Last autocross of the season today. A brisk 50-60F today and I could not get my endurance 200tw to light off. Still a reasonable performance. 2nd in class and 4th on raw time overall. That puts me in 2nd for season points this year.
Now its time to start winterizing the car. Get some antifreeze back in it, change the oil and maybe wrap up a few parts installs before the weather makes it unpleasant to be out in the garage. I have a wishlist for black friday that I'll be shopping for.
My firesuit came in today. Its a used indycar crew suit from raceimage. I've been watching their inventory since summer for one with the right dimensions.
Is that a Trible next to you?
DrMikeCSI said:Is that a Trible next to you?
What are you talking about? Tribbles are prohibited under Star Fleet regulations for transportation of dangerous organisms.
I don't think your home sub-woofer is big enough, it's like you are not even trying.
/s
Got my trackspec 4pt bar installed. Rudz Racing did the install for me. Anyone want to buy a BK harness bar?
Awesome Build. Fun to see your progression.
Today I finished up a late c6 brake conversion. The c5 master cylinder places the mc seal right over the hole that goes to the ABS system. So under hard braking on the track it erodes the mc seals. It'll start having the pedal sink to the floor at stoplights. Then you get sudden brake failure at the track. The fix is a brake booster and master from a 09+ c6. The firewall is identical to the c6. The early c6 used the same crappy seal design, but with the zr1, we got a much better master cylinder design.
Here's the parts list for the conversion 97-00 has a different setup from 01-04, check the tabs
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C_pQ5dWDM3KGUW0dqbfYSsMKJdxLB6NOpp8hZTxSKw8/edit?usp=sharing
The process is a bit of a PITA. The four bolts for the booster are buried deep under the dash. There is also a pin holding the booster to the brake pedal. You'll need a 15mm on a long wobble extension. Take the seat out to do this. Topside the MC is just two bolts and then you can open the brake lines to the ABS. I left the system sealed until I had the new booster in and was ready to install so it didn't leak all over.
Booster install, you want to secure the nuts into the socket. I used a bit of teflon tape wrapped around the nut to make it snug. The rest of the lines are pretty easy. I ran them along the windshield cleaner tank. That gives you more clearance around the headers and less heat too. Since the early c5 have a factory proportioning valve, its easy to add an adjustable one. I also took the opportunity to replace all the stainless brake lines on my wilwoods. They're probably 10-15 years old by my best guess.
A long pressure bleed later I have a firm and high pedal again.
This weekend I did suspension v2 on the front of the car
I've been avoiding this for ages, but this is the largest window I'll have to work on the car before events start in earnest and since it'll need realigned it has to happen at once. The worst thing about all of this is all of the bushing press outwards. It makes access a pita. I got one of those big C clamp kits and tried my best but ended up having to go over to a buddy's house where he had a shop press. Being able to stack cups vertically and have a set of hands to keep it aligned is a game changer.
Anyhow UCA weren't too bad. You can actually use a screw jack like you have in the back of many cars to push both out. Delrin almost seats by hand and a rubber mallet finished it and the dog bones that go in. The studs unfortunately didn't come with a specific depth recommendation and mount with red locktite. I just use the original bolt as a guide hopefully I won't be back with a torch to adjust them. I was able to get the upper ball joints out of the knuckles as well since you can press easily from the outside.
The LCA is the big issue. I couldn't fit my C arm in there and get my impact on it. The ball joints are a lot bigger too and need more force. A bearing puller kit allowed us to sqeeze in under the bushing and press from the outside. You use a socket or something similar to have a narrow drive element.
The sway bar, I'm a little concerned it will hit my coilovers. The strano bar is adjustable where so has a longer tab. I used the adjustable links to put it where I think it'll have the most clearance. I guess we'll find out.
I still need to pull out the rears and get them setup as well. Hopefully it should go quicker for round 2
I also did a start of the year tour of the car just before starting work on bushings.
This thread has gotten me unreasonably motivated to find a cheap C5 for HPDE work. How much did you pay for your example originally?
In reply to nsogiba :
$11k. Facebook marketplace or corvette forum seems to be the best place to hunt for deals. If you really want a prepped one, I see some deals pop up from time to time in the spec corvette FB group.
Interesting, that's what I paid for a bone stock unmolested '00 FRC with 100K on it in 2016.
I've been eyeing up banged up examples on IAAI and Copart which go for 5K for a crashed coupe up to 9-11K for a similar Z06
nsogiba said:Interesting, that's what I paid for a bone stock unmolested '00 FRC with 100K on it in 2016.
I've been eyeing up banged up examples on IAAI and Copart which go for 5K for a crashed coupe up to 9-11K for a similar Z06
yah, a salvage title probably would have been smarter in retrospect. However Illinois laws around it are really annoying. You have to be a dealer to bid and have a special license to be able to register it for the street again. C5's have been stable for quite a while other than general market forces. For that sort of spread I'd probably go z06. There are enough parts and resale to make it worth it. I'd see if you can find something with headers on it. Its common and these days its a choice between poorly fitting chinese stuff and American ones in the multi thousand dollar range.
So this weekend was frustrating. I finished up the rear delrin bushings. Luckily the rear is a lot easier as you can press them out either direction. Its even possible with the arms still on the car. I skipped the rear ball joints for now. They are in okay condition and I just wanted it back together for my first event next weekend.
The camber lockout kit presents some issues with delrin in the rear however. The rear bushing on the LCA has no adjustment on a C5. It just acts as a pivot for the front lca bushing. Trouble is that delrin has zero compliance. I could only get the AMT kit set to S1 in the rear and only on the front side of the bushing. The rear side is s2. Talking to some other folks, this is common. T2 seems to be the best that anyone with delrin has done. To fix it you're probably looking at moving to a spherical in the rear LCA or moving back to something with compliance like poly. Maybe one of the offset delrin bushings? Adding an adjuster isn't really an option as it shares the bolt for mounting the rear sway bar. For now I'm going to see what my alignment guy can do with it. I shouldn't need as much rear camber with the delrin bushings. Hopefully it works out. I think I aimed for -1.7 before. I should be good with -1.4 or so with stiffer bushings
https://www.shredjesse.com/sites/default/files/c5-corvettes/CorvetteAlignmentGuideRev20110912.pdf
I also finally installed my diff mount. I got one of those ebay copies of the AFE bridge style one. I have nothing but bad things to say about it. Its huge so annoying to get in. The pads require moving the rigid brake lines. The ebay one has counter sunk holes for the diff bolts that not only required me to hog out with a router to get a socket in, but required me to drop the subframe a bit to get the ratchet in. Don't buy this. The AMT one looks better. Trackspec also has one I'd buy first if I did it again.
Lastly I installed the Strano rear sway bar with new whiteline end links. Despite what whiteline tells you, I don't think the rears are right. I had to shorten then ALL the way to get to stock length. Plus the Strano bar didn't have anything to line up the bushings like the front did so centering it was a pain. Don't get the whiteline adjustable links for the rear.
I did a few other misc things. I plugged the holes in my floor around the cage install with butyl. Mostly to help keep exhaust gas out of the car, but it was noticably louder after the cage install. I also finally painted the front plate cover to match the car. Rattle can job, but it works well enough for a race car.
So now comes the annoying part. I buttoned up the rear and put the wheels on. Then went to do the same on the front. Wheels won't fit. wtf. Did the moog ball joints have a longer stud? After googling some stock images I realize that I pressed the upper ball joints in backward. Suddenly having to flip the UCA made sense. I thought I just remembered wrong. After struggling for a couple hours trying to press them out on the car with my c clamp, I gave up and went to my buddy's house to use his shop press this morning. Not a big job with the press. Just another half day wasted taking them out and flipping then reassembling. Ugg.
Well its done for now and ready to get aligned. I think I'll go to the test and tune on my old ns2r tires. Burn those up and swap over to the brand new P1's before my first proper track day. I need to see if my sway bars are set right now and adjust my brake bias. Next project is probably going to be mounting my front tow stap. I had to remove the solid hook with the front vents. That and get proper summer fluids back in for the track day.
The last week has been frustrating. I went out to test drive the car to make sure nothing was wrong on Wednesday. The battery was dead, so I throw it on the charger overnight and in the morning its still at 3.5v, so ex-battery. NBD, this is why I tested. So get a cheapie Walmart one since the long term plan is a etx18l agm powersport battery. Put it in, go drive on Thursday night and have and ABS error. I just had all my suspension apart including the ABS sensors, so I figure I missed one. Friday morning I pop the RR wheel off and find an unplugged sensor, but drive to get the alignment. I fixed one of the ABS errors, but I'm still getting C1255.
Friday night I come out to pack my car for the test and tune on Saturday and there is a puddle coming out from under the car. Uh oh. The brand new battery is leaking acid everywhere. I quickly pull the battery and then make a baking powder soup to pour over the area. Eventually all the foaming stops and I wash it out with water to dilute anything that might still be down there. Battery goes back to Walmart, but they are my only option for another as all stores are closed at this point.
So the c1255 code on a Corvette means an internal unit error. Three common issues that I hear about. 1) Its a grounding issue. c5's have terrible grounds 2) its a power board issue which is potentially repairable. There are some other compatible boards and you might get lucky with a broken solder joint or a blown cap. 3) is the logic board itself. Apparently they covered it in goop and it has these hairline wires on it that like to break. Its effectively non repairable. So far I've cleaned two of the grounds to no effect at this point. I've had an intermittant ABS error show up, but it always went away just restarting.
So now I'm at the point of maybe having to do some serious work on my ABS. Do I swap to a mk60 system? It seems the most well trod path for c5 abs. Do I swap in a c5 2001+ abs. There are detailed instructions for this, but I'd just be getting another ABS with potential ice mode. Do I see if I can find a used 98-00 abs? They are expensive and no gaurantee that they won't explode in a few months. Do I try and put in a s197 abs? I hear they are good, but I haven't seen anyone do it on a corvette year. Do I get something like the delta motorsport ABS?
Interested to hear if anyone has suggestions on troubleshooting or path forward for ABS. I'm a little worried about doing track days and flat spotting a tire.
In reply to theruleslawyer :
Maybe I missed it by reading too quickly, but have you cleared the error and driven now with the new new battery? Given the spontaneous leak from the old new battery, I could believe that it would potentially give electrical faults just on its own malfunction. Maybe it is blind optimism, but maybe that was the culprit?
cyow5 said:In reply to theruleslawyer :
Maybe I missed it by reading too quickly, but have you cleared the error and driven now with the new new battery? Given the spontaneous leak from the old new battery, I could believe that it would potentially give electrical faults just on its own malfunction. Maybe it is blind optimism, but maybe that was the culprit?
Yah, I cleared it. c1255 is a current code, even with some driving. Right now I have a couple next steps
I have until the 30th to cancel a 2 day track weekend I have setup on the 17-18th and get the majority of my money back. Unfortunely that's not a lot of time. 2 weekends to work on it.
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