We joined a spirited club drive a couple weeks ago. When we got home I happened to look at the car from the bottom of the driveway and saw cords on the inner edge of the RR tire. I knew I was going to need tires soon, but I didn't realize that they were that bad. We were heading out of town so I put off buying new tires until yesterday. I ordered a set of the stock Pilot Sport 4S ZP from America's Tire. They showed up this morning and they were able to squeeze me in to have them mounted after lunch. Then I had a new experience. As I pulled out of the parking spot I could feel the front tires sliding across the pavement. With the track alignment there's 3 degrees of camber in the front so that wasn't totally unexpected. When I pulled out of the parking lot I gave the car a reasonable amount of throttle but the rear end slid out like I hit a patch of ice. I decided to take an easy drive to wear the mold release off the tires before I pushed my luck anymore.
Since I'm probably not going to be doing track days anymore I'm going to have the alignment put back to stock or an at least closer to stock. I don't see any reason to run -3/-2.5 degrees of camber on a street car. I'll probably shoot for -1.5/-1.0. The C8s seem to like a little more camber in the front to reduce the factory understeer. The reduced camber in the rear should help it launch harder too. ;^)
It's been a while since I last posted. A few months ago I purchased a used transparent top. I really like the way it brightens up the all black interior. I didn't like how it broke up the roofline though. I saw a few people have had the roof rail portion of the top painted to match their cars and like it but thought it would be cool to just have the transparent portion of the roof left unpainted. I found a local shop to do the work and it came out great.
I also decided that I really want an exhaust for my car. I drive with the exhaust in Track mode all of the time and honestly even that is too quiet in the cabin most of the time. A couple guys in the area let me take a ride with them so I could hear the exhausts I was looking at in person. The first guy had the Corsa and I thought that it was too loud and the tone was really harsh. Another guy had the Borla S-Type on his car and I really liked it. It is louder that stock but not too much and the tone is deeper but never harsh. I'm working on a deal for one as I type.
I found a good deal on a Borla S-Type cat back for my car last week and it arrived on Saturday. I spent about 8 hours over the last two days getting it installed. You have to remove the rear bumper cover, a couple belly pans and and access panel in the trunk to get to the exhaust system. It honestly wouldn't have been a bad job but there were three sticking points. First, the bottom nut on the right side flange is really hard to reach. I wound up snaking my hand through a 4" square hole and turning a ratchet one tooth at a time until it was almost completely off the stud. Second, you have to disconnect the connectors to the AFM valves on the crosspipes. Borla said to do it before you disconnect the flanges. The right side was relatively easy. The left side was facing forward and could only be reached from the back of the car. The problem is that the connectors have a tab that has to be pulled out and the pinched to release the connector. It took me over an hour of trying every tool I could think of to push the tab out of the connector before I gave up and decided to remove the hangers and drop the back of the exhaust down so I could get better access. Third, the heat shields that Borla provided are really tight , maybe too tight. I wound up buying a couple longer bolts so that I could get the bottom two to start into their mounts.
Anyway, a friend came by this morning and loaned me his code reader so that I could recalibrate the valve servos.
While I had it all torn apart I installed an Attack Blue filter which is supposed to help it breathe a little better and introduce a little more intake noise.
I got it all buttoned up and took it for a test drive. In short, it sounds amazing. This is how a 500 hp sports car is supposed to sound.
