Now it was time to make travel plans. I needed to get from Charlotte up to Milwaukee to pick it up. My plans were to travel with
my father who is retired now to help with driving duties. Im a terrible distance driver, after about 3 hours I jsut want to lay down and sleep. Its 950 miles from Milwaukee to Charlotte! The cheapest tickets were on Sunday so I bought those and off we went. Got in around 11:30 sunday morning. We picked up a rental car and headed to visit one of my uncles for the day. My father is the 12th of 13 kids!!!! So I have alot of uncles and aunts. my father being in his mid 60's now was excited to get an opportunity to see his brother again because none of them are getting any younger and you never know when it may be the last visit. After spending the day there we headed up to jackson WI where our hotel was. After checking in it was time to go visit Scottyy's dealership. Once we rolled in I spotted the car right away in the service bay!
its gorgeous!
Id arranged to meet up with Scotty at 9:30 the next morning. Man this was going to be ONE LONG NIGHT! I have to mention we stopped at a place famous for butter burgers??? WTF? the put butter in the beef? Sounds good actually but Id been on a diet and grabbed a strawberry chicken salad while watching my dad devoure a juicy double butter cheeseburger and fries
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The next morning we pack up and head to the dealership. Sitting out front like a rock star is my new SS
I meet up with Scotty. He had everything in order and gave me an overview of all the features and I sat down with the finance guy and knocked out all the paper work. We had to get the rental car back in time or get charged another day so we didnt get to hang out long. Was nce meeting Scotty, I can tell he loves selling Camaro's. Probably because of the excitement from the customer. it was a pleasure doing business with him!
The next stop on my journey was heading from Milwaukee to Vaneburg Kentucky to stay with another one of my uncles. I also have a third uncle who lives right up the street! This 8 hour drive was pure pleasure in the SS. I was really shocked at how comfortable the car is. Its a Cadalac that handles like a Ferrari! BTW, the HUD is awesome. Even my dad who is way past his sports car days loved driving the car! Passing thru Chicago I snapped a quick pic. Im doing 19 here and I think that was the fastest speed we got to. Traffic was terrible and it was in the afternoon on a holiday!
We arrive at my uncles who lives in the middle of NOTHINGville Kentucky! The curvy narrow roads sure were fun though
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I check the front end and Ive commited mass genocide on every species of bugs from WI, IL, OH and KY!
My uncles lives on a 180 acre farm so I didnt dare ask him for a wash bucket. He'd probably hand me a greasy rag and a 5 gallon feed bucket for the cows! I decided to leave the bug guts till I got home!
The visit with my uncles was awesome. Its a complete 180 lifestyle form what Im used too. He is a retired truck driver who is now living out his dream with a farm. I got up pretty early in the morning and asked him if he had fed the cows yet because I wanted to learn about them. He looked at me funny and said they have a whole field of grass to eat! I guess the bailed hay and corn are used in the winters
. im a city boy obviously! Later we hopped on the John Deer Gator and he drove me around the whole 180 acres. In a strange way I was thinking I could really see myself living like this. So peacefull and not dealing with corporate America!
We spent two days at my uncles then packed up and headed home to Charlotte. About a 7 hour journey and I arrive back home. Was funny, in WI where the news guys were mentioning their second day of 90 degree weather. When I left Charlotte we had just had 20+ days of it. When I arrive home I get this great welcome!!! 102! Man it felt like a nice spring day up north! I wouldnt trade this heat for their winters though
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I dropped off my dad and thanked him for helping me get the car home. It was an awesome trip. Spending alot of time with my father and seeing some family members... and of course picking up my new ride. This trip wont be forgotten!
I get home and snuggle the SS into the garage for a well deserved rest. The car now has over 950 miles and its 4 days old!
As tired as I was, I kept thinking about how dirty the car was. being 102 degrees out I waited till sunset and went out and washed her up!
The next morning it was transformation time! I want to make sure the car is solid before tearing into anything that would void my warranty but that wouldnt stop me from swapping in drop springs, heritage grill and new wheels! I moved her over to my shop and let the wrenches fly(very carefully BTW!)
By the end of the day she had a fresh new look:
Before:
After:
So far I absolutely love the car. I only have a few small complaints:
1. Brake dust!!!! I swear my wheels are dirty just from backing out of the driveway and stopping.
2. Need some LED's on the overhead onsole. WTF GM? this is a vew pennies to help light up the buttons!
3. Im kind of a shy guy, all the attention this car is getting is overwhelming. I feel like a Rock Star.
The story is to be continued!
7/15/2010
Got some baseline dyno runs dont today on my SS. Pretty pleased with the stock performance. Massive mods to come!
Baseline run on car.
371.50 rwhp
360.98 rwtq
video:
7/20/2010 - Installed Kooks 6511-Complete exhaust and ADM race CAI. Both installed pretty easy. The exhaust produces exactly the sound I was after. Nice deep tone at idle but nothing obnoxious. When you get on it, it roars like a raped ape.
Here is a before and after video:
8/1/2010
Finished up my install of the Edelbrock E-Force Supercharger. Took a solid 12 hours of work over 3 days. Most of it on Saturday. I had my brother over to help lift the SC onto the engine but other than that, its a straight forward one man job that can be done in your garage with basic hand tools. The only trickey part was drilling the crank for the pin to keep the pulley from slipping. I ended up cutting the drilll bit and using my cordless drill to get this done. My air grinder didnt have the balls but the cordless drill ripped thru it. I modified the ADM CAI by cutting the tube and the fit is real nice. Another note is the SCM programmer had to be reflashed with the new Camaro code. Since mine is a 2011 the SCM didnt recognize my ECM. I ordered the SC back in April before the 2011's were out.
Ill setup a tuning session with Heintz Performance next week to get it dialed in since I have a CAI and headers/exhaust on it.
8/24/2010
Installed a Barton shifter
08/27/2010
Made it in to get a tune for all my new mods. Car has Edelbrock E-force with stock puley, Kooks headers/cat-back, ADM Cold Air Instake and a KB boost-a-pump. All installs were done by myself. The car ran well with the stock Edelbrock tune but was throwing O2 codes on occasion. i did drive it fairly easy because i knew it would be a little lean with the additional mods.
Nick Williams and Heintz Racing did the tune. He mentioned how nice the E-force was under normal driving. He really liked the responsiveness over a Maggie he had worked on. While tuning on the dyno he added quite a bit of fuel. It was quite lean.
Here are the results and I whipped up a video too! Quite pleased with this setup. Its a blast to drive. Even with Nitto 505R's I cant keep traction so my next trip to the dragstrip will be interesting.
