Yzark99's mod madness

[yzark99]

Apex Air Scoop

I ordered and installed one of these to improve the CAI intake. I had originally gone with the PTB and the Green filter in place of the stock one, and when I bought and installed the CAI after using the above for a year I could not feel a difference. The scoop has woken up the CAI.

The biggest hassle with the installation was draining the fluid out of the windshield washer tank. This took me about an hour, and was seriously messy. The OEM tank holds over a gallon; which seems like overkill.

The Apex scoop is not as well designed as it could be. It hangs about 1 inch below the air opening on my 2012 1LT. It is also about 2 inches too wide on the outer side. I think that you are paying for excessive metal which drives up the cost.

The installation instructions were also wrong for the 2012. The stock horn bolt is long enough to screw another nut on to it. I replaced it anyway as a new one was included. It took about 20 seconds to replace it.

The guide to cut the plastic air dam was wrong. The 2012 does not look like the 2010-2011; the "ribs" are extended nearly all of the way across the part to be cut. When I made my first cut past the ribs, the scoop would not install. I had to guess where to cut the second time; and it was too far in. The angle of the scoop hides the bigger cut from the front; but the hole will be noticeable if I ever remove it.

It was also a pain to put the mounting bolt into the frame. The scoop had to be jammed forward against the front fascia for several inches to get the holes lined up for the bolt. I swear I thought I was cracking my front end to get it in.

The good thing is that the car seems to pull harder now with the scoop. It also takes off faster with less pedal pressure. Total install time was about 3 hours; but this includes over an hour of draining the old washer tank.

Outlined in yellow on first picture.

[yzark99]

Yzk Washer Bottle Replacement

I decided to make my own windshield washer bottle when I installed the APEX air intake scoop; which requires the removal of the OEM bottle. I have read many threads on C5 about using aftermarket tanks, cheap catch cans, and bicycle water bottles. I used an old clear water bottle, so I could see how much fluid was inside.

The OEM washer tank holds over a gallon (that's about .012 hogsheads for those of you using metric); which weighs more than 8 pounds, and is more juice than I use to clean my windshield in years.

The biggest hassle with the installation was draining the fluid out of the OEM washer tank. This took me about an hour, and was seriously messy. Use a large funnel, and a catch container. Unplug the pump from the bottle, and the juice will start to flow out. A siphon hose works too.

Update: don't use lamp parts! I drilled a hole in the bottom of my replacement bottle, and mounted brass (plated) lamp parts into it; a 3/8" tube, a brass nut on the inside, an o-ring outside the bottle, a washer, and another brass nut to squeeze the o-ring down tight. I also gooped it with waterproof black silicone to prevent any leaks past the o-ring. Already corroded after a few months!

I made a holder to mount on the old airbox stud; consisting of 4 metal brackets about 4 inches long each. I used 2 bolted together with 2 nuts in a long piece; that I bent into L-shapes, so:
⎡
⎦
plus 2 arms that come out from the back, and encircle the sides. These brackets have holes that zip-ties can be put through and around the bottle to hold it in. I also wrapped the metal with black electrical tape. New picture below.

The 3/8" brass tube on the bottom of the bottle is clamped to a 3/8" inside diameter hose than drops down under the bottle, and then runs along the edge of the CAI box to the front. There is a gap at the front where I ran the hose through, and I zip-tied flex-loom over the hose to prevent it from being damaged on the exposed metal edges.

The hose continues into the space near the headlight, and then turns 180 degrees, and enters the OEM washer pump. I was able to put a smaller hose over the pump stud, and then put the larger hose over this. Both are held with a hose-clamp; and there is no leaking. I supported the hose and the pump with zip-ties.

I now have a clear wash bottle that holds about a liter of juice, which is plenty for me. The fluid runs downhill all of the way to the pump; so any air bubbles will find their way back up to the tank. It works as it should.

Total cost of parts was about $8.

***
Update

I am trying to conceal white tanks under my hood, and adding this bottle wasn't helping. I decided to replace it with a black translucent bottle that I bought at Walmart for $3.50. I also noticed that the "brass" parts that I used to put a drain into my white bottle were actually brass plated; and corroding. I did some more research into this, and found a solution that works. I am writing up a DIY for this. I think my new bottle is much more stealthy than the old white one. Even filled with blue wash fluid, it still looks black.

link to DIY pdf: http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showth...54#post8260854

[yzark99]

I don't know if this has made a difference in handling, since I installed a ZL1 sway bar before it. I mostly got it to help with appearance, and I have always thought that they looked neat. I had my dealer paint the center portion SIM for $50. I had to buy stainless steel bolts and washers for it for about $17.

[2Fr3shKicks]

Originally Posted by yzark99

ZL1 Front Swaybar & End Links: I don't have a picture of this. There is a freeway on-ramp near me that is a s-bend. Before I got this upgrade, the body roll on my car was so bad that I was scared to go over 30 MPH. I was just there tonight; at 55! It was just starting to feel like it used to at 30.

I was a little leery of this mod, as there really didn't seem to be anyone who had done it on a V6. I asked a bunch of questions on C5, and it looked like it could be done easily; so I went for it.

I ordered the parts through the dealer that I got my car from. They took about a month to get in. The dealer had to drill out the existing holes in the struts to mount these, but the size went from 10mm to 12mm; which is about 1/32" diameter which is nothing.

After the holes were drilled, it was discovered that some bozo had put a driver's side link in the passenger's side box at the factory. My car was then shimmed with my approval, as there wasn't anything that could be done after the hole was already enlarged.

I walk to work, so the shim wasn't as bad as it could have been; but it was a concern anyway. It took about 2 weeks to get a replacement part due to constraints from the factory. The new part was also in the wrong box!

The service manager escalated this to the Western GM Parts Manager, who had his people go through over 160 pairs of boxed end links at the distribution warehouse. They found all passenger end links were actually the driver's side links!

I hope some heads rolled over this. What I can tell you now is, if you order these parts today, you can be almost 100% sure that you will receive the correct parts in the boxes.

The replacement passenger side end link was air shipped to my dealer from back east, and it was installed 2 days after the fiasco was discovered in the warehouse.

Parts and labor for this install was about $200. I think I got a break on the labor thanks to the screw ups.

I recommend this upgrade. The ZL1 sway bar is a solid piece; while the V6 bar was hollow, and much skinnier. The car corners like it is on rails now. Totally different and unbelievable!

Do you have the part number for this?

[yzark99]

Check your PM.

[yzark99]

Front Parking Camera

I have always had a problem with parking this car. The front end is too low, and I scrape or hit curbs all of the time. I also don't drive enough to get used to where the front end is. I have parked in the same spot for years now, and I can be 2 feet away from the cement curb one day, and park exactly the same way the next, and scrape right over it. It is an annoying problem.

I originally started with a Curb-Alert, which was $160. It seemed to work ok a few times; but it also failed and I drove all of the way over a curb into my tires; which I was trying to prevent. It failed to detect about half of the curbs that I encountered. It was a pain in the ass to calibrate, and it lost calibration several times. After the 4th time of hitting curbs, it wouldn't calibrate at all in 3 hours of dicking around with it. I unplugged it, and threw it in the garbage a few weeks later.

I decided to install a front camera, after seeing how easy it was in this thread by Wabibito: http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showth...ghlight=camera. The main thing that held me back was having to buy parts off of ebay from China. I can now report that if you spend a little bit more, and deal with U.S. sellers, you can reduce the hassle considerably.

I went with a CCD camera for $35. Most cameras use CMOS technology, and while this is cheaper to make, it also requires a lot more light at night to see anything. I was able to find one with a mounting stem that is about 3/8" that has the wires coming out of it. This was much easier to mount than most of the available cameras with huge 7/8" bodies that required a hole that size.

I really sweated out the monitor size. I made paper cut-outs of different monitor sizes, and test fit them in several places. I decided to go with the same folding 3.5" screen that wabibito used; and it is working out great. It fits into the wasted space between the top of the speedometer cluster and the A-pillar. When folded down, it is hardly noticeable. One button press, and it pops up for viewing. The picture on that small screen is more than enough to show everything needed to park safely.

I mounted the camera to the bottom of the plastic front license plate holder. I have never liked this holder, but it was already installed when I bought the car. I was happier to drill into this for mounting the camera, than I would have been to drill into my car body.

I decided to run power from the cigarette lighter area; as this already has a fuse, and it is switched to only run with the keys in the ignition. This way, the camera and monitor aren't draining the car battery when it is parked. I tapped into the green wire, and ran a new wire up to the driver's side fusebox area, and then continued through the firewall hole, and up along the side of the hood to the front of the car.

The camera + line connects to this power line at the front of the car, and the monitor + line connects (to the same line) behind the fusebox area in the cabin. I grounded the camera under a bolt in my CAI box, and the monitor is grounded to a frame bolt behind the front fusebox area. The video signal runs from the front of the car, along the side, through the firewall grommet above the red power cable, and connects to the monitor in the cabin. I wrapped electrical tape over all connections under the hood to keep them dry, and to prevent them from accidentally unplugging.

Monitor Wiring - see last picture

1 Ground
2 Primary Camera
3 Power
4 Fuse
5 Monitor Connector
6 2nd Camera

To remove the monitor, all you would need to do is disconnect plugs #2 and 3, as 2-6 are attached to the monitor. 1 is grounded on the other side of the #2 plug connection.

Parking Test: I came home around midnight, and the hole to park my car in was pitch-black. The cars on either side completely blocked any views of their curbs. I pressed the monitor button, and it opened and lit up showing nothing! I then turned on my fog lamps, and I could see the whole curb just waiting to eat my front end. I eased into my spot, and put the yellow camera lines on the monitor at the back of the curb. When I got out, I was parked perfectly! See picture #4 below to see where I ended up. Both cars to my sides were parked over their curbs; and if I had tried to use them as a reference, I would have scraped over my curb AGAIN.

If you are concerned about doing this yourself - don't be. It was real easy; and it works awesome!

[MoCamaro10]

Could a passerby see the monitor when closed through the front window?

[yzark99]

Yes, but it doesn't look like anything useful. If you wanted to, you could unplug 2 connections and store it out of sight.

[ucHuskies]

Originally Posted by yzark99

Front Parking Camera

If you are concerned about doing this yourself - don't be. It was real easy; and it works awesome!

This looks great! I'm very interested in doing something similar. The only part I'm a little worried about is tapping into the wiring. I once added footwell lighting to a previous car and it was a total hack job -- were you able to cleanly wire into the cabin fuse box? Do you have any pictures of the wiring that you could share?

[yzark99]

Sorry I didn't see this before now. I was able to get everything wired up without it being a hack job. The only power connection is to the green wire in the center console; I ran an extension from this that supplies juice to the monitor (#3) and the camera. The camera grounds under the hood, and the monitor grounds (#1) in the cabin fusebox area.

1 Ground
2 Primary Camera
3 Power
4 Fuse
5 Monitor Connector
6 2nd Camera

To remove the monitor, all you would need to do is disconnect plugs #2 and 3, as #2-6 are attached to the monitor. 1 is grounded on the other side of the #2 plug connection.

[yzark99]

New Midrange Speakers

I have been gradually replacing and/or upgrading the speakers in my car. First was the subwoofer, which really helped with the lack of bottom end on the non-BA system. Next was tweeters, which reduced the harshness of the treble frequencies; while also allowing for louder levels without fear of blowing them.

I have been thinking about the midranges for a few years now. I asked around in different forums, and got about 4 recommendations for the MB Quart Premium line, PVM216 in the 6.5" size. Everyone raved about the mid-range and high bass qualities (sounds that are muddy in the stock speakers).

They have a fiberglass basket which is supposed to be non-resonating; which helps with the sound quality. Even as budget mids, the prices were in the $160 range at the time (this is for a 2-way component system). I waited until I found them on sale at Amazon for $115 shipped.

The next problem was how to mount them. There are 4 choices currently:

1. Gut the factory speakers, and mount the new speaker inside it. Not handy if you later want to keep the good speakers and put the factory ones back in.

2. Buy a cheap shallow plastic mount by Scosche, and hope that your speakers aren't too deep to hit the bracing bar in the door that is behind the speaker opening.

3. Buy a premium plastic mount that is too small in diameter for the MB Quarts; which means hours of sanding to make the holes large enough, and also have to wrap sound deadener around them to cover the openings in the support walls.

4. Buy the MDF adaptors from sub-thump, and then spend time coating them so they won't suck up moisture and dry rot apart.

I decided to go with #4. The MDF is great to cancel out any sound leakage, and they seemed to require the least amount of hassle (I thought). They cost $29 on the website, BUT for whatever reason shipping is another $18 (a freaking rip-off!). They do not weigh more than 1 pound combined, but they were still sent by the slowest burro UPS had; and took over a week to get half-way across the USA. They could have been sent USPS Priority for about the same price, with 2-day delivery.

Next was how to seal them. I spent way to much time looking for a suitable coating that would do the job. I finally found a pint of Krylon primer/sealer, which is oil-based (water-based will ruin MDF). I then spent 2 weekends coating the adaptors twice and filling in all screw holes. I still needed to paint over this in a few areas that were light. Big hassle.

Mounting them was the next challenge. 6 self-drilling screws are provided with the adaptors to mount to the car frame. I decide to use the existing top holes/screws/clips, and drill 2 new holes at the bottom of each mount. I marked and center-punched each hole ($3 at harbor freight - a godsend), and put duct tape behind each hole area to catch drilled shavings. I removed the tape after drilling, and painted with a Q-tip the front and back of each hole to prevent rust from forming. I then put speaker sealant on both sides of the mount; to seal between the car door and mount, and between the mount and speaker.

I decided to take a chance by reusing the crossovers that come with the MB Quarts with my Pioneer tweeters. They work great. I bought speaker wire adaptors that plug into the wires on the door harness (that were connected to the factory speakers). I extended these wires by soldering and shrink-tubing them, then ran them to the crossovers, with new wires back to the mids, and new wires to the tweeters. I used 18 gauge OFC from monoprice.com.

I plugged my new wire adaptors into the sockets, and then had to use pliers to get them to seat as they were tight. I then wrapped them in electrical tape to prevent any moisture from getting in there. The feed wires run behind the moisture barrier on the door, and exit in the lower rear corner. The barrier is so slick, neither duct or gorilla tape will stick to it. I finally left my crossovers hanging, and they are loose inside the sealed door card.

I then mounted each mid to an adaptor. I had pre-drilled 4 speaker mounting holes on each, and this helped tremendously with the final assembly. I put in the top factory screws, and used them to guide the bottom screws in. I then tested each for sound before putting everything back together. Warning: Both of the sub-thump adaptors are TOO BIG for the door card to fit over them without bending it outwards on the bottom about 1/2 inch. This is piss-poor design. When you take into account that it was $49 to get them, they should have fit correctly. The scary-looking bulge at the bottom of each door just clears when the door is shut. Warning: it is also possible to put a door card mounting post through your speaker cone if you don't pay attention when re-assembling.

Now I have real component speakers in the doors. The midranges and tweeters now get specific frequencies that they had to share with each other before in the stock setup. I am now hearing things in my music that were completely lost using the stock mids; and I didn't have to spend $600 to get there. I recommend the MB Quarts PVM216.

I DO NOT recommend the sub-thump adaptors for the costs-hassles-bad design.

[yzark99]

ABS Cover - Painted SIM

The ABS module under the hood is another area that has always looked unfinished to me. I decided to put a cover over it.

There are 3 cover styles currently available: 1 is a partial cover that only hides the front, 2 hides the whole mess; including the pipes that exit from the top, while 3 covers the sides and top; but allows the pipes to stay visible. I went with #3.

I got it from Yates Performance for $60 in polished Stainless Steel. It was almost too beautiful to paint; but I wanted it to match my other parts and not be a shiny mirror. I had my local dealer paint it, who has painted all of my other parts.

[yzark99]

2013 OEM Aluminum Wheels

The 2012 GM camaro wheels are ugly, and a PITA to wash. They are the one (or 4) exterior mods that I always wanted to do. I put up with them for 3 years.

I looked at a bunch of aftermarket ones; but I really wasn't happy with anything under a grand for a set. I always thought that the 2013 OEM aluminum camaro wheels looked great. I bought a set used from Craigslist for $300. If these had been on the car when I bought it new, I wouldn't have ever upgraded them.

[Noomo]

Great tip! That's one of two things I wasn't happy about with the CAI when it arrived. To me, a black CAI should come with black clamps, but they didn't. I've searched 10 stores near me and you would think black clamps don't exist.

Thanks for the source for the black clamps so I can right one wrong.

The other is the air sensor dangling out the top. Is this required by design or could the air sensor have been located on the engine side or on the bottom of the tube? Such a pretty air intake and you have that sensor just sitting there in the way of engine cover looking all "unfinished".

Originally Posted by yzark99

Stealth Clamps

I got my black CAI intake used from the classifieds on C5. It came with bright silver hose clamps, which look awful on the black intake hoses. I was able to paint the clamp that attaches to the filter, but the other 2 clamps closer to the engine did not take paint well. For a while, I covered the middle clamp with black duct tape; but it wouldn't stay stuck and looked crappy.

I found these black "stealth clamps" on the internet: http://www.suremotorsports.com/produ...tealth-clamps/
They are made with an inner liner that protects the silicone sleeve from the worm drive slots when you tighten the clamp. They are also 100% stainless steel with a special corrosive resistant coating.

I measured first and used 2 different sizes; the middle clamp is just under 4.00", while the clamp that attaches to the TB under the engine cover is 3.50". They look great!