Babe the blue ox, or Chris' C8 adventure

I was really interested in the C8 Corvette when they first came out but after building one on Chevy's website I came to the conclusion that they were out of my price range. So, instead I bought another car that I had drooled over since they came out, a 2011 Porsche Cayman base with PDK, in May 2022. Chris' Cayman. It also fulfilled a childhood dream to own a Porsche someday. It's been the best car I've ever owned, but it has some downsides. It's a bit underpowered by today's standards, it's noisy and it rides a bit rough. I thought long and hard about buying a newer Cayman S or GTS but I could never find one that had all of the options I wanted for a price I was comfortable paying for what is essentially a toy. In the background I've been looking at C8s. Last week a car that checked all the boxes and then some popped up about 5 miles from my childhood home near LA. I called the dealer on Friday and bought a plane ticket. Saturday morning I flew down and bought the car: This is all your fault: bought a ticket tonight

The requirements were 2LT, Z51, Magnetic Ride, front lift, GT2 seats in Rapid Blue with a black interior. In addition this car has bunch of things that I would have had a hard time justifying but really liked: Trident wheels, carbon fiber grill, interior trim, mirror caps, engine appearance package, Red engine cover, Tension Blue seat belts. There were $28k in options. It's a one owner car with just 12k miles (~4k a year). It's been serviced at the dealer from day one. Apparently, the owner just bought this car as a interim while he waited for his Z06 allotment. 

So here she is:

I'm in Kentucky this week for work.  I'll try to stop at the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green for you.

Today we took a 75 mile drive down the Big Sur coastline to Napenthe for a late lunch. It was raining the whole way home. At one point I managed to get the rear end to kick out on a tight hairpin while in "Weather" mode. The Mrs was not impressed. Lol!

I plan to drive this car into the ground so I bought a 5/60 bumper to bumper warranty. I was putting about 1k miles a month on my Cayman.

I'm also planning to track it a few times a year so I've been putting a list of things I'll need for track days. I've purchased or ordered the following.

OEM Brake cooling kit. Purchased from someone on CorvetteForum.

Tow hooks. I found a set of ACS Composites on FB.

Motive pressure bleeder cap, brake pin socket, Lisle brake Spreader, 22mm lug socket from Amazon.

Jackpoint jack stands. They are on back order but I found a set of four on the PCA classifieds.

Race Ramps Trak-Jax (3" to get the jack under the car).

Wheels I purchased a set of stock silver 5 double spoke wheels for $450 off FB.

Tires: The CR-S V2 isn't available in a 305/30/20 right now. Their entire shipment got refused at the port and sent back so it's probably going to be a while until they get any more in. I decided to go with 265/35/19 and 325/30/20. I've always run a little wider tire than stock and it sounds like others have run this combination.

Brake Pads: I've found a few posts about the Cobalt Racing XR2 brake pads and they sound like what I'm after.  They are similar to Ferodo DS1.11s, PFC 01 or Pagid DS14s. I ordered a set to try out.

Brake Rotors: I found a lightly used set of GiroDisc 2 piece rotors from someone on CorvetteForum..

PPF. I'm leaning towards having the entire car PPFed after my Cayman experience. I got a full front track package and wound up with a 1/8" square chip on the top of one of the rear fenders.

Updated the last post. Many, many boxes headed this way. 

I'm dropping the car off at the PPF shop tomorrow. They are going to cover all of the painted surfaces.

I have an appointment at the Chevy dealer next Tuesday to have the DCT filter changed and the extra two quarts of DCT fluid added.

The only option that I didn't like on this car was the body colored rear spoiler. To me it didn't balance the the CF front grill inserts and mirror caps. I found a couple pictures of C8s with an exposed CF duck tail spoiler that I really liked. It's unique and more subtle than the CF high wing spoilers than most guys go with. I found a shop selling one that had been ordered by a customer and then the guy totaled his car before it arrived. They basically sold it to me for their cost. It should be here next week.

didn't see the white New Balances on your 'to order' list

I absolutely love that color. 

I'm not too fond of the envy green I'm turning though.

Looking forward to the ownership story. 

onemanarmy said:

didn't see the white New Balances on your 'to order' list

I told my kids we should get the whole kit (NB, satin jacket, jorts, hat, etc) and do a photo shoot. LOL!

We had a little club drive at work last weekend

A club drive at my work would be a bunch of old Miatas, mostly with mismatched body panels.

The ducktail spoiler showed up this week. I spent a few hours installing it yesterday. It's a bit of an involved process. You have to remove the rear bumper cover. Of course, there were a couple fasteners that I couldn't quite reach with hand tools. I wound up buying a Hammer Store (tm) 1/4" extended reach cordless ratchet to get to them. Once I got the bumper off I removed the tail light assemblies, the spoiler hardware and then attacked the VHB tape with heat and fishing line. Then I removed the tape residue with 3M Adhesive Remover. After I got all of that done I temporarily mounted the bumper back on the car. The OEM spoiler had a pair of studs to locate it on the bumper but the new one only has threaded inserts. I turned the head off a pair of cap screws and shortened the threads so that they would screw into the wing and not break out the CF on the backside. My nephew helped me line the spoiler up and press it into place so the VHB tape would adhere evenly. I removed my alignment pins and installed the screws. Then I reinstalled the taillights and remounted the bumper. There are about 30 screws and nuts that hold the bumper in place so it's a time consuming job. I got it all back together and drooled at the car for a while. It still hasn't sunk in that this is really my new car.  I drove in to work today and got a warning message every time I used the blinkers. Unfortunately, it looks like I didn't get the turn signal connectors seated properly so I'll be removing the bumper again this weekend.

I'm working on my MacBook today and it appears that I can't upload the pictures. I'll try again tonight from my PC.

Keith Tanner said:

A club drive at my work would be a bunch of old Miatas, mostly with mismatched body panels.

I came in to say this, haha.  Jsut replace 'Miatas' with 'Kias'.

Congrats,  That blue looks great with the carbon accents.

The" son of a" nut about 10" up inside the fender:

The solution:

Turned down cap screws:

Become guide pins:

Test fit and ready to be installed:

I like how the CF spoiler matches up with the mirror caps and front grilles. It balances the look of the car.

In reply to golfduke :

Thank you, sir.

That spoiler looks perfect 

OHSCrifle said:

That spoiler looks perfect 

That's what I thought when I first saw one. Thanks!

One more. It's like the Great Wall of carbon fiber. 

Well, the box man has been busy lately. Today he dropped of a set of four JackPoint jack stands and three big boxes of rubber. 

265/30/19 F and 325/30/20 R. Those are 20mm wider than stock, but they were the only sizes that would work that were actually in stock.

The front Girdisc rotors showed up a day early, so of course the rears are in USPS purgatory. I really hope they show up by Thursday afternoon. I have an appointment to get an alignment done on Thursday. I'll swap the brake rotors/pads and wheels/tires Thursday night. Hopefully it will go smooth, but if not I have Friday to wrap it up.

On Saturday we took her for a drive towards the coast. On the way home we stopped at one of our favorite nurseries and it started raining. It looks like th Xpel PPF does a pretty good job of repelling water:

I also took some beauty shots at my favorite location on Sunday:

It's nice to see that bright  blue color. 
 

DrMikeCSI said:

It's nice to see that bright  blue color. 

Thank you. I've had a fleet of white, gray, tan, silver for over 30 years. I really wanted a car that stands out a bit. On Saturday someone from work spotted my car 20+ miles from home. Maybe it's a bit too unique, but I haven't gotten any tickets... yet.

Yesterday I had the track alignment done. Afterward the shop asked if I had it aligned before because the numbers were all over the place. I'm not sure why it was so far out of spec but I'll have to keep an eye on it.

Last night I put the car up on four Jackpoint jack stands for the first time. That was pretty easy and took a lot of the stress out of jacking up the car. I installed the front Girodisc 2 piece rotors, Cobalt XR2 pads all around and the track tires/wheels. It took about 2 hours all in and I'm sure it will be quicker the next time. I took it out today and bedded the brakes. Cobalt says that it isn't necessary but I thought I'd take the belt and suspenders approach. They feel really good. I was able to hit 1.1G and managed to kick in ABS a few times on damp roads.

There were a couple other items that have been bugging me. First the rear hatch struts are tired and don't pop the lid enough to get your fingers under it. I replaced the lift struts with some from Paragon performance. The other thing that has been bugging me is the polished lower dash trim strips. Every once in a while the sun is in just the right spot and they absolutely blind me. Frickin Lasers! I looked around and found some real CF covers on eBay. They were fairly cheap and got decent reviews on the CorvetteForum. They were really easy to install and fit pretty well. There was one spot that they didn't quite cover so I hit it with a black Sharpie before I installed them. You wouldn't know it was there unless I showed you. They really cut the glare down and match the OEM CF bits really well.

Before:

After:

It looks odd to me with the silver wheels.

Poilished trim:

CF trim:

I got my Catalyst installed and fired up for the first time today. I'm heading to Laguna Seca in the morning. We'll see how this beast handles on the track. 

I took the C8 to the track for the first time on Saturday. Holy smokes! This thing is a rocket ship. I was hitting 132mph at the end of the front straight. It cornered at basically the same speeds and was easily 10-15mph faster on every straight than the Cayman was. My fast time for the day was a 1:38.1 compared to a 1:44.07 PB in the Cayman.

I had a new experience this time. After the first couple sessions I started feeling vibrations at higher speeds. I asked the mobile tire guy to check the balance of the tires and they were all out. It turns out that these tires have so much grip and the car was braking so hard that they slipped on the wheels under hard braking. I had to up my tire pressures to help keep them from slipping. I was running 23/24 PSI cold - 30/31 PSI hot in the morning sessions. I moved up to 26/27 PSI cold - 34/36 PSI hot in the afternoon. That made the car a bit more lively, but it also allowed it to rotate a bit more. As I got more comfortable with the car I was getting slight on power over steer out of some of the corners. It was a hoot. 

The only issue I had was that I was getting brake pulsing after a few laps. I would take a cool down lap and it would be good for another lap or two before it came back. I'm really hoping that it was coming from the stock rear rotors since the rear two piece rotors still haven't shown up. 

I pulled the wheels/tires and brake pads off the car yesterday. The brake pads all look really good and the tires wore really evenly. 

Here's the video from my best lap: