build journal - '13 2ss/1le [COTW 8/15/16]

[h018871]

ok the manifold and UDP science...........it didn't happen. i am impatient, not the fault of the tuner i was talking to, and put the manifold on one afternoon. while i was so close, i went ahead and changed the valley cover. AND i turned the fuel rail around 180deg.

the manifold comes off easy, there are many threads on how to do it. the sticky point, which is mentioned in nearly all of them is the vacuum lines connected to the rear of the manifold. you cant see them and the clamp is a bit of a bother. but once done it comes out easy.
apologies for the VERY poor phone pics
OH and the oil from the valley cover port is now the same volume in the catch can as from the valve cover. so that is now fixed.
i can't tell any difference in the new manifold, but i did not expect to "feel" it. to be honest, it was a neat idea and i decided to give it a try.

[h018871]

i made three minor adjustments during the manifold swap
1. i bent the steel bracket at the rear of the passenger side fuel rail so that i could retain it for the obvious safety gains (last pic) it is designed to protect the fuel rail from impact with the firewall in the event of a crash. i thought i wanted to keep that feature even though i do not plan for the engine to come into contact with my firewall
2. the fuel rail is in contact with the manifold "insulator" when the rail is turned 180 deg. i was concerned about developing a crack and a leak over time. the solution, i cut a small window in the plastic cover so it had clearance. pretty simple. there are quite a few conversations, some rather heated, about the value of the manifold insulation cover.........i'm of the belief, that as long as air from outside of the engine compartment is flowing through the manifold, it is cooler with the insulation on. i do agree that when sitting in the staging lanes, the cover will hold heat in......i dont drag race so i don't see it as an issue for me.
3. the flexible fuel line is too short and i had to unclamp the hard fuel line from the body and pull it up and in towards the engine. it turns out that the 10-12 and 13-14 models have different lengths. i'm working with the vendor, they recognize the difference in the models and are working on a solution. so for this i'm patient.
more detail here http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=345319

[h018871]

when i had the valley cover off, i took a couple of flash pics of the cam. i did not look until much later. now that i see this, it looks like one of the lobes has a bit too much wear. so far i have not noticed any drop in performance and not sure if i'm just being a nervous nelly. anyway about 10k miles on the cam when the pictures were taken. what do you think?

EDIT: I now have > 20k on the cam and so far (knock on wood) no issues.

[h018871]

i did my first auto-cross, it was a blast. i am hooked
i thought that i had pushed the car before, but this is a new level. never get out of second gear.......but that is still quick in a parking lot.
i did not win, but i was ahead of some ZL1s and behind some V6s. it showed me the slowest thing about my car is the driver. SEAT TIME IS REQUIRED

so, i've signed up for an HPDE 2 day course in Aug. that should help me learn the car and my limits.

[h018871]

i have 13k miles on the car and the tires are getting thin. the auto-x did not help things either. I drive the car up to PA and have been looking at the DWSs for some time. I got on line and tried to order a set. everyone was out of stock on the 275s, luckily I found one in Canada, they only had the one............again, luckily I had one that I had been using as a spare on long trips. ordered it to be delivered to the house.
the 315s were readily available, so shopped around and had a pair delivered to a Goodyear shop near the house for the installation. they did a nice job, no scratches and they even took used oil I had been collecting. the 315 is a lot of tire, does not help the handling, but looks cool for every day driving around.
here they are mounted. because of the larger OD, they make the wheel wells look fuller.....making the car look smoother to me. second is that I had to adjust the speedo. quick trip to the tuner and done, at NO COST! cool

[h018871]

in a year or so I hope to have more time and I plan to use the car as intended. I've signed up for an HPDE course at TWS in August. to go down this path I got 3 more FR wheels (have one already as the spare). I went with 10in width for all of them so that I could have more flexibility with swapping tires around. went to the same Goodyear dealer, he gave me the cheaper online pricing for mount and balance. had them put on and they're in the garage ready to go.

[h018871]

since I had a road trip planned, I thought I would finally put some stone guards on the car to try to minimize the chips along the side of the car. it would have made more sense to have done it earlier........but better late than never.
while all of the wheels were off for car detail and inspection I added the stone guards I got online. the fronts worked out perfect, but the 315s are a bit wider than the guards. I need to get some material and make a wider rear set.

[h018871]

we had a GREAT time. lots of cool cars, time in the Camaro, time for us to talk. ended up being over 5000miles. there were cars there that I had not seen in a v e r y long time.
I got a nice, in my opinion, sunrise shot somewhere near Port Arthur. the route takes non-primary roads, so we were constantly reminded of the beauty of the country and goodness of people everywhere we went. the guy who traveled the farthest had to have been the Holden Ute from The Outback, Australia.

[h018871]

finally got around to installing the 25% UDP. pretty straight forward once I figured out how to get the 3 arm puller to grab. at first I was pulling on the inner of the outer ring at the spokes. this did not work. once I grabbed the OD of the inner hub, came right off. my puller set has 'centering points' on the threaded section, so I put a thick washer on the end of the crank to protect the threads.
this thread helped a lot
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38661
the most important tip was to use the all-thread. I ended up using a stack of washers ~ 3in high as a spacer. good thing I had a pile of them in the garage.

my car has electric steering, so I had to try several different belt lengths until I got the right ones. (AC belt is the same regardless of the PS type)
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=364460
These are the belts that I ended up with
Main: 6PK2020 ~ 79.53", AC: 4PK0890, ~ 35.04"

oh, the AC belt walked right off using a body trim tool. I did not need to cut it off or buy the GM installation tool

overall the job was pretty easy, once I got the puller sorted. I had to use a cheater on an 18in breaker bar to get the torque to yield bolt the full 220deg (if I recall correctly). I did not have the flywheel lock, only used the driveline, chocks and brakes

I was surprised because there is a difference in the way the car pulls. it feels stronger on the butt dyno.

[h018871]

I noticed on sweeping curves during Auto-X that the inside tire would break loose with almost any amount of throttle. in a straight line, both tires would spin more or less equally. I've only seen the issue on long sweeping turns. I was running with the car in competition mode.

so...... I have previous experience with truetracs (from 4x4 days) and now reading tech on them indicates that they are nearly optimum in this type of situation. they have a very smooth application of torque to the slower turning wheel to help the car go faster through and when coming out of corners. I decided while adding the truetrac that I would add the LPW cover, primarily for the additional fluid capacity but also for the added strength to the bearing caps and improve the case rigidity. it turns out that GM only sells the factory bushings installed in the covers and cases. this means that I would need to get some aftermarket bushings. I went with the softest ones I could find, the BMR street version.
I don't think I really need them, but I decided to go with some stronger axles to remove any doubt. I picked up a set of the 1000hp versions from G-force when they were on sale.

I don't have the equipment to set up the gear on the carrier, so I took it to a rear end shop in Baytown.

it has made a HUGE difference in the way the car drives. the bushings are quite stiff. the trans is now very clunky between shifts. I've had to relearn how to drive the car "again". now it rarely clunks, but is very sensitive to trans temp. I can't beat on it until it gets just below 180F on the gauge.
as far as traction is concerned, it no longer spins the inside tire on long sweepers. the back end will kick out if too much throttle is applied. power is now getting applied to the pavement, it is up to me to be spot on with the go pedal.

[h018871]

thx to T-Bone, Dropspeed, Norm and the others who helped me prepare the car and myself for track days. their advice and support ensured that I had a great time and did not break anything.

I went with the factory 285 goodyears on FR 10in wide rims all around.
bled the brakes, fluid changes for the engine, diff, trans and clutch

the course was being run CCW that weekend and of course I started off in the green group, we learned the "line" and got in some good driving. as you all know, this is a heavy car, the instructor and I had to make adjustments to the line for the weight and torque of a 1LE. this is truly a "permagrin" car, I highly recommend it. despite getting 2 tires off the track coming out of turn 3 (only one time), I was bumped up to the blue group by the end of the second day.

it was a typical August TX day, driving home at 1800 the outside temp gauge read 102. I did not have mylink on during the day while on the track, but it was HOT.

[h018871]

since the last post I've done a couple of things and broke the engine. let's start with the good stuff
the NPP tips have been sticking out further than I like (thx to ST1LE for pointing it out). I believe the resonated X pipe install was the cause. so I pulled the exhaust and trimmed 3/4" off of the ends at the slip connection. much better now

the trans jack really made the job easy

[h018871]

we got together with a couple of Vette guys from the club and we went up to Huntsville for the BEST lunch EVER. ended up at Bennie J's Pit BBQ. Did I say it was the best?
one of the guys is a professional photographer and took a shot of the car while we were still on 45, before we cut off to hit the back roads through the forest.

[h018871]

that reminds me of a trip I took earlier through the forest and stopped to take this pic on an old bridge over the entrance to lake Livingston