TireSmoke.org

After a trip to Pittsburgh to acquire this 2003 Z06 exhaust it was now time to install this fancy new addition.
It was a whole lot lighter than the system that was on the car. When they say you need a lift or several feet
of clearance to make this swap they are not kidding. Jacking up a C5 is no small trick.
Once the Vette is finally up, the rest is a relative piece-o-cake.




GMJohnny has this really big grin since the sounds are a whole lot better than before!

The guy on the floor in those photos is really Don Garlits!! Hopefully, the addition of these pipes & some air intake work will keep me in front of the smoker. Best et last year 13.62 @ 103. We'll see..... By the way, thanks for "the pucks" Walt (WXO), they worked sweet!!

heyyyyyy have you talked to Trevor yet? If not please quit wasteing that hard earned green. tty

If they sound half as good as they look, I'd say it's a winner. Not to mention the weight savings never hurt anything. Sometimes the factory CAN do it right...

-BP

They sound mint, they are light & they are supposed to flow 32% better than the stock ones. Win / win situation. I thought about aftermarkets, but did not want to listen to drone with the top down. ( Wife actually likes this car, need to keep it that way!! ) Also, to fast87, trevor is in the grand scheme of speed, I want to do the easy bolt ons before I see him. I figure once he has done his majic, Fred32v will have to buy another car...

Gm really it's more driveability than straight up speed .From what I gather Gm tames that car down with torque curves and all sorts of stuff just the tweeking makes huge improvements.As for easy bolt on ,I myself went though that . thier was lots of fun work ,without the lots of improvement.T-dog may know whitch ones work better for the cash also.Have fun.

So what you are telling me is that I should spend my first $500 on him & not on anything else? I may have to follow that lead. The car needs tires before I can do any more of that speed stuff... I am in limbo & liquidating assests as quick as I can to support my habit!!

Thats kinda what I'm getting at. I don't know if they have your size,but the Mickey Thompson drag radials are awesome. My next set for sure.

So, Wednesday the 11th, I decided to stop putting off the inevitable and fix the heater problem with the c5. The car had an issue with its ability to heat the driver's side of the interior. The passenger could select climate control correctly, but driver was forced to freeze. Literally, I had to drive to work one cold October morning looking out of the passenger window, because I could not defrost my side! A quick browse through the internet proved that I was not the only one with this situation & a c5 heater pioneer decided to supply to other unfortunates like myself, a very nice write up of how to easily "fix" this issue by simply turning a gear counter clockwise to allow a vent actuator motor to open a vent door correctly.
Sounds simple enough, so Fred32v & I fired up the garage and went in. Approximately 1 1/2 hours into the dig, I surfaced with my actuator in hand. With the moment of truth "in hand" I opened the motor to find that the simple fix was going to get even simpler, but way more expensive than the "pioneer" had explained. The gear I was going to turn, was cracked, requiring the actuator to be replaced. Although replacing a part with a new one was much easier than repairing the old one, I could feel my wallet getting lighter by the second. A quick glance at the internet revealed the cheapest part to be around $125.00 + shipping & several days to get it home. In my zeal to complete the task I called multiple car dealers ( who had them in stock ), & after some haggling & threatening to go to another dealer, I "swap-meeted" my way into a $150.00 actuator.
The install was painless & in 45 mins, the car ran. We ran out of time to see if it really would make heat, but my guess is it will. The objective is to make it to Carlisle, if the weather will cooperate. Cross your fingers! I have added a photo of my broken gear and like to think that "crack" is expensive!!!!

So several months ago, a good Craigslist find set me up with a set of Y2K polished aluminum wheels. I spent the better portion of the Daytona 500 polishing them in my family room. I have been saving my play money so I could buy a set of new skins. I just ebay-d off my old tractor which created enough capital (with the sweet discount provided by Most Mint's place of employment) to purchase the new treads.
After a quick run to Akron for mounting and a trip through Summit racing for locking lugnuts on the way home, Fred32v and I had them on the car. They look great on the car, and give it a much different appearance than it had with the old stock 98 wheels on it. A quick ebay purchase of a z06 tire inflator kit ( new tires are not run flats ) has me ready to roll to Carlisle, weather permitting. Another project in the books!!
( Fred's tractor got a Bridgestone facelift also!!! )

That's a great pic. You should send it to the prior owner (or at least the dealer) so he can see what it looks like now.

Those are Potenza RE960 AS tires. Excellent traction in an all season tire.

The C5 has gone through quite a conversion this winter. Exhaust, chromes, NICE!
I'm not sure what will be better, the noise, the performance, or the sweet chromes.

-BP

So I have finally decided to pull the trigger on the performance tune from Hutter performance. I recently sold parts of the Vette ( original wheels and tires ), and some other junk I had at the Canfield swap meet. That $ sent me over the edge. The tune is to be done on Wednesday the 5th of August. Fred 32v is going to go with me, as Trevor said we were welcome to watch. I told him it was $50.00 to watch, but he told me no way. Soon, he will be in need of tune, or a new Cadillac!!! More to follow.......

While researching plugs for my Z28, I found the following. It was written by a Chevy tech who worked on my 2000 C5 and fixed a drivetrain problem that non of my local dealerships would touch.
BUT KEEP IN MIND: This was written in 2003 and since then, GM has changed their recommended plug for the LS1. Now, they recommend the AC Delco 41-985 and interestingly enough, it is gapped at .040.

Posted by c4c5specialist (Member # 483) on January 13, 2003 06:22 PM:

Hi there,
What I will say to you will not be popular, however, the following is FACT.
First, your plugs should be AcDelco 41-952 double platinum tips, and they are pregapped to .060 in.
I do NOT suggest aftermarket plugs in any way. There are many reasons, however, I will share the basics with you. The biggest reason, is ignition timing.
Theory follows.
If you look at the spark plug center electrode, it projects a certain amount from the base of the threads. That is called electrode protrusion. What alot of people do NOT understand, is that there were 3 different plug designs on c5. And each one had a different electrode protrusion. 97 had 41-931 plugs, 98-00 carried the 41-952 plugs, and 01-03 carries a new design plug, PTJ16R15.
As you can see, differences abound, that people do NOT like to talk about.
Now, the reason that the electrode protrusion has such a bearing on ignition timing, is that the protrusion is the starting point of the flame front, as it burns the fuel across the combustions chamber. This changes the amount of time that the fuel takes to burn. HOWEVER, HERE IS THE REASON THAT ITS SO IMPORTANT.
The engine control computer does NOT know that the plugs were changed, and the timing program is for the original plugs that were in there. So, it will advance or retard the timing, based on the original equipment spark plugs. This timing program may NOT be ideal for power production with the different plugs. And obviously, there is differences in the spark plugs, you will have a different running engine when you change the plugs.
Some aftermarket plugs do not protrude as far into the combustion chamber, so this actually retards ignition timing, because the flame has farther to travel across the chamber. This is the reason that so many people report no engine detonation when they change plugs, when they heard the detonation before.
If you have further questions let me know. Just remember, you do NOT regap the platinum plugs, they are preset.
Allthebest, c4c5

Well, the day came. Fred 32v and I went to Hutter Racing bright and early. The car was put on the dyno, and tuned, and tuned, and tuned. We were there with the car on the rack for over 3 hours. The outcome was great. Trevor tampered with the computer, netting a quarter mile gain ( over my best ) of almost 3 tenths, and a mile per hour faster in the quarter. I am near certain, if I could have had one more pass in the 58 degree temperature, it would have fallen into the 13.20's, but my best pass of the night was my red light in the first round @13.34 -- 104.56 mph.
Even though these are my best numbers, I have a bit of concern about my bottom end. My sixty foot times are in the 2.05 range, but I have zero wheel spin. It makes me think there should be some. Ironically, one of the Hutter tech's was at the strip when we were there. He called Trevor to give him the news. They were not happy with that result, and told me to come back to see what the deal is....... Next Wednesday, we'll see. Dyno tuning and TRP in one day.... Horsepower Central!!!!