Grassroots Style Super Car (C6 Z06 ownership thread)

So about a year ago I had my long time MR2 project and picked up an e90 BMW wagon. I bought the car wrecked and rebuilt it wht the intention of putting a 335i turbo motor in it. Some of you may remember the thread.  I got the car fixed, did all of the paint and body, and bought a parts car to start the swap. Turned out the parts car was junk, but I ended up being able to make my money back and get out of the hole. That kind of put a sour taste in my mouth for the project. Meanwhile someone made me an offer for the MR2 I couldn't refuse. I had turned it into a little too "boy racer" for my 30 something tastes these days and I decided to move on. Shortly thereafter a fellow BMW friend of mine had been lusting after the wagon and already had a 335 parts car. So I let him have it. 

That brings us to 6 months ago. I've always lusted after the C6 z06 and had the intention of buying one and finally "manning up" after selling my two projects. Unfortunately after selling my cars I couldn't really bring myself to pull the $30+k trigger. I found one locally and almost bought it until the guy sold it out from under me the day before I went to pick it up. Fast forward to this past week. Super cheap Z pops up on Facebook and I get in touch with the guy. We set up a time and I'm glad to say I'm the proud new owner of a 2008 C6 Z06 with 73k miles. 

Now, as I said. This is a grassroots super car. The car has a branded title from hitting a tree. I actually saw the car go across the auction block when it got sold by the insurance company. The previous owner, before the wreck, used it for what I'm assuming was some road racing, autocross, or something. It's got Koni shocks, camber bolts, and a few other goodies. 

So it begins.... 

I live in charlotte. The car was in Greenville SC. It was rainy and ~40 deg F yesterday. This car has 505hp, no rear tires, a HORRENDOUS alignment, and the state of SC must be diverting federal funds to do anything but fix I85. Despite all this I persevere and get home and drive it immediately to my local alignment shop where I find out the it has a bent knuckle and right upper control arm..... Sigh. 

New control arm and upright ar on the way. Thank god it's still a GM. $150 later and I'll take it back to the alignment shop when I get the parts back. 

Stay tuned. This was likely the cheapest C6 Z in the country and should be interesting. 

This is your E30 on 325/30/19's. 

Hell yeah!  C6Z is a monster, definitely in for following your adventure.

Nice!  I've instructed people in these and they're crazy fast cars

Nice, great looking car. What are your plans for it?

In reply to rico750sxi_2 :

My plans are to terrorize my neighbors with it and troll "traditional" corvette owners with it's lack of "heritage" and commerative floor mats.

Nothing really. Just try to have a properly sortered albeit sketchy truly powerful car. I spend more time wrenching on my cars than driving them and I tend to go through them quickly. I'd like to enjoy this and actually try and keep it for a while. I don't think I can get any more HP per $ anyways.

How extensive was the tree damage?

This is cool. A C5 Z06 in Electron Blue is one of my realistic dream cars, and I've also debated pulling the trigger a number of times but haven't yet. I'll definitely be following along. 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

First day of ownership. Suspension parts on the way, downloaded a service manual, and applied 100th anniversary stick on front badge from China. Screw paying $60 for one from the dealer. Didn't get much work done today. You can see the headlight covers have crazing. I plan on replacing those eventually and will paint the housing black in the process.

Alright first actual update. I got to mess with the car a little this afternoon. A little background, when I picked up the car the owner said that he had some sort of intermittent electrical issue where it wouldn't start. However when he tried it fired right off and didn't have any problems. However it threw about a million codes in the process, but it drove home fine. It did have a mind of its own every time I restarted it. It would move the seat, mirrors etc. The guy seemed to think it had something to do with and obd scanner or something. The car has an auto blipper for downshifts that connects to the pedals and OBD port. It also has an AEM Wideband that runs through the same area.

Today I was messing around and looking under the dash at some of the wiring and went to scan the codes. Hit the start button, no start, no crank. All the electrics die and restart. Much like you've probably seen with a dead batter or bad ground. I went and cleaned the negative terminal and nothing changed. I know the C5's had some issues with grounds so that's what I'm looking into now. 

That's when I stopped to go sell the extra rear wheels that came with the car. Now it owes me $200 less. 

I would almost bet you money that car came out of Charleston SC originally. I may know the guy that put it in a tree on a rainy morning on the way to work. If not, it's damn near the same car. 

Ohhhh really... This car had SCCA SC stickers all over it. It also was sold at the Copart auction in Savannah, so chances are you are right. How do you know said person?

Also. Internet says these cars are prone to melting the starter coils and creating electrical issues

In reply to Nofive_0 :

Said person is a SCCA member here in town. Use to autocross regularly. Now mostly runs track days with NASA. He bought another Z06 to replace that one. 

IIRC, he had some electrical issues with that car before he bent it. I'll point him toward this thread. 

Looks like the starter is likely my issue. on the Z06 there is only one ground point at the back of the car, and the power goes straight from battery to coil. Thus if your coil starts to melt itself away from the car you would get symptoms of no more battery power. 

yeah, with a fiberglass body the grounding strategy is a little different.  Couldn't hurt to run a few extras, maybe one from block to frame, one from frame to B(-) plus others as you see fit.  it sounds like you are on the right path already. 

No joy from the starter. I did some more research and seems like this is a pretty common issue with the BCM-wiring-fuesbox, and crank relay. So it would appear that I'm chasing down some mystery electrical gremlin. Going to take steel wool to fuses, connectors, etc. and I've ordered new relays. 

Also went to take the front wheel off last night and Daaaaamnit. 

Looks like I'm off to find a key. Yes I've checked the glovebox.

In reply to Nofive_0 :

would be awesome if Toyman could reach out to the PO and he still had the key!

Nofive_0 said:

No joy from the starter. I did some more research and seems like this is a pretty common issue with the BCM-wiring-fuesbox, and crank relay. So it would appear that I'm chasing down some mystery electrical gremlin. Going to take steel wool to fuses, connectors, etc. and I've ordered new relays. 

Also went to take the front wheel off last night and Daaaaamnit. 

Looks like I'm off to find a key. Yes I've checked the glovebox.

Any tire shop should have that key. Looks identical to the 6 spline tuner lugs that most tire shops sell. Discount Tire in particular.

That look a bit like the "locking" lug nuts I've had in the past where a single spline is missing from the standard splined lug nuts. If that's the case it's a generic tool available online for like $7. If it's actually keyed, some online sources say a 17mm 6-point deep socket will fit right over it and turn. You could try any 6- and 12-point sockets on it, see which ones work well enough to turn it. Get replacement lug nuts in the meantime so you can put the new ones on once you have these off.

Nofive_0 said:

No joy from the starter. I did some more research and seems like this is a pretty common issue with the BCM-wiring-fuesbox, and crank relay. So it would appear that I'm chasing down some mystery electrical gremlin. Going to take steel wool to fuses, connectors, etc. and I've ordered new relays. 

Also went to take the front wheel off last night and Daaaaamnit. 

Looks like I'm off to find a key. Yes I've checked the glovebox.

I assume it is an actual lock and not just spline drive nuts. I.E. 4 regular nuts and 1 of these per wheel. If every one is like this and they are evenly spaced splines (spline drive lug nuts) the tool is worth buying. 

I've removed locking lug nuts of this and several other styles by hammering a 12 point 1/2" drive socket over the lock. It just needs to bite the harder socket into the softer nut. Don't try and get it all the way on 1/4" is usually plenty of bite.  Start with ones that are too big and use the first one that won't just slip over the lock.  It works great and hasn't ever broken any of my sockets. 

So, I reached out to the PO. His response to it turning up here was less than enthusiast. As in, "I don't care. I don't want to ever have anything to do with that car ever again." 

Apparently sometime between the insurance auction and Nofive_0 buying it, there was a owner that was a real piece of work and ended up with his contact information. It got to the point the PO ended up calling for a restraining order against the person to never call or contact him in any way for any reason. Apparently lots of 2am phone calls and texts and pretty much constant harassment. 

I guess you are stuck with us. 

Toyman01 said:

So, I reached out to the PO. His response to it turning up here was less than enthusiast. As in, "I don't care. I don't want to ever have anything to do with that car ever again." 

Apparently sometime between the insurance auction and Nofive_0 buying it, there was a owner that was a real piece of work and ended up with his contact information. It got to the point the PO ended up calling for a restraining order against the person to never call or contact him in any way for any reason. Apparently lots of 2am phone calls and texts and pretty much constant harassment. 

I guess you are stuck with us. 

Interesting. The best I can tell there were two people in between myself and the person that wrecked it. One guy that bought it at Copart and "fixed" it. Then the guy that I bought it from. I found the bill of sale from the previous owner, it was only dated a few weeks before I bought it. So I'm imagining that the person that had it before was the aforementioned offender. I don't blame the PO for not wanting to be involved. As a person who buys and sells lots of cars I generally make it very clear when someone drives off in my latest ~$3k project car that it is theirs now and I'm not a warranty service. I don't mind fielding questions like "hey did you replace xyz" but not "hey the car is making a weird squeaking noise after I ran it into a curb, what kind of POS did you sell me."

Anyways. I went to O'reily last night on my way home and grabbed the first lug key that looked liked what I have. In a stroke of luck it worked perfectly and was $8. 

Suspension: so when I first got the car I took it to an alignment shop and the tech seemed very certain that the knuckle was bent. So I ordered a replacement knuckle and upper control arm. I pulled that stuff off last night and it doesn't really look bent, and now I'm worried that it might be the lower control arm that is bent, or the tech was just wrong and couldn't figure out the LCA eccentrics. Regardless, pickle fork tore the LBJ and the outer tie rod was pretty destroyed. So I amazon primed replacements and they'll be here Saturday and I'll put it back together and take it to the alignment shop if I can ever get it to crank.

Electrical: Tried a few things. Cleaned the hot terminals to the fusebox, split the fusebox and decoupled it from the wires, physically touched all of the wires under the fusebox and inspected them, pulled relays and fuses out cleaned, inspected and tested. Inspected fuses and relay in BCM. Removed the "blip shift" kit as it uses wire taps to connect in between clutch, brake, throttle, and BCM. Wires had damage from the blip shift, but still looked in tact. I haven't gone so far as to test them back at the bcm. Jumped the starter relay and the car cranks. So, I either have something wrong with the BCM, or some intermittent electrical connection from starter switch to starter.

BCM can be replaced for fairly inexpensvely and seems like a common problem. Issue is that I don't have the software to program it. I can get what's necessary for ~$100 plus a $40 subscription from ACDELCO for programming, but there is no guarantee that all of that will fix it. It also hurts the cheap bastard inside me to buy specialty tools for one pupose. Although, my daily is a 2015 Chevy volt and having a dealer level diagnostic tool for that car wouldn't be a bad idea despite the fact that I've done zero to it for the 2 years I've owned it.

I'll do some research today although I don't really see another option. Wife is out of town so I can spend all weekend poking it and the E30. 

Do yourself a huge favor and get a better ball joint tool. Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/OTC-6297-Ball-Joint-Separator/dp/B0015PN010

works well for some ball joints but the yoke style works better on others. Any of them is worlds better than bashing the heck out of your ball joints and boots with a pickle fork. 

Well it seems that drinking beer and poking around has fixed it. Took the bcm out, cleaned the contacts, and tested the relays. Bam. 

However I still get all of the error messages for some reason. I'll look into that tomorrow. In the meantime I have a new set of Cooper's that came in for the rear. I ordered a factory replica diagnostic tool, and my suspension parts will be here tomorrow.

That is a lot of rubber. My tire machine will barely mount those and I can't get them on the balancer at all. Tire cost is my main hold up from buying a Corvette. The 275s on the G35 tires are painful enough.