'05 Vette build thread

[tones2SS]

Nice toolbox. Your G8 looks great too. Love the upgrade.

[bonecrrusher]

I am still alive - havent worked on any car projects lately... lol.

I refinished one of my bathrooms - new paint, hardware, faucets, etc... That took up way too much of my time.

This weekend I finished upsome projects in garage.

First I bought another Gladiator shelving unit from Lowes - they price matched a competitor that had it online -and they beat that price by 10% - saved me $80 bucks off.

Also - I went on vacation to Pigeon Forge TN a few weeks back and stopped by some antique stores - and noticed a lot of them had reproduction vintage signs - so I picked up a Texaco one, as well as a cool Pontiac service one. The Chevrolet ones had crappy colors/ I just didn't like them.

Third - I picked up an portable AC unit for my garage about a month ago - Newegg.com had them on clearence - so I said what the hell, why not. I tested it out first by opening up the garage door first and letting it run the exhaust tube out to make sure it worked - it cooled off the work area by a few degrees. That made me happy - so I ponied up and got a metal dryer vent off the internet, and got some dryer vent ducting from Lowes, and plenty of caulk - and cut a hole in my house! Now to get to the ducting - I trimmed the think plywood that is up in my garage covering the walls - this lead me to discovering that the entire wall has insulation in it - bonus! I finished up this project tonight and now have the portable ac unit.

Fourth - I have had an air compressor sitting in my garage for the last 7 months or so - and my parents where in town visiting on vacation. My father is an electrician/maintenance supervisor in his work life - so I asked him to help me run 220 for the Compressor - and after a few hours, and a few sparks flying - we got the AC compressor fully wired up properly and building pressure! We also ran another 110 outlet on the wall - since my garage only had 2 separate outlets in it! My next project will be to get a retractable air hose reel - and mount that on the back wall.

Now for teh pics!

[bonecrrusher]

Been awhile since I've made any updates here.

Life's been busy - between work, car mods, working on the shop, and going to car events - its been a crazy month or too.

First - shop updates - I got the air compressor wired up a few weeks back - but I never got a hose reel for it.

After a few trips to Harbor Freight/Lowes - I got the fittings all straightened up. I learned that they sell automotive size hose fittings as well as industrial size!

This led to more trips that I want to admit to the air hose sections of Lowes and Harbor Freight. I bought/returned so many fittings - male/female adapters - that I actually bought an entire set of wrong size fittings and didn't even realize it.

After I finally got all of the fittings straigtened out - I went to Harbor Freight and bought a 50' section of 3/8" air hose reel setup. After talking it over with Eric (woody80z28) above - I got a 2"x10"x8" from Lowes - and cut it the size that I needed. Mounted it to the studs in the wall - then drilled pilot holes into the 2x10 - and into the wall behind behind the board - painted it - then mounted the Air Hose reel with 3"x1/2" lag bolts - getting the holes and everything lined up was a bit tricky - but I got everything mounted:





Second - Car update.

After hearing my GF's father's 07 Z06 with a Corsa Exhaust - I got really jealous of that system.

I already own a Corsa exhaust system on my G8 GT - and man I thought that car sounded good, hearing in on that Z06 made me really want to upgrade.

So I scoured corvettefourm.com, and ebay for awhile - I found one exhaust kit - but the owner sold it, I found another set on ebay for $550 shipped! Now these exhaust kits retail for $1800+ shipping!

So after the SLOWEST shipping ever - the guy shipped it from NYC to Charlotte via USPS snail mail - I received the exhaust 3 weeks after I ordered it!

Install pics - then vid:







Third - car events:

I have been to a few car events in the Charlotte area in the last couple of weeks.

First I went to the Open House up @ DSE on the Friday of Good Guys Charlotte - I saw some very cool projects at there shop and a few cool cars in the parking lot.




Rest of my DSE Shop pics here: http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/n...0House%202012/

Then I went to Good Guys Charlotte on Sunday as part of there Super Sunday package.

I saw some friends and some cool cars out on the Autox





Rest of the Good Guys pics Here: http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/n...rlotte%202012/

Last - I participated in the local SCCA autocross event @ Zmax Dragway this past weekend.

I saw Mike with his Duster there - he did pretty good as he beat my times.

This has been the first time that I autocrossed in over a year - and I have a set of Michelin Pilot Sport Cups on the back that are very worn - I was having a hell of a time getting traction out back when I was gassing it through the corners - it basically felt like a drift car and I was steering the car with the throttle. My times dropped throughout the day - and I manged to kill a few cones.

I actually finished second in Super Stock - Street Prepared at the event - I supposedly got a trophy but I had to leave when the last group was running due to other plans.

Pics and Vids below:





Rest of my pics from the Autocross: http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/n...20Zmax%202012/

[Al Moreno]

Thanks for sharing the pics The Vette sounds scarey gnarly!

[bonecrrusher]

Happy holidays everyone!

I had a great Thanksgiving - and of course did some Black Friday shopping.

I think the secret for guys to go shopping on Black Friday.... is to go shopping for tools!

There where no lines at Lowes/Home Depot/Harbor Freight - and the Craftsman deep well impact sockets that I ordered - I ordered on line!

It made for a very easy BF for me.

As part of BF - Charlotte Motor Speedway has a big blowout event selling all the left over Nascar gear. They also offer you to go paced laps around the track.

The trick of it is - if you hang back you pretty much can go wide open. I went with my Corvette club again - and went for 2 sessions.

The max speed that I got this year was 133 mph that I verified with my GPS.

Of course - heres the vid:

[bonecrrusher]

The video below too wayyy to long to figure out how to get working correctly!

Now for the details:

I have an OBDII bluetooth scanner that I bought on ebay - it was like 10 bucks shipped from China (of course).

I have an Android phone running ICS - there is an app thought I bought on the Play store called Torque - it was 5 bucks.

I actually data logged the entire run - and finally got the data to import into video software correctly.

I logged the RPM, Speedo, G force, and various other gauges that you want. The app saves it as a .CSV file that you can open up in Excel.

I used the pc application Race Render 2 - and it will compile the go pro video - and sync up with the Excel .CSV file - and allow you to throw gauges onto your video.

After 2 days of screwing around with the video - I finally got it working!

Now for the same video above w/ gauges!

[bonecrrusher]

Still keeping busy around here.

I ended up selling the z06 exhaust mufflers and the wireless vacuum kit I had on the car on Craigslist. I listed them as soon as I put the Corsa's on.

I used that money to buy new set of rear tires.

The set of Pilot Sport Cups that I had put on previously where used - and well they are down to the wear bars after the Power Tour and a few Autocrosses this year.

Tirerack had a deal with these being over half off.

Talking about steam rollers - I ended up getting a set of 345x30x19's that will fit onto the stock z06 rear wheels.

Pics:





Also another shop update:

I ended up needing some more storage in the garage - so I shopped around on Cyber Monday and saw some competing storage units and sizes from Gladiator Garageworks - I ended up shopping at Sears and buying there 30x30x12 units for about $90 a piece. I had to buy some more of there wall track system - but I bought that at Lowe's since they have a cheaper price there.

I have probably 3 free feet on the the track system - I might pick up another overhead box - not really sure.

I also picked up a beer bottle opener @ Sears when I ordered the shelving units - pic of the first beer opened up w/ it.

I also shopped around for a retractable electric cord real - and found this one at Home Depot - well, initially.

I had gone to there store to check it out and buy it - but I didnt realize that they only sold it online! Ugh!

So I went home and tried to order it - and ended up being out of stock.

After a big of shopping using Google - I found it cheaper and w/ free shipping from a hardware store out in Oregon.

I ended up attaching it to the wall next to where I had mounted the air hose reel. Now I've got 30' feet of electrical cord as well.

Pics:

[Garage Dog 65]

Congrats !

The cars, the tires, the garage - all way cool !!!

Nothing better than having a great place to work and hang out - and maybe drink a beer or two !



Continued success !

Jim

[bonecrrusher]

Its been a crazy holiday season - I worked a ton, traveled to Chicago for Christmas - came back to Charlotte and had been slammed ever since.

I got a Porter Cable buffer for Christmas - I will be trying that out on the G8 and the Vette in the spring.

A couple weeks before Christmas - I got a line on a Maxjax Lift that was NIB and had never been installed.

So through a buddy I contacted the owner and asked more details about it.

He had bought the lift - let it sit for a year, and never installed it.

He was buying some Forged 360 wheels - and was willing to part with the lift.

After negotiating a price. and waiting for my buddy to be free with his pickup - we headed up to the guys house and came home with a lift in the bed.

I plan on installing this before spring - right now its stupid cold and I need to figure out where I am going to put the bolting holes in the floor.

Some pics:

[bonecrrusher]

I have a few updates here - to the shop, the G8, and the Vette!

First of all - the week of Christmas my garage door opener was having some issues - the door would only open about a foot - and would not go any higher. So I called my local garage door company and they where going to send a guy out. The Door tech called me - and since it was a really cold and rainy day - and it was late in the evening he asked me what was going on - told him the problem and he said just turn up the force adjuster knob on the opener to one mark higher. Did that and bam - the door started working again. Since it was crappy weather and late out - the guy didn't want to come out, that saved me the $90
for the service call.

A couple weeks later the plastic gear inside the opener ground itself into oblivion and covered the garage in plastic dust - and the garage door stopped opening again. At the point I wasn't comfortable working on openers - I looked up the part - that plastic gear was $30 plus another $90 service call.

So at this point I would have been $210 in fixing an old 13 year old crap Craftsman opener - the original one to the house. So I started looking up the Liftmaster 3800 online. I called 2 companies about that model and to see how much it would be installed - cheapest quote I got was $900. I said screw that and started to read the instructions several times and started thinking to myself - hey, I can install that on my own. I first found the opener on Amazon for $350+ shipping - I thought that wasnt a bad deal. Then I checked on Ebay and found it for $270 - and free shipping.

I bought it on a Monday - and it arrived here on Thursday from CT - not a bad shipping time at all.

So one LONG Saturday with the help of a buddy - we installed the new opener. The opener install itself probably took 30 minutes - the long part was running all new electrical wires for the 2 sensors, the lock that bolts to the track, the opener button on the wall - and for the remote power source kit that they sell.

I compared running more conduit, the wire, another electrical box, the outlet itself - and the l brackets and condiut adapters - my price was $40 from the hardware store.

I looked up there remote power unit - and got that on ebay for $22 with free shipping.

So for around $300 I got the garage door working again - and well just happen to be installing a lift - so I gained another foot in room from the ceiling!

I took the old opener down the following weekend - and well you can see my thought there.

Now for teh pics:







G8 Update - the Doorman TPMS sensors that I ordered and installed just over a year ago - I had 2 of them crap out on me in one week! They started reading 180psi - or just nothing at all! RockAuto had a limited lifetime warranty on them - and I contacted the manufacturer about them - I unfortunately couldn't get them refunded - just a replacment unit - I wasnt going to put there crap product on my car since its $32 to dismount each tire - I just had Discount Tire replace them with there units.

So yeah - I do not reccomend Dorman TPMS units...

Pic:



Corvette update - when I attended the Run thru the Hills event 2 years ago - I promised myself that I was going to buy new rear tires, and new swaybars - well as you can scroll back I already got the tires. I almost bought these on Black Friday - they where $150 off retail price - well I am glad that I didnt since I used that money for the purchase of the lift.

I just happened to look on Ebay for these Pfadt heavy duty racing swaybars - I found them for $300 cheaper then that Black Friday deal!

Yes they are used - but they are in great shape!

These have 3 levels of adjustablity per swaybar - and have those splined Nascar ends that DSE uses.

I plan on installing these after the lift.

Pic: