Even though we're done with Wed nights and dirt drags for the season, I still have things I want to get done before winter cuz it's cold in the garage... I have these 15x7" American Racing Outlaw rims with old drag radials on them. I thought they might be good for tall and skinnyish front running tires for the Vette. The tires on there now are 245-55-15s and are about 25.5" tall. I'm looking to fit a 215-75-15 on there which will be about 4" narrow at the treads, and just under 28" tall. So although the tires look to stick out a little, this effect will be significantly minimized with the narrower tires, plus I'm going to paint them black to "match" the other dirt wheels I have. For grins I bolted on the 29+" tires from the back on the front and they still cleared all the fenders, so I know a 28" tall tire will work and should actually steer without interference. Hey, the rims are free at this point...
I also ordered a new Edge torque converter today based on experience that both Tony and Dave have had with these guys. I talked to Andre the owner today for about 15 minutes and he will be putting together a converter for me that will be along these lines:
https://edgeracingconverters.com/produc ... smissions/
He builds them several different ways based on what you're trying to accomplish with the car, but we know it will be close to 1000rpms better than what I have, but be more efficient everywhere. The best part is that his custom converter at $390 is less expensive than the store bought, generic converters out there. Win-win. I think this will be the most significant performance upgrade I can make without digging into the motor, which I don't want to do. I'm hoping for 2-3 tenths in the quarter, and about the same on the dirt. Not to mention the improvement it will help with on an autocross course. He claims gains on the big end too which will help road course and 1/4 mile as well.
More to come...
-BP
1987 Corvette Z52
Moderators: MostMint, wxo, Fred32v, Basement Paul, ttamrettus
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
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Basement Paul
- Posts: 3382
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
After some discussion with my buddy Tony Reed (he's the guy I go dirt racing with...maniac with a 2 stroke 4 wheeler), I decided my rear dirt tires needed more block than they have. He has a tire grooving tool that he let me borrow, and I hacked up my tires for about 2.5 hours yesterday morning. This should get me more grip in several ways, especially on a loose dirt track. The process of cutting is pretty simple, it's just a HOT iron with an adjustable height small u shaped blade on it, and you hold the tire with one hand and push with the other. It's requires some effort, but you don't need to be a gorilla to do it. After you do this several hundred times, your tires are ready to go.
The one picture shows half the treads done, and half not. I'll be ordering the 215-75r15 front tires this week sometime.
I also got my autocross numbers last week, but forgot to picture them. I'll be swapping over the front shocks and tires to get ready for that this week most likely.
-BP
The one picture shows half the treads done, and half not. I'll be ordering the 215-75r15 front tires this week sometime.
I also got my autocross numbers last week, but forgot to picture them. I'll be swapping over the front shocks and tires to get ready for that this week most likely.
-BP
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Basement Paul
- Posts: 3382
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
We've been working on the torque converter swap since last week sometime. So far we have three sessions maybe 3-4 hours each, but we're getting close to having it back together. No major surprises, just a lot of steps. The transmission jack from Harbor Freight though not perfect, made handling the transmission a relatively safe and light job for one person, so worth the money if you plan to swap one on the floor.
I took the Y-pipe home after the first session to weld up a previously clamped and not perfect connection where the old big cat converter used to be. As the car sits right now, the converter is in, the trans and motor are bolted back together, the torque arm is bolted in place, and the new trans pan (with plug) and filter are installed. When I was going to put the driveshaft back, I noticed the rear u-joint was pretty stiff, so we're going to replace that one for sure. The front one seemed pretty good still.
What's left is the driveshaft, exhaust, torque converter - flywheel bolts, inspection cover, reinstall the dist cap, hook up the shifter cable on the trans, and hook up the TV cable on the t-body. Add oil and hope for the best.
KMP has a late scheduled race on Saturday, and if it doesn't rain (it's looking bad), I plan to be there with this.
-BP
I took the Y-pipe home after the first session to weld up a previously clamped and not perfect connection where the old big cat converter used to be. As the car sits right now, the converter is in, the trans and motor are bolted back together, the torque arm is bolted in place, and the new trans pan (with plug) and filter are installed. When I was going to put the driveshaft back, I noticed the rear u-joint was pretty stiff, so we're going to replace that one for sure. The front one seemed pretty good still.
What's left is the driveshaft, exhaust, torque converter - flywheel bolts, inspection cover, reinstall the dist cap, hook up the shifter cable on the trans, and hook up the TV cable on the t-body. Add oil and hope for the best.
KMP has a late scheduled race on Saturday, and if it doesn't rain (it's looking bad), I plan to be there with this.
-BP
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
I saw a post on FB from KMP stating they were done for the year based on
the amount of rain we’ve had this week. FYI
GM
the amount of rain we’ve had this week. FYI
GM
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Yeah, saw it, which is a bummer. But there are still other things to do if it ever stops raining. We're in a really dumb weather pattern and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.
-BP
-BP
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Today we finally got all of the pieces of the puzzle back together and we're able to get the Vette off the jackstands. With 10qts of tranny fluid the stick showed full before our test drive.
The converter definitely feels peppier both off the line and through the gears. One quick test let me brake torque up to 1900 easily and I'm sure if i push it it will be 22-2300. When we got back from our short drive, the dipstick was dry again, so we need another couple quarts.
There's still a couple TNT days at 42 as well as a couple autocross events, so I plan to try and get to at least one of each of those this year. I wholly expect it to be about .3 quicker in the quarter. We also drove for the first time on the road race tires today. They're super sticky.
More to come...
-BP
The converter definitely feels peppier both off the line and through the gears. One quick test let me brake torque up to 1900 easily and I'm sure if i push it it will be 22-2300. When we got back from our short drive, the dipstick was dry again, so we need another couple quarts.
There's still a couple TNT days at 42 as well as a couple autocross events, so I plan to try and get to at least one of each of those this year. I wholly expect it to be about .3 quicker in the quarter. We also drove for the first time on the road race tires today. They're super sticky.
More to come...
-BP
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Basement Paul
- Posts: 3382
- Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
As happens many times in life, expectations go unmet. Friday night 42 had a TNT that Dave and I went to. I had a chance to make three solid passes with the Vette and the new converter. The track is always good there, and I had three solid passes, a 13.71, a 13.70, and a 13.73 with my best MPH being 98.53.
My 60' times definitely have improved. Previously my best was a 1.898 and was regularly about 1.91. On Friday I had two 1.83s and one 1.85 where I lowered the launch RPM as an experiment. So I'm a solid .07 quicker to 60'. Unfortunately for us, there was about a 25mph headwind coming DIRECTLY up the track. At 330' I was .09 seconds quicker than my best, but by the end of the track that number had diminished to nothing. The air was also a D/A of 2500', so more like late summer weather than end of October.
I believe the car will be a solid tenth or more quicker in normal conditions than this, but I was realistically hoping for three tenths for all the effort, but with the combination I have, apparently that's just not in the cards. There's still more lightening to do over the winter so we'll see where it takes us. I expect that if I can get a 13.49 or so by the time we're done, that will be just about it unless I do motor work. I will be interested to see how this reacts on the dirt. I think it will actually help me more there than on the tarmac.
Stay tuned...
-BP
My 60' times definitely have improved. Previously my best was a 1.898 and was regularly about 1.91. On Friday I had two 1.83s and one 1.85 where I lowered the launch RPM as an experiment. So I'm a solid .07 quicker to 60'. Unfortunately for us, there was about a 25mph headwind coming DIRECTLY up the track. At 330' I was .09 seconds quicker than my best, but by the end of the track that number had diminished to nothing. The air was also a D/A of 2500', so more like late summer weather than end of October.
I believe the car will be a solid tenth or more quicker in normal conditions than this, but I was realistically hoping for three tenths for all the effort, but with the combination I have, apparently that's just not in the cards. There's still more lightening to do over the winter so we'll see where it takes us. I expect that if I can get a 13.49 or so by the time we're done, that will be just about it unless I do motor work. I will be interested to see how this reacts on the dirt. I think it will actually help me more there than on the tarmac.
Stay tuned...
-BP
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
On Saturday we swapped the autocross tires off and stacked those back up. We then stuck the car back in the corner and put the battery tender on it as it most likely won't be getting much use until spring. We also made another list of things to do to it this winter. Some are maintenance, most are upgrades. I already started ordering parts.
-BP
-BP
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Basement Paul
- Posts: 3382
- Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
I haven't posted in a little while as I was having trouble getting the pictures from my phone to my computer. I have since remedied the problem. Right now I've gathered a few parts that will be going on. A new steering wheel I bought off ebay has "blemishes" but it's new, the guy has a ton of them, and it's 10x better than what's on there. The blemishes are just minor imperfections in the leather, but if I didn't tell you it was a blemish unit, you wouldn't know it. And for $95 shipped, it seemed like a solid deal and will make the drive more enjoyable.
I found out recently that although Curt advertises a hitch for the C4, they have been discontinued. So on to plan B, which is to make one work. I bought the hitch pictured for $20 off FB. It's allegedly for a CR-V, but has never been installed. Basically it's too big, which is perfect so I have material to work with. I think if I cut here, and weld there, and a little drilling where it needs it, I can make it work. For $20, I'll give it shot.
I bought an oil change for the motor and some rear differential fluid with posi lube too. That probably has never been done ever on this car. You have to actually suck the oil out of the fill hole on this thing. Lame.
-BP
I found out recently that although Curt advertises a hitch for the C4, they have been discontinued. So on to plan B, which is to make one work. I bought the hitch pictured for $20 off FB. It's allegedly for a CR-V, but has never been installed. Basically it's too big, which is perfect so I have material to work with. I think if I cut here, and weld there, and a little drilling where it needs it, I can make it work. For $20, I'll give it shot.
I bought an oil change for the motor and some rear differential fluid with posi lube too. That probably has never been done ever on this car. You have to actually suck the oil out of the fill hole on this thing. Lame.
-BP
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Basement Paul
- Posts: 3382
- Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Saturday it was warmer outside, so I wanted to get some paint on the "new" dedicated front wheel combo for dirt racing. So I got those scratched up, primed and painted pretty quickly with semi-gloss black. They're still pretty wet in the pics and have since calmed down a little. The rears had a few places where I could see through the paint, so since I had the paint out, I recoated those too.
I got the car all jacked up in the front and back and got to work changing the rear differential fluid. Since there's no drain plug, you have to suck the fluid out. 40 degree gear oil moves a little slowly, but I was able to get about a quart and a half out of the rear. It holds just under 2 quarts total from what I've read. So now it has 4oz of posi lube and almost a quart and a half of new synthetic fluid.
While I was under the car, I noticed one of the bolts that hold the rear suspension assembly was LOOSE. Turns out the nut back out, but has not fallen off, and it doesn't really look like the hole has been wallowed out at all. I ran out of time but will attempt to retighten it next time out. I did lube it up in the meantime. Looks like it has been this way for some time.
-BP
I got the car all jacked up in the front and back and got to work changing the rear differential fluid. Since there's no drain plug, you have to suck the fluid out. 40 degree gear oil moves a little slowly, but I was able to get about a quart and a half out of the rear. It holds just under 2 quarts total from what I've read. So now it has 4oz of posi lube and almost a quart and a half of new synthetic fluid.
While I was under the car, I noticed one of the bolts that hold the rear suspension assembly was LOOSE. Turns out the nut back out, but has not fallen off, and it doesn't really look like the hole has been wallowed out at all. I ran out of time but will attempt to retighten it next time out. I did lube it up in the meantime. Looks like it has been this way for some time.
-BP
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
We got the bolt in the suspension all tightened up. It wasn't very simple due to it's proximity to all the suspension crap under there. If the rear shock was out, it would have been much easier. Then we turned our attention to the trailer hitch, since we were back there. Oh, I found a NOS hitch on FB for $25 but with no shipping in MD. After messaging him, I paid him $60 for the hitch and packaging, and sent him a UPS label on my dime. All in I got the right hitch for about $76 shipped to my door. PERFECT! And then I cut up the $20 hitch and put it in the parts bin for fab parts later. Anyway, after reading the instructions several times, I had to put the hitch under the car so I could visualize what they were trying to tell me. Since there's hole drilling in the frame of the car, I thought I would make sure what they wanted.
There's some odd bracket in the way that doesn't seem to have any function at all, so that got trimmed down so the hitch would at least rest solidly against the frame. At that point I was able to vice grip it in place so I could start drilling without having to do a bunch of measuring and guessing. I'm to the point where the exhaust has to come down and I got a message from Jim Curtis that he had a cancellation at his body shop and I could get my S10 in sooner. Since it was a nice day Saturday, and he was going to be back there later in the day, I got to work securing a trailer and getting home to get everything loaded up.
By next Saturday, the hitch project will be wrapped up IMO.
-BP
There's some odd bracket in the way that doesn't seem to have any function at all, so that got trimmed down so the hitch would at least rest solidly against the frame. At that point I was able to vice grip it in place so I could start drilling without having to do a bunch of measuring and guessing. I'm to the point where the exhaust has to come down and I got a message from Jim Curtis that he had a cancellation at his body shop and I could get my S10 in sooner. Since it was a nice day Saturday, and he was going to be back there later in the day, I got to work securing a trailer and getting home to get everything loaded up.
By next Saturday, the hitch project will be wrapped up IMO.
-BP
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C4 Chassis Bars
Here's something I just discovered that my be of some interest to you: https://youtu.be/gU7drMqLdZ0
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Never heard of those. Seems worthwhile for sure. Good find Walt!
-BP
-BP
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
I just spent some time reading lots of reviews and despite a couple reviews about missing hardware and mediocre instructions, the final results sound amazing. This will likely be on my list of things to do this year.
-BP
-BP
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
We got the hitch install finished last weekend, and finished reinstalling the exhaust yesterday. Of course there were a couple bolts from the hitch that needed trimming, but no big deal. Somehow I don't have a picture of the completed install...
Then we changed the oil as it had most of a season full of drag strips, dirt drags, and autocross under it's belt. Mileage is 71772 now. This time we used Quaker State high mileage synthetic. I used Quaker State normal synthetic last time that came from the Dave Bales collection, but I was pretty satisfied with how it worked in both the Corvette and my Ranger.
The last small project was removing the cruise control bracket, cable, hoses, and controller. This was only about a 15 minute job, but one less thing to clutter the engine bay. It didn't work anyway, and I didn't think repairing it was necessary. Saved a few pounds too.
-BP
Then we changed the oil as it had most of a season full of drag strips, dirt drags, and autocross under it's belt. Mileage is 71772 now. This time we used Quaker State high mileage synthetic. I used Quaker State normal synthetic last time that came from the Dave Bales collection, but I was pretty satisfied with how it worked in both the Corvette and my Ranger.
The last small project was removing the cruise control bracket, cable, hoses, and controller. This was only about a 15 minute job, but one less thing to clutter the engine bay. It didn't work anyway, and I didn't think repairing it was necessary. Saved a few pounds too.
-BP
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