'14 AGM 1SS/1LE Track build [COTW 11/17/14]

[X25]

Originally Posted by Demon War Horse

Can you open the door to get out when on the tailer, or do you have to do it Dukes of Hazzard style?

I always wondered about that. Some of the trailers seem so narrow or small overall that you would be stuck in the car it seems after loading.

I was able to open the door with both Miata and Camaro (both lower than stock), on my regular flatbed. This new one will have, 4" lower clearance due to drop axles, but the hinged fender also increases the clearance by 4", so it will be about the same.

In short, yes, you can open the door, but you need hinged or removable fender if you get 4" drop axles.

[Synner]

Been looking and they want 5500 for a similar setup here. Crazy.

[Stephen12ZL1]

How are those Michelins?

[X25]

Originally Posted by Synner

Been looking and they want 5500 for a similar setup here. Crazy.

We can get one for you here? : )

[Synner]

Originally Posted by X25

We can get one for you here? : )

I've got a couple emails out to places much further out in TX on pricing. But yeah I was thinking what shipping would be to me as a 5k mile road trip likely wouldn't be worth it. But even at 1k for truck shipping it'd be a whole lot cheaper. Non tilt bed 20' steel deck with no options is around 3600 here. If you could ask if they'd ship I'd appreciate it. Not sure I will be doing any track days until the spring anyways so i have some time.

[X25]

Originally Posted by Synner

I've got a couple emails out to places much further out in TX on pricing. But yeah I was thinking what shipping would be to me as a 5k mile road trip likely wouldn't be worth it. But even at 1k for truck shipping it'd be a whole lot cheaper. Non tilt bed 20' steel deck with no options is around 3600 here. If you could ask if they'd ship I'd appreciate it. Not sure I will be doing any track days until the spring anyways so i have some time.

Where is your location? I'll ask tomorrow.

[X25]

Originally Posted by Stephen12ZL1

How are those Michelins?

I thought about going with the Camaro to Saturday's event, but thought it would be unfair to the tires with my differential situation. I already know that my diff is either worn out, or its fluid is not doing its job (probably both). I already received the new Eaton differential, and will receive the Z/28 diff cooler on WED. My plan is to get them installed following Friday, and break it in until the October 10 track day.

I ended up canceling yesterday's track day, and will attend tomorrow's with the Miata with my smaller supercharger pulley

[X25]

I have been trying to get my new differential and the cooler installed, but my local shop tells me they're busy this week, and probably next week, too. I have the track day next weekend, so it would not work, not to mention ~10 hours they will charge me for Z/28 cooler + diff replacement.

Anyhow, I decided to do all but the internal replacement of the differential myself.

This hydraulic table is good for 1000 lbs. I will need it to safely lower the diff, etc. It cost about $250 : (


Z/28 diff cooler lid is very light; it must be made of aluminum:



The lines that go to transmission, etc. are actually pretty long.


I've also received the replacement rock guards from ZL1Addons. They look very thin and flimsy, but they assured me the new material is indestructible. We'll see soon Obviously, if it works yet is this thin, it will be better for looks.


I'm also having issues with my Z-Tech HANS device, OEM Recaros, and the Schroth harness. I will try this one next time:

[camaro500]

Really nice work and great info throughout. Ordering same apex wheels as you to run 295 all around. Nice driving btw. Diffs on all camaros are made of cast aluminum except ZL

[Mgizzle]

I installed the z/28 diff cooler too on my 1LE and must admit, the only thing that was really hard was the front two lines. The kit doesn't come with two new lines, so you have to reuse one of them. Getting them out together because they are held together by various brackets was a pain for me (I did not work on a lift so that made life a lot worst). If you can put it on a lift this should be way easier. Anyhow, the caution there is don't pull on lines too much, they bend so easy it is not even funny. Take your time, look around and play around to p ull them out. You then have to reuse those brackets that you will have to bend open to install the additional line. I did this on the car, meanin I individually sneaked each line in since it was waaaay easier. However, clinching the brackets together in the car is near impossible under the engine by the pass side.

To say the least, take your time with those two front lines and think it through. 80% of my work was spent on that and considering I pulled both suspensions out, exhaust, prop shaft etc. that is a lot.

Finally, that little spring clip on the driver side line is a pain to get in, be carefull not to loose it. Also, the clutch line one is a different style and even banging on the clutch line can cause it to pop off (ask how I learned the hard way?). Make sure the clutch line one is on after you are all done or else you will notice your clutch on the floor and a puddle underneath

Now back to searching your tread on where to read oil temp and pressure.........dangit.

[X25]

Originally Posted by camaro500

Really nice work and great info throughout. Ordering same apex wheels as you to run 295 all around. Nice driving btw. Diffs on all camaros are made of cast aluminum except ZL

Thank you! 295 is a great size for that wheel. I also tried them at the track, and they appear to be well-built.

Originally Posted by Mgizzle

I installed the z/28 diff cooler too on my 1LE and must admit, the only thing that was really hard was the front two lines. The kit doesn't come with two new lines, so you have to reuse one of them. Getting them out together because they are held together by various brackets was a pain for me (I did not work on a lift so that made life a lot worst). If you can put it on a lift this should be way easier. Anyhow, the caution there is don't pull on lines too much, they bend so easy it is not even funny. Take your time, look around and play around to p ull them out. You then have to reuse those brackets that you will have to bend open to install the additional line. I did this on the car, meanin I individually sneaked each line in since it was waaaay easier. However, clinching the brackets together in the car is near impossible under the engine by the pass side.

To say the least, take your time with those two front lines and think it through. 80% of my work was spent on that and considering I pulled both suspensions out, exhaust, prop shaft etc. that is a lot.

Finally, that little spring clip on the driver side line is a pain to get in, be carefull not to loose it. Also, the clutch line one is a different style and even banging on the clutch line can cause it to pop off (ask how I learned the hard way?). Make sure the clutch line one is on after you are all done or else you will notice your clutch on the floor and a puddle underneath

Now back to searching your tread on where to read oil temp and pressure.........dangit.

I have one question: my whole exhaust is in once piece (I got it welded like that at the time). Where do I need to cut it? If I cut it half-way, right after the cross member, would it be sufficient for this install? Or, do I have to cut it from the beginning? The reason why I'm asking is that I have cats right after the headers, and adding a coupler right before headers might be harder to do than adding a coupler on the straight exhaust pipes by that cross-member.

Regarding where to read oil temps, do you mean physically or dashboard/etc.? I read the oil temp on the oil cooler adapter, which is located right at the OUT port for the oil cooler. The oil pump is right behind that port, and sucks in oil from the sump, possibly one of the hottest places to read oil temp from. I read the oil pressure from the line to the oil cooler. I thought this oil pressure could read low when the oil cooler is not engaged by the thermostat, but I was wrong. It reads exactly same as the OEM oil pressure gauge, except during the first few seconds of startup, where it reads low for a bit lower.

On 2014+ models, the dashboard has the "Performance" page, where you can read the fake oil temp. It will stop at 266 degrees F, since the illustrated gauge shows as 266 degrees F max. However, if you read temps from the OBD II port, you can see that it keeps reporting higher values as the oil temps increase. The numbers are fake, though, and are calculated. So, especially if you have an aftermarket cooler setup and/or a larger radiator, the calculated (fake) numbers displayed will start to greatly diverge from the reality.

[Mgizzle]

I removed the exhaust right at the coupler (stock NPP exhaust). That was all I had to do. They ask you to remove the entire prop shaft but I didn't. I just unbolted the center bearing and it gave me enough play to just pop the rear out past the valleys in the rubber isolator. Again, the only reason you are removing exhaust is so you can mess with prop shaft and the very annoying heat shields. Hence, as long as you can get to the heat shields and the center bearing, allowing you to remove propr from diff pumpkin you will be fine. Stock exhaust coupler is past the cats.

As far as oil temps, I guess my question is how can I read temps on my 13 1SS since I don't have the gauges and our clusters don't have the performance page? What do I need to be able to use OBDII, I saw there is a gauge that display our OBDIIs.

I am just curious what kind of temps I run. The only indication I have right now is that my coolant never gets hotter than 226 on the days I beat on the car and redline it. I barely get to 215 (coolant) if I don't redline at the the track and shift at 5500-6000 and as soon as I start hitting high speed sections it goes down to 210 or below. In 17 track days since I purchased the car I never had it go limp mode on me and the coolant temp of 226 I just started seeing this year after getting really fast with the car on the local tracks and pushing it hard.

However, is that coolant temp "real" or calculated and also zero reference to oil temps.

I did switch to 5W-50 oil as I mentioned to you in the other tread just as an extra precaution. I know you stated you like the thinner oil due to normal driving but my average RPM's are 5500 at the track and I put in at least 5 20 min sessions there. So that is 100 min at 5500 RPMS with a total of 550,000 revolutions at the track. 2000RPM average driving home for 2hrs is 240,000 revolutions at low load and cooler temps. Drive to track and back so 480,000 revolutions at low load and cold temps vs. 550,000+ hot, high load revs on the track. If I had a trailer like you seem to, thick oil would be in the motor for sure since I only drive my car to track, on track and back home it seems.

Again, I just wish I could get some oil temp and pressure readings since I want to know where I am at and also what my pressures are before I start upgrading tires. Would also like to data log the i mproved racing oil baffle since their data is on a GTO with WAY different tires (or at least I assume).

[X25]

Originally Posted by Mgizzle

I removed the exhaust right at the coupler (stock NPP exhaust). That was all I had to do. They ask you to remove the entire prop shaft but I didn't. I just unbolted the center bearing and it gave me enough play to just pop the rear out past the valleys in the rubber isolator. Again, the only reason you are removing exhaust is so you can mess with prop shaft and the very annoying heat shields. Hence, as long as you can get to the heat shields and the center bearing, allowing you to remove propr from diff pumpkin you will be fine. Stock exhaust coupler is past the cats.

As far as oil temps, I guess my question is how can I read temps on my 13 1SS since I don't have the gauges and our clusters don't have the performance page? What do I need to be able to use OBDII, I saw there is a gauge that display our OBDIIs.

I am just curious what kind of temps I run. The only indication I have right now is that my coolant never gets hotter than 226 on the days I beat on the car and redline it. I barely get to 215 (coolant) if I don't redline at the the track and shift at 5500-6000 and as soon as I start hitting high speed sections it goes down to 210 or below. In 17 track days since I purchased the car I never had it go limp mode on me and the coolant temp of 226 I just started seeing this year after getting really fast with the car on the local tracks and pushing it hard.

However, is that coolant temp "real" or calculated and also zero reference to oil temps.

I did switch to 5W-50 oil as I mentioned to you in the other tread just as an extra precaution. I know you stated you like the thinner oil due to normal driving but my average RPM's are 5500 at the track and I put in at least 5 20 min sessions there. So that is 100 min at 5500 RPMS with a total of 550,000 revolutions at the track. 2000RPM average driving home for 2hrs is 240,000 revolutions at low load and cooler temps. Drive to track and back so 480,000 revolutions at low load and cold temps vs. 550,000+ hot, high load revs on the track. If I had a trailer like you seem to, thick oil would be in the motor for sure since I only drive my car to track, on track and back home it seems.

Again, I just wish I could get some oil temp and pressure readings since I want to know where I am at and also what my pressures are before I start upgrading tires. Would also like to data log the i mproved racing oil baffle since their data is on a GTO with WAY different tires (or at least I assume).

I use one of these OBDII Bluetooth readers: Vgate iCar2. Whatever you buy, just make sure it turns itself off automatically

Once connected to your car, you can use an app like Torque (on Android) to connect and read all the vitals of your car, various temps, even EGTs, knock counts, speed, RPM, etc. Once you have access to all this data, you can easily create a log. That said, if you intend to test oil pressure, you will need to get a digital aftermarket oil pressure sensor with high frequency updates and log it with its interface. The OEM pressure gauge, even when read through OBD II port, will not be fast enough to report the subtle drops.

I use Torque to check the numbers during regular driving (if I want to), and use RaceChrono to log them during the track sessions, which is a great app to put all that info merged with the lap data.

Regarding oil, I don't use 5W-30 because I do regular driving at the streets all the time, but rather since it DROPS the oil temps at the track when compared with higher viscosity grade oils. The 5W-50 is not good for street use for sure, and will work at the track, but at the cost of much higher back pressure, meaning you might even have lubrication issues until you hit high temps. I and several other members have gotten 5W-30 Mobil1 oil samples tested numerous times, and they all came with very good results, oil virtually not degraded, even though I hit real oil temps as high as 297 degrees F with it.

I want to remind you again, the oil temp reading from the car will be fake. I'd highly recommend you install an aftermarket gauge. The oil pressure and coolant temps seem to be accurate, however.

[X25]

I might have averted a potentially serious safety issue:





The top bolt of the driver side rear caliper is missing, and it caused the caliper to knock on the rotor each time I used brakes! It's been a very long time since I changed rotors (5+ months), so the bolt must have been loosening for a while.

I thought hard about what to do. There is no leak, and for all I know, it might never cause an issue. But that said, there is clearly a 1-2mm of indent created by the rotors, and these calipers cannot be too thick considering how light the manufacturers try to keep them. As such, I decided to discard the caliper.

Now comes the question: which once should I replace it with?

1. 1 x 1LE replacement left rear caliper (22833925): $975 + $25 shipping = $1000
2. 2 x SS replacement calipers (92233176, 92233177) + red paint + decal: 2 x $216 + $25 (shipping) + $100(?) = $557
3. StopTech 83.193.0057.71 BBK (4 piston red rear) $1920

• I know that rear calipers, even in stock form, are underutilized. This is very much evident from the rate of pad wear at the rear. So, buying StopTech BBK is probably an overkill. I could convince myself to buy the StopTech kit for $1500s, but almost $2K is too much.
• Paying $1000 for the replacement caliper is ridiculous. I will PASS.
• SS calipers are obviously the best bang for the buck. I already have a ton of rotors, pads, etc. for them as well. It also looks fairly easy to paint them red and put decals for a symmetrical look. This is what I am leaning towards as of this moment.

By the way, due to this, I will probably miss the October 10th track day, too. Thankfully, I have the Miata ready for duty.