabinet - then put the top on it that I picked up at Lowe's - who price matched an internet deal, they had it for $129, I found it on the web for $79, score! Also - not to self - I ordered this shelf from the Sears store, and they shipped it to my house for free. That was all fine and dandy, but there was a nice sized hole in the box, and both rear panels where dented. If it was the front panel I'd be pissed - but it was the rear. So 10 mins with a hammer and a nice sized piece of wood I knocked the panels back into shape. Besides that it went together pretty smoothly.

I have some florescent recessed lights to put up, I'll put those up some time later. After that I think my garage will be done for awhile.

[woody80z28]

One of the toolboxes Sears shipped me was dented, too. Their shipping company must be tools.

My Camaro needs to be that color blue with my new 18s installed ASAP!

[bonecrrusher]

GM Paint Code - WA9243 was also a body color for 87-92 Oldsmobiles and it was called Gunmetal Metallic.

Duplicolor has this as GM 396.

Competition Grey Center cap: GM Part #9597193