The Green Guzzler

It will always look stock from the outside. Even if I were to swap in a C5R motor. No point in advertising, I let the performance do the talking.

The car is not "blow your doors off" fast yet, mainly because I am in college, and thus have no money, but it does pretty well. Future plans include heads, cam and supporting mods. Then probably later down the road some bottom end work.

This is pretty much just turning into an upgrade page for me to keep track of what order I did things in.

10/21/08: (This actually happened a while ago...) Well the "super strong" Moser 12-bolt was poorly assembled (by moser). The pinion bearing was not pressed in properly and it let go. That sent the pinion into the ring gear. Not good. So out came the  ring and pinion and in went some pretty seriously strong 4.11 gears. Also had the rear set up by a guy I used to work with that builds race cars. It's a touch on the noisy side, but it's solid. ALSO NOTE: The rear broke on the highway, cruising! POS. If I had it to do again, a 9" would be under there.

Also had a RAM Powergrip HD clutch in there, but ran into hydraulic problems and chewed it up. Now I'm running an LS7 clutch and billet steel flywheel. So far it's pretty good, definately more streetable. UMI Boxed Subframe Connectors have also been welded in. New seats (Katzkin Tan/Dark Gray teo-tones) and some other little stuff here and there have also been added. I'll put pictures up some time soon

***Update*** It's been a while since I've updated this, but here is the story as of late. First I broke the rear at the track. I broke all 4 spider gears inside the carrier. (Don't have pics up yet, but I will soon). So I decided on a Moser 12-bolt with 3.90 gears, 33 spline axles, a Detroit TrueTrac clutchless posi, and hardened axles and wheel studs.

Also had to put a new tranny in the car because I bent the main shaft, which was causing vibration. So a built tranny was in order. Replaced it with a built T-56 rated (conservatively) at 800 ft-lbs. Don't have any pics of that, but to give you an idea, we had to cut the 5-6 counter gear off of the main shaft to get it off...

Then came the time for new tires. I've wanted to get new wheels for a while, so I said what the heck and got 17"x9.5" Z06 Motorsport wheels-black with polished lip and chrome rivets- and wrapped them in BFG G-Force 275/40ZR17 tires. It makes the car look sexxxy. I never got compliments on how my car looked before, but now pretty much whenever I go somewhere, at least one person says something. Pics of that will be coming shortly.

Then came the most frustrating experience I've ever had with mine or any other car. That experience: puttin in poly motor mounts with the headers on the car. In total it took almost 15 hours (working by myself). After that, rebuilding the tranny, and swapping the rear end, I'm pretty sure I can handle whatever this thing can throw at me

After the motor mounts I put in a UMI adjustable torque arm, because being able to set your pinion angle is bueno.

Next came KYB 8-way adjustable shocks all the way around. The shocks are pretty impressive. Massive adjustability, with 1 being like riding on a waterbed, and 8 is pretty much rock hard. Good mod for $300.

First thing, I have upgraded to Hawk HPS pads with iRotors cross drilled and slotted rotors. This was the first thing I did to the car, as the stock brakes scared the living hell out of me. (i.e. wouldn't stop the car very efficiently from 120 mph)

Up next was the clutch. The car's got a few miles on her and I figured it was about time. It's a Spec Stage 3. Grips strong and doesnt get really hot quickly, but the only downside is it squeaks a little bit, as it has more metal than a lot of other compounds. ***Squeaking has gone away after 1000ish miles *** My only complaint is the release bearing didn't even come close to fitting. I ended up just getting a Z06 slave, and it kept pedal feel pretty much like stock, I've had no problems with a crashed pedal, and no issues with the infamous 2-3 shift.

Along with the clutch, I put in the Pro 5.0 power tower and a Lou's Short Stick.

Then the headlights started to get noticeably cloudy:

Finally got the Pacesetter LT's in. They're pretty beast. Started the car with open headers and it was sweeeeeet. My advice to anyone getting headers is go ahead and get race style with no EGR or AIR. It cleans up the engine bay a lot.
The job took a total of about 8 hours with 2 parts/tools runs in between. Everything fit great, and the only problems I had were stupid mistakes on my part (i.e. putting the pass. side gasket on backwards)

Just put in RPM Speed's tubular lower control arms and tubular panhard bar. Tightened up the rear a lot. Put in a poly tranny mount as well. Between the two of those, wheel hop is completely gone.

I also put an SLP Intake on the car not too long ago, along with the K&N filter.

And to get the power to the ground I run some 245/50/16 Nitto NT555R drag radials at the track.

Didn't get to do many power mods this summer since I broke most of the drivetrain... Oh well, now I'm back in Charlotte where there are people to help me when the time comes for a cam and whatnot.

I had a bad habit of doing burnouts... a lot... before I went to the track. After you go to the track and do burnouts for a reason, it kinda loses its novelty. These first few pics are of my handy work, and the last 4 are of my wheel wells after a night at the strip. I collected (and lost) a ball of rubber about 3" wide from my fenderwells.

Here's a video of me dicking around in the Z

This is me after the track for the first time. Got 13 runs in and managed to run an 8.868 at 82.990 mph in 1/8 at about 55 degrees on my KDWS's. Went to the track later (still with stock rear, before headers and tune and ran an 8.311 @ 85.647 mph with a 1.968 60'. Now to take it out there with about 30 more horsepower and a lot better gears and see what she can do.

And some random pictures: