Cordell

Finding a manual would've been a needle in a haystack. I sure haven't seen more then 2-3, and by the end of that body style they weren't even an option anymore. Nice beater Clay, there are many times I miss my beater S10s. So much good comes from having a truck like this.

Thanks

I'll be happy with 11s, I don't think it'll ever cut a decent 60' the way I have it.

Definitely.

What are stock injectors worth? I have 2 sets.

You're welcome for the selfie dick, thanks.

Disclaimer: This will be a long post about everything I've done to my Corvette. I picked up my 1997 Corvette 3.5 years ago. I bought it after selling my turbo Miata, while the Miata was fun it was also gay. I loved the handling, but I hated the cramped little thing, and it wasn't enjoyable for me to drive it other then autocross or twisty roads. Being an LS guy and a GM technician the Corvette made a lot more sense. What I wanted was a car in good condition to match my Camaro. So I found this one with 50k miles, white with black interior, six speed car. In the first few years I was tempted to sell it, but I'm glad I didn't and I'm sure I'll have this one a long time. After having the Camaro modded and remodded into many different combinations, I decided that I needed realistic goals for the Corvette. Not only to save money, but because I wanted to keep from modding this car to be good at one thing at the expense of other aspects of the car. I like a big cam and nitrous in an f-body, and a Camaro that's a little obnoxious and unrefined is fine with me. A Corvette in my opinion should be more of a sports car then a muscle car and feel more refined, being a good all around car. So my goals became simple, improve the car's acceleration, braking, and handling without taking away from anything else. This is to be a street car first. Suspension When it comes to suspension it's really to easy to make a car ride horrible on the street. While coilovers are cool and there are a ton of options for any Corvette, I decided to stick with the leaf springs. However the stock FE1 base C5 stuff isn't great. It made a lot of sense for me to use the factory C5 Z06 FE4 parts, so C5Z shocks and springs went in and a set of C6 Z06 sway bars went on. This made the car much better without any harshness, however the stiffer set up makes it harder to launch at the track. Wheels/Tires/Brakes The stock "wagon wheels" are not a very good looking wheel to begin with, and there's much more room for wider rubber in the wheel wells then these could provide. The stock brakes on a C5 are pretty good, mine needed a total refresh, and even after doing new pads and rotors and fluid, I was not satisfied. I have always thought "big brake" kits looked cool but it has to work well too. There are no shortage of options and parts here either. Wilwood makes it's fair share of options too, but the 6 piston front calipers and 4 piston rears that are designed to fit the stock C6 Z06 rotors are what I used. This gave me 14 inch fronts and 13.4 inch rear rotors, along with the stainless lines, and now the car has no trouble slowing without fade. Tires play such a big role in performance, so as much rubber as I could get easily under the car was my goal. I picked up 4 18x10.5 C5Z rear wheels and used those on all 4 corners, with 285s front and 295s rear the car can now take advantage of those suspension and brake upgrades with more grip. It has Nitto NT05s on it now, but that will change as there are much better options out there. It's worth noting that stock the car went 13.0, with only headers and tune bumping power, I can only think that the extra rotating mass is what has hurt the dragstrip performance. It's about 13.2x at this point. Driveline Nothing very fancy going on here. The stock clutch and hydraulics were in poor condition when I bought the car, so a Monster stage 2 clutch and Tick Master cylinder went in the car, along with new slave and remote bleeder. The master cylinder makes such a huge difference in clutch performance and makes banging gears with the MGW shifter much easier. Everything else is stock. I don't have big power numbers in mind, or hard drag strip launches so the factory Corvette trans/diff/axles should be just fine. Power Everybody's favorite part, including mine. I have installed longtube headers, off-road x-pipe, and Corsa sport mufflers with tigershark tips. The exhaust note gets many nice compliments and I love it, not too loud cruising, nice sound at idle, but when you're into it the car screams. Then there is the A&A supercharger set up. This has been my most recent upgrade. It's awesome how linear the power is and still drives like stock, making 521rwhp/498rwtq. Obviously this is what wakes the car up. There are a few supporting mods like a Mighty Mouse catch can set up, full return fuel system with boost referenced regulator, and an upgraded stock diameter balancer. Tuning Some of you may know that I tune my own cars. The 97-98 cars in general have a bad reputation, and one of those reasons is the stock computer. I originally wanted to use EFILive the way I did with the Camaro, but their scanner gives you false data on a 97-98 PCM (as I found out when I tried to do it this way). I considered repinning the PCM and using the 99 and up 411 PCM, this seemed like overkill in this case but not a bad option. So the best option was HPTuners, and even though there is a custom OS for a 2bar I decided to use a mini-AFC and keep the MAF. With a few pointers from Dyno Brian, this thing drives like stock with the stock 97 PCM and stock MAF. Summary So I've accomplished my goals, and while I won't stop working on the car, the major things I wanted to do are done. It goes a whole lot better, stops great, and handles good. I really have a blast driving the car. I have some cosmetic things to fix. I need to decide what to do about the seats (stock C5 seats are not great), if I rebuild them, or find a good aftermarket seat. Anyway here's some pictures. http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1000&pictureid=9028 http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1000&pictureid=9029 http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1000&pictureid=9026

Best answer in this thread :thumbup:

I haven't tried very many different aftermarket pads, but I had a set of power stop pads I put on the Vette when I got it and I could never keep the noise away. They worked decent for cheaper pads. Machined the rotors and installed some Hawk Performance Ceramics, they were worse fading in autocross. Threw the whole mess away and upgraded to bigger Wilwood brakes all around, and I have been using the Wilwood polymatrix street pads that came with it. No complaints on those, been quiet and fairly low dust, but it's pretty much apples to oranges. On my Camaro I used a set of Hawk HPS pads on quality stock replacement rotors, low dust, good street pad. Had a very good experience with those, been on the car for 5-6 years. Found fade on the stock pads a few times, but short of some high speed stops street racing or at the drag strip (where I have plenty of room to stop) I don't abuse the brakes a ton on that car. I think Hawks are worth a look especially on a mostly street car. I've also known Carbotech to do well, I haven't personally tried them but it's what I will buy for the Corvette when I need some to fit the Wilwood calipers. I will be curious to hear your opinion of the Stoptechs if you use them.

I like the Cadillacs, but the SS really does something for me. Any of them would be cool cars to have. I can certainly see not liking the BMW, every one I've ever driven did nothing for me, I just don't get the hype.

Gm claims it's a Cadillac exclusive engine. They are doing that with a few RPO engines now. I have to do the training on them because GM doesn't separate brands on their training anymore, but they have been clear this is all they're using them in. I beleive they have a couple TT V6s like this, honestly I don't even try to keep it all straight.

It happens with all of them. I've seen C6s have issues too. This is why mine has a remote bleeder and gets flushed out with Motul brake fluid once a year. I also have a tick master that works alot better then the stock shit.

I know I'm out of the loop, but is that supposed to invite street racing to an empty parking lot? This seems like such a good idea

I may be the minority, but I could care less for Youtube. Obviously I use it, it's just too popular not to, but I'm not attached to it. I used to feel that way about Pandora, then I got Amazon unlimited streaming for the same money I was paying for commercial free Pandora. Youtube is kind of an apples to oranges comparison but when something better comes along people will not have any loyalty, especially when they're fucking ads bog it down. Full disclosure, I have an issue paying a company to go ad free when they let you upload your own videos. Other streaming services that started out more recently were obviously about profit, and YouTube started out as a way to share videos. I feel taken advantage of and certainly have no issues paying someone else.

So here's my take on it, if they don't make some money they won't make the shows. As someone who is tired of advertisement infested media I gladly pay them a fee. I have cut my home entertainment budget in half recently by dropping DirecTV, subscribing to Sling and watching everything on a Roku box. I actually subscribed to Motor Trend On Demand last month as well, the app isn't the greatest but there is plenty on there for $5 a month. Now I have most of the shows that were on Velocity channel. It seems like most people I know are using something jail broken and not paying anything but where does that lead us? Eventually it will just get harder for these shows to get made. I'm curious to see how things evolve because it's going to continue to change as fast as ever. It seems like just yesterday I was looking forward to print magazines showing up, but any I liked are all gone.

This is a car that looks good and sounds good. Hope it goes to a good home. Anyone who has seen Casey's cars over the years will know they are taken care of. If I had room for another car I'd seriously consider this one.

I hate you. Supras are the coolest thing Toyota ever made, still sound like crap.

The reality of this scenario working is that you have to find a dealer with a big profit margin on whatever you're buying. Not necessarily easy to find, and in most cases means they spent little to no money prepping it for sale. I've worked at places like this, and it usually means you have pissed off customers when the check engine light comes back on, or the brakes are worn out at their first oil change. Of course this is the time of year for that crap, shady sales managers are saving all the money they can to make those "tax refund dreams" come true.

I'm up in Detroit today, they don't drive any better.

You simply need to determine how upside down you are. If it's not horrible maybe you could sell it yourself and save some of the hit you'd get trading it in. I've been in this situation a couple times myself. One time I rolled the negatives equity into the next vehicle, that sucked. The other time I sold the car and coughed up the $1k extra to cover my payoff, much better financially.

$10 so sales people can try and sell me a car? I think I'll pass. Something I really want to see I'll go to the dealership and see it for free.

Better cough up $1k+, sorry man it's not 1999 anymore. I haven't seen anything under $800 that didn't need some real work in a long time. $500 will get you complete crap.

It's an L76, main difference being displacement on demand, but basically LS2 spec.

I can definitely get down with that. GM has been doing some 2 tone stuff but most of it has been brown and tan :barf:

Excellent tip Rick, appreciate the info.