Things I do with my C6 Z06 Corvette.

Some friends of mine have been enjoying the C6 Z06 at autocross for a while now and once they started showing up under $40k I kinda knew that I would get one. It took a while, but I finally found one in Texas for a good price and had it shipped up here.

Here she is coming off the truck.

I went down to the DMV the Saturday after she arrived. I chose Norwalk even though Bridgeport is closer, because everyone said Bridgeport is one of the worst for overall traffic, and got there about an hour before they opened. There were already 10-15 people in line in front of me at that time, but I was glad I got there an hour before, because by the time they opened the line behind me had at least 50 people.

I got in, got my temp reg in about ten minutes and the lady that helped me informed me that if I came back the same day after getting emissions done I could just come right back up to her without waiting in line.

SCORE!

I slapped this on the car.

Drove right to get this...

And drove back to the DMV to get this...

And I was done with everything before 11am on Saturday.

And bright and early Sunday morning here we are!

Of course when I got to the site I found that the battery was not tied down at all, just sort of floating around in the box in the back and while it had the bracket and one side of the tie down it was missing the J hook for the other side. I hit up the Advance and got a generic battery tie down kit with a J hook and got it to work, of course the hook is too long and the box lid won't close, so a new tie down will have to be ordered.

Also the front splitter/curb scraper decided to give up the ghost and I had to remove that as it was hanging off. Unfortunately it took some of the fiberglass with it so I'll have to figure out what to do there.

Then after comparing with a couple of friends that had their Z06s at the site we concluded that my clutch is definitely not stock. I was suspicious of that because I drove a friend's car and clutch was relatively light and progressive while mine is very heavy and grabs very fast. So, since I want to run the car in A-Street a new original clutch is going to have to be installed. One of my friends just has his done at a dealer nearby and he says the tech there is super detailed about making sure everything is done exactly like GM wants it so for this application I think that is where I will have it done.

Apparently you have to drop the whole drivetrain out of the car to replace the clutch, including the rear end and rear suspension, so while you can do it in the driveway, I'll probably fork over the dough and have someone else do it.

That said, this car is sooooo much fun to drive at autocross and just in general. It is fantastic. Just makes amazing noises and the power is ridiculous.

I also need to get new heads with bronze valve guides as a hedge against the thing blowing up. I have a friend that can help me install those.

Current plans in no particular order:

• Purchase Forgestar F14 wheels to bring the car to 18s all around.

• Purchase Koni Sport shocks

• Find a set of Rival S rear tires for the Forgestars (currently have fronts ready to go)

• Install stock clutch

• Battery tie down fix

• Front splitter fix

• Competition alignment

• Source replacement heads with bronze valve guides

Off the truck and on the track that weekend; that's how these are meant to be driven! Looks great, hope it provides you with a lot of enjoyment.

I woke up this morning thinking how fun the car is to drive. I was nervous at first because I'm always nervous with used cars, but at this point I don't even care about the issues, I'll just fix them and have fun.

Koni Sport shocks on order. I'm actually going to attempt to install those myself (ha ha). Also have a bigger front bar on order, which I'm pretty sure I can actually get on myself as well.

Then I have a set of these coming. 18x9.5 fronts and 18x12 rears. Oof, my aching tire budget.

wouldn't a hack saw make quick work of this?

In reply to lnlogauge:

Sure but a cutoff wheel is quicker.

I'm just going to get the right one, because the threads on that one are actually so far up I had to jam that rubber gasket in there just to get it tightened down.

Definitely do the zip tie trick for the shock job. It would be like a one hour job total if they weren't gas charged. Still pretty quick.

sigh

I wanted to get heads with upgraded valve guides to minimize the possibility of the valve drop issue. Talked to one guy he says bronze guides are the only way to go and that powdered metal guides are no good. The other place says that bronze guides will wear too quickly unless you use roller rockers and they have an upgraded powdered metal guide they use that is pretty much overkill for what I will do with the car (autocross mostly).

Search the Internet and no one can agree on this at all partly because apparently there is no material standard for these things and they can all be made somewhat different even though they are called powdered metal or bronze.

Harvey said: Apparently you have to drop the whole drivetrain out of the car to replace the clutch, including the rear end and rear suspension, so while you can do it in the driveway, I'll probably fork over the dough and have someone else do it.

Yes, it is not easy. You actually need several special tools to compress the transverse leaf spring to get everything apart. You can probably do it without them, but I wouldn't want to attempt it.

The guy I found to do the clutch work was recommended by another Z06 guy. Apparently he pretty much only handles these cars. Wait is about a month to get the car in to him. Works at a Chevrolet dealer about 45 minutes up the road.

Been thinking seriously about trading up my C5Z

Well, hell, those got here quick. Does this mean I have to actually put them on the car?

Carro Atrezzi wrote: Been thinking seriously about trading up my C5Z

From my POV I think they are comparable in performance for autocross. I just like the newer one better. Also wife approved newer one over older one.

turtl631 wrote: Definitely do the zip tie trick for the shock job. It would be like a one hour job total if they weren't gas charged. Still pretty quick.

So, basically use zip ties to compress the fronts to get them in and out?

Yep, as seen here:

http://fuzzydiceracing.com/test.htm

Reading about the valve drop issue is pretty painful eh? I figured there would be more of a consensus. In the end I went with AHP and their regular guides, not the Moldstar90 that cost a ton more. Between Katech, WCCH, and AHP, and hundreds of pages of forum posts about this, the confusion is significant.

turtl631 wrote: Yep, as seen here: http://fuzzydiceracing.com/test.htm Reading about the valve drop issue is pretty painful eh? I figured there would be more of a consensus. In the end I went with AHP and their regular guides, not the Moldstar90 that cost a ton more. Between Katech, WCCH, and AHP, and hundreds of pages of forum posts about this, the confusion is significant.

The AHP guy Kohle convinced me that the regular guides they use are far beyond what I will need and that they have yet to have a failure after doing four of these a month for four years or so. Not saying the bronze guides are necessarily a bad choice as I know people running those too, but it doesn't seem like AHP is putting out a bad product.

Konis on the car. That was a pretty easy shock install overall except for the part where the front upper mounts come apart and the top part falls off and gets lost for a while. I guess I might want to get new ones at some point.

How do they feel? I'm enjoying my DRM Bilsteins and the lack of a knob to turn is kind of refreshing. We're using our cars differently though.

turtl631 wrote: How do they feel? I'm enjoying my DRM Bilsteins and the lack of a knob to turn is kind of refreshing. We're using our cars differently though.

Feel fine so far. Took the car for a drive, no big problems. Based on the amount of force needed to compress them by hand they are a bit more stiff than the stockers, but I also haven't checked the adjustment to make sure I'm at full soft (was kinda trying to get them on quick after work with a friend's help). That said, I'm not sure a measure of stiffness by hand really is a great measure of the difference, but I also can't imagine the stockers were all that great after 10 years and 53k miles.

I'll need the knob for autocross. On different surfaces being able to adjust the shocks is nice.

But, wtf GM? You need special D sockets to remove the stock shocks? Why? Yeah you can just put a vise grip on the thing and then turn the nut, but sheesh, what a pain.

Oh man, these look like so much fun. I want a ride on Sunday!

Hey, I can do stuff!

Anyone want to guess how much the one hook cost me from the Chevrolet dealer?

I mean, I wanted to have the right part since it has a particular way it hooks on, but...

cmcgregor wrote: Oh man, these look like so much fun. I want a ride on Sunday!

Hit me up.

I haven't got it aligned yet unfortunately, but it will still be fun, if relatively slow. Also, 140TW tires that are worse than the 200TW Rival S still mean I have to run in SP (that and the non-stock clutch). So, I put myself in Pro class to make it look even worse!

Harvey wrote: But, wtf GM? You need special D sockets to remove the stock shocks? Why? Yeah you can just put a vise grip on the thing and then turn the nut, but sheesh, what a pain.

I awkwardly and slowly used a Knipex pliers wrench to hold the top and a gear wrench.

I'm glad to see our two cars evolving in mild but different directions. They're a great buy for the money. I just did a DE in minaendd it was so easy to drive around everyone. Carrying higher cornering speeds with stock run flats than with RE11s on my S2000. Straight-line speed obviously bonkers.

Harvey wrote: But, wtf GM? You need special D sockets to remove the stock shocks? Why? Yeah you can just put a vise grip on the thing and then turn the nut, but sheesh, what a pain.

If you don't plan to reuse the shocks it's easier to put a deep socket on the top nut with a long extension and snap the shaft.

Hit up Devens this past weekend.

Car was overall slow by comparison to everything else. Without good tires and an alignment though I wasn't expecting much. It was still fun to take it out, but at the same time the stock setup just understeers if you come in too hard to a corner and then power oversteers too much on corner exit.

I had no time to get it aligned and I'm thinking since I'm going to drop the whole drivetrain in a couple of weeks that I might not even bother getting it aligned until after that is all done.

I ended up working the course during your runs, looked like you were having a good time out there though.

The heat was pretty brutal