Batmobile

[Fraxum]

My Bushing Adventure repost:

Originally Posted by ShnOmac

I am curious what everyone's thoughts are on the ZL1 1/4 mile times and the odd dyno chart. Something does not seem quite right to me......

445 rwhp is a mild LS3 cam and bolton number. So for sure something is wrong with that car or the break-in adds another 50 rwhp. Or fuse pull?

445 rwhp is 24% driveline loss. Too high for even for an auto.

Fact: ZL1 > CTS-V (by at least a little)

It funny how many say they can build a car that performs as well as a ZL1 for less. But will it be as refined? Will it have a warranty? And the modded car is still only as worth as much as an unmodified SS.

Are we modding to save money?

The last time I checked, not. But still it's so much fun. Just last night I stripped a thread on my Trailing Arm putting in the outer bushing. And no other car at home. I frantically rode around on my daughters bicycle risking my life, hoping to find a parts store open. Auto Zone was open but they were out of my stripped nut. Pep Boys was closed. I gave up, not wanting to risk further busy road cycling at night with no lights or helmet.

And what would have happened if I wound up in the hospital? I had no insurance card. I looked greasy and homeless in my gym shorts and Run for Haiti T-shirt. And I forgot to check before I left if my underwear had any holes in it. My wife would have been mortified. Lucky for her she was out of town.

The threads on those suspension bolts are weird they start out with an easy spin then tighten up. I hope I can find a nut today that will work somewhere on a Sunday. My oldest daughter is coming over with a car.

See, this is why I mod, not to save money, I mod for the adventure. I think now my car would fare well against a Boss with a better driver than me. I did not save any $$ as I have spent Boss money on my SS. But I feel good about my car and content knowing I did a good portion of the work myself.

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Anyway here are a few pics.

I used the Gear puller method to push out the bushings. But see that nut on the end of the puller? That is the nut used to hold on the Outer Trailing Arm and I stripped it!

This is what I went out looking for at 8 PM on a Saturday night. Did not finally get one until Sunday afternoon. Many thanks for Sears Hardware! All of the auto stores, Auto Zone, Pepe Boys, and Advance Auto parts had really weak bolt selections. Lame.

Now I have backups.

Here are the soft stockers....

[Fraxum]

Edit: Randy's email address: performancespare@gmail.com

The lack of a spare with the SS has been nagging in the back of my mind since buying the car. I know I have AAA and perhaps free towing to the nearest Chevy dealer. But when you take a trip far from home (like a daughter going to college 350 miles away and friends with mountain cabins) these resources can be an impossible distance away. Not to mention the unlikely availability of a local suitable tire replacement. Even more so with a Zl1 or a 1LE. Be sure to read the horror tire stories posted elsewhere on Camaro5. And for me traveling in a newish car with no worries about the ride is part of the charm.

Then the other day my left rear tire took on a nail. My low tire pressure light came on again one day after it came on the first time. Each time only a few pounds low. This must be a slow leak but I could not find any problems with the tire on the car. So I took the tire off to examine it more closely. There was a small finishing nail on the outside tread of the tire. Aha! A quick trip to Pep Boys for the free plug put me back on the road. Luckily just the weekend before I chose to the wife's Rav4 on a long trip to Ithaca NY. This nail was most likely in the tire even then. Potential disaster averted!

I was now ready for my next mod. I had already researched Camaro5 for SSpare solutions and I knew of a guy who put together spare kits for cars without spares. A resourceful business person filling a need! His name is Randall Maddox from Tucson, AZ. PM me if you want his email address and other info. Randy is great to work with and gives great service and supports his packages. I got in touch with Randy and ordered an SS Kit. He assured me it would clear my roller skates. (Another mod for another day to get rid of those.)

He shipped right away and a few days later the kit arrived.

One thing the kit did not have was wedges to place under the tire when you are changing to the spare. I added a pair from Pep Boys. They are in the pic below. Randy included a really nice tire iron. You will need both of those sockets. They are double sided so they should work on almost all lug nuts. And notice the well made custom spacer. Randy also included helpful instructions. Nice package:

And of course the spare itself:

I decided to try the spare out. This way no surprises in the field. Notice the tire wedges in the back. I out one on either side of the tire. Recently I was taking a tire off the student shuttle Jetta and the car fell over on the jack. Luckily there was no harm done to me or the car but I scared myself almost to the point of losing my fecal retainment capabilities. I was careless and did not have the car properly wedged. Don't let this happen to you. Notice the placement of the jack. The Camaro has four scissor jacking points. See your owners manual. As I jacked up the car I was ready to ditch the scissors jack supplied by Randy. It was very difficult to raise the car. But after I removed the jack I looked at it for signs of stress or damage. It looked fine. Then I noticed the threads were bone dry. Aha! I applied grease to both ends of the threads at the female thread point and worked the jack up and down a few times. Later when using the jack to remove the spare the action was much better. I still have the feeling the jack is a little overmatched by the weight of the SS, but it seems to do the job.

Once you get the tire off you need to attach the spacer. Use the applicable socket and small lug nuts supplied with the spacer to bolt on the spacer. These lug nuts need to be tight. Notice I used the jack handle to lock the free spinning hub in place while tightening the spacer lugs. When taking the spacer off use the jack handle on the bottom of the caliper.

Tada! The spared SS. Note that the spare supplied by Randy is 25.5 inches in diameter. Randy says this is the the tallest spare that will fit in the SS tire well. I am not so sure. This is 2.5 inches shorter than the stock SS SUV tire and wheel setup. So the spare must be mounted only on the front of the car. If you put it on the rear you will risk damage to the differential. So it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out if you get a flat in a rear tire you will need to make two tire changes to swap a front to rear tire and then put the pare on the front. In the future my SS will have a preferred square tire setup. Mod Gods willing.

You know, I kind of like the look of black steelies on the car. If the tire was wider it would look bad ass.

One more thing. If you have not done it already make sure the spare is properly inflated. My tire says 60 pounds is the inflation best practice. It was closer to 50 so I inflated the tire up to spec. I noticed also the tire warns you the max speed with this tire is 50 mph. For more reasons than just the tire you will want to observe this notice. Slow down with the spare on. Enjoy the ride, smell the roses.

So now for the spare driving test. I took the SS out for a short spin to check out the drivability. The first thing i noticed was the light show on the dash. See the pic. All that was caused by the shorter tire. Except for the check engine light. That light is my friend who occasionally reminds me that my rear O2 sensors do not send happy signals all the time. But it really reminds me that I love the wheel spinning power the LTs help provide.

Out on the road the car pulled only a little. This could have been because I chose the driver side tire and the crown of the road helped the car go relatively straight. Perhaps a passenger side spare would pull a little more. So driving with the spare was a pace of cake!. Then I decided to hit the brakes a bit hard. Big time pull to the left. Keep the speed under 50, be cautious and you will be fine.

A side note: Once you put the real tire back on these lights all go out in the first 20 feet of the drive. Except for the CEL of course.

Time to pack everything up. At first i wanted to get a tool bag and keep all the loose part in it. This is not practical since once packed the bag will not fit under the spare. I know I tried. I bought a bag from Pep Boys and immediately retuned it. The elder cashier was so overjoyed to see me again so soon. But Randy's kit does help out here. The cool lug wrench set up comes with a plastic bag which was just large enough to hold all the smaller parts. So I used that and wrapped the jack, spacer, and wheel chocks in shop rage. This way they will remain quiet back there and I have rags at the time of the spare swap. Neat. I tucked everything in as it all fit,

I did have an additional complication with my amp/sub setup and had to move some wires and ground terminal around to get the spare to lay flat.

The spare now fits nicely.

My SSpared Camaro trunk still looks as normal. A successful mod. Now about the weight I added:

Spare Kit total weight: 45 lbs
Stock compressor weight: 6 lbs

So the total weight added was 39 lbs. A small price to pay for peace of mind. I have already subtracted some weight by swapping out the stock mufflers and manifolds. But I added some weight with the sub, amp, sub box, and now the spare. So I probably have added a net weight of 25 pounds to me SS. You can check my inexact math. But I know I can easily shed 39 lbs when I go to the track. One of my planned mods is a lighter wheel and tire setup. So I should be back pretty close to stock weight with good tunes and the peace of mind I get with a spare tire. Priceless.

[Fraxum]

There's an excellent DIY thread on the spare topic here:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=212998

[pierre777]

Car looks great bro love what you've done with it!

[Fraxum]

Installed Padders HD Radius Rod Inserts today. I chose the RR inserts over full bushing replacement purely for the easier install. And while there are different opinions on this the benefit of the inserts it is in the same league and the full bushing replacement. I have not tried both and I am not a serious road/autocross tracker so I cannot comment on the difference. I do know you can feel a difference with the inserts.

Great thread on this install by Caverman here:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156879

I too had a race scoop. This was removed to make enough room for the RR bolts. Removing and reinstalling the scoop was the most time consuming part of the task.

A few additions to Cavermans RR insert install. The Pedders instructions asks you to put the car on jack-stands. I took a shortcut and just used ramps. Easy.

Also I recommend lightly greasing the outside of the inserts before reinstalling the front of the rods. On my first one (Left) I had to use my hydraulic jack to push up the wider bushing package. On the right side I tried the grease and it slipped into the rail like butter.

My RR bolts were easy to get off I only had one 21 MM socket so I had to improvise. You have to play around a bit to get a good angle to start loosening the nuts. Those with a complete set of 1/2 inch socket tools will have no problem.

Then I took a short country drive to evaluate the change. I did notice the tighter steering. The movement of the steering wheel now has a more immediate affect on the wheels and the direction of the car. The steering has about the same feel other wise. I felt no difference in braking as reported in other threads.

I have seen elsewhere also that the HD RR inserts make the biggest difference when running hard at the track. Hopefully I will experience this myself.

I am also looking for more lively steering. This may have to wait until I buy lighter wheels, better tires, and get a handling friendly wheel alignment. Every time I pull a wheel off this car I am reminded of the boat anchor stock setup.

So even though there may not be a huge street advantage to this mod I recommend it. It is so easy, cheap and give a noticeable result.

[Fraxum]

The 5th Gen Camaro is an awesome fun generator. It is equally at home on a road track or at the drags.

So I finally got around to running at Atco. My thread asking for help is here:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244712

For anyone ever thinking of trying this if you have a track near you it can be a night of big fun at a Test & Tune. At Atco it is $10 to watch and $15 to run. And it does not matter what you have. Everyone has fun. The range of T&T streets cars runs from 10 second flat Nissan GT-Rs to 20 second tow trucks.

At the track I was nervous at first, but then after a while I started to focus on the things that make you faster. Leaving on the third yellow for example will not help your ET, but it will help you beat the car next to you (if that is possible).

The biggest problems are keeping heat soak down and the launch (LS3s). Shifting consistency is next. And then should you shift into 4th? Other Camaro LS3s at the drags seem spilt on this. I could not trap higher than 110 until I started shifting into 4th. I would hit the rev limiter and the car would hit a wall.

Another thing fun about this is you can correct your times to an optimal DA. Since humidity and temperature affect power you will run faster or slower depending on weather conditions. But if you go to this website you can (theoretically) correct for this.

http://www.dragtimes.com/da-density-...calculator.php

It is not good form to say you ran the corrected times, because you did not. But you can track your mods with this and compare (somewhat) apples to apples in your ET improvements.

My fastest run so far is in the 12s! 12.999 (car 3101) to be exact And my highest trap is 111. I know my car is still faster than me. In good air my SS should be running at least 12.5s around 113. This gives me something to shoot for. Then maybe some DRs will be my next drag mod.

For now I need to work on my RT and 60 foot.

If you are thinking about running, do it!

[Fraxum]

Before going to the drags I installed the Vararam Wedge. I was very skeptical of this mod and still am not sure the benefit. I did not feel much, if any difference.

Here is a re-post of my interpretation of a day drag racing with other C5s:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showpo...8&postcount=79

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Originally Posted by NickSS

With your mods you shouldn't have a problem breaking into the 12's without the wedge

I agree. Today there were 4 or 5 LS3 5th gens (that I knew of) running at Atco with LTs, intake, and a tune and all were stuck around 13.1 to 13.40. One freak L99 vert with only an intake and a tune was running 13.0s. Maybe all of us cannot drive. My car was running better than most of them. They had a tune, I had the wedge, ported TB, and the scoop. I was running 13.15 to 13.18 in my three runs.

Could be DA was a factor slowing us down, it was 1492. My best run today converted to: 12.968 @ 111.245 and that was with a 2.246 60 foot. My best run ever converted to 12.875. So assuming I could improve my 60' to 2 flat (doable I hear on stock Pirellis) a 12.7 corrected is within reach. Still, with all my mods including suspension work, I should be faster. I will keep going back and try to improve.

Today I was a little faster than tuned LS3s.

So I am thinking scoop, ported TB, + wedge > tune

IMO scoop + ported TB = extra HP from tune. So my feeling is the wedge was the difference. Most of us were new track drivers, except for one guy who owned a speed shop. His LTed, tuned, LS3 could do no better than 13.3 today.

I think my car was stronger on the top end than the others. I did run 111 once before and I was running 110 today where the others were running 108s. I am leaning towards the Wedge making a difference.

One interesting thing, I ran a brand new 2013 GT500 at the end of the day and he was struggling to get into the 12s. I knew i had a shot of beating him with a picture perfect run. He ran a 12.85 @120. I started in second (Doh!) and missed third gear.

This fourth run was an outlier and happened after everyone else left. So the Wedge was no help here.

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I sure wish I was on my toes running that GT 500. I ran a 15.3. Double Doh!

There may have been some benefit to adding the Wedge. Still not sure, but like the Ported TB, for the money it's fun to try.

[linkwpc]

You car is lookin good sir!

[Fraxum]

Originally Posted by linkwpc

You car is lookin good sir!

Yours too.

Every where I go I get looks, thumbs up, followed into stores, talked to in traffic jams about the car, etc. Even though the 5th Gen is a common sight now. It must be the orange stripes.

Do you have this problem too?

[Snidely Whiplash]

Originally Posted by Fraxum

Interesting!

edit: 1LE rims. Or perhaps the whole 1LE.

Better get the rest of the wheel with those rims or they don't work properly.
I'm gonna upgrade the Boston Acoustics "top of the line" factory audio system on my 2014 2SS with a CD and cassette player. I've got about 2000 cassettes and 1300 CDs I wanna hear while cruising. I hope the cassette part of the player, being analog, will connect via the USB port.

Damn this digital crap, analog vinyl RULES!!! At last count, I had collected over 8000 LPs and 1100 45 RPM records.