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Got the cooler all buttoned up and wired, it works. Just waiting on 2 more fittings, I was gonna swap between the 4' lines and the shirt but the tubing was different sizes for both. Cleanest easiest fix is the correct fitting.
It's a nice, short run and I zip tied it to the roll bar in case I get out and forget to disconnect. I don't want to yank on the fitting at the cooler. Also, the cooler uses a fast style fitting (which accepts either going in), so it won't just let go if you pull like the fittings I'm using at the driver (FIA type). Once that was done I put the trans back in the car, feels like I'm back to normal again.
All loaded for next weekend. Next I pulled my Z06 in the garage, I get to have the clutch balanced, rebuild the torque tube, and fix whatever I broke inside the transmission.
The transmission worked great this weekend, back to being able to grab gears just as fast as my hands and feet will allow. The new suit is also amazing, even walking and lifting my arms feels different. I stayed a lot cooler with it. I waited until the first race to break out the cool suit, I won't be waiting anymore. I put a 10# block in there with some cubes on top and after a race it barely made a dent in it. I have the Momo ADC shirt with the bladders not the tubes. I have no idea what a shirt with tubes feels like, but the Momo shirt is mind blowingly good. I felt the same way the end of the race as I did in the beginning, and we were racing in 100 degree heat. Usually my head would be pounding, I'd be soaked head to toe, and just want out of the car. Today I was crossing my fingers for more laps before the white flag came out so I could get the lead. I couldn't believe that cooling my core could reduce how much my head would sweat. Total game changer.
Sadly it didn't make me faster. Maybe a subscription to Blayze is in order. I wasn't fully in love with the braking feel either, maybe the PFC08 will be my huckleberry. I'd like a little more initial bite, and for some reason first session out I had a bit of a long pedal. I drained some brake fluid out of the calipers, didn't see any bubbles, but seemed to have a consistently higher pedal after that that didn't mess up my downshifts. I guess bleeding for every weekend is the new norm.
Since the Camaro was so well behaved, I decided to get off my *** and crack into my Z06 that's been waiting for driveline repairs for a number of years.
Tonight I'll split the trans/torque tube/diff apart and hopefully get the trans apart to see what all I tore up. I hurt 2nd gear, the torque tube needs new bearings, and the clutch isn't quite balanced properly.
Miss my electron blue C5Z street/track car, fun car and color.
Had a stock black C5Z for years too.
You're closer to Miller now than me, you should check it out.
With gas at $5.50/gal here I think I'll pass for now. That's a big, wide track and I'd suck at it for sure. Would need a good amount of seat time to really hit it 100%. Looks fast and fun though, that's for sure! The thought occurred to me that I might learn something now tracking the Z06 to apply to the Camaro, but then the thought occurred to me that I'd be too distracted by the terrible seat and stock sliding brake calipers.
What a difference a few weeks makes, gas is about $1/gal cheaper than my last post. Over the weekend I changed the oil, purged the brake fluid, and replaced the rear pads. Should be ready to go for this weekend. And the Z06 is still in a million pieces because I decided I needed to install sprinklers in the back yard. They're in and functional now, got a few tweaks before they're finished. Next week it'll be full speed ahead on the Z06 as I hope to have a freshly balanced clutch by then so I can get it back together and bring some focus back to continual improvement on this.
Such a needy thing a house can be. If my clutch is ready today I can have the driveline back in the Z tonight. So the clutch probably won't be ready. Once the Z is down I can get back on the Camaro.
Such a needy thing a house can be. If my clutch is ready today I can have the driveline back in the Z tonight. So the clutch probably won't be ready. Once the Z is down I can get back on the Camaro.
Did you drive the Electron blue Z all summer?
Get in a fall race?
Did you drive the Electron blue Z all summer?
Get in a fall race?
I was able to enjoy it once I got it buttoned up, it was so nice to have it back in the rotation. I even played with the throttle mapping and dumped in a little more timing. Last I checked these want about 28 degrees down at sea level, IIRC I bumped it up to 30 here in CO. Should still be a smidge under what it wants, but closer to ideal now. I'd love to sneak an underdrive crank pulley on and hit the rollers to dial it in fully and see what it makes. No racing, but I did get it to an autox event. My friend and I ran the Z06 in the morning and the Camaro in the afternoon. I smoked him in both, but prior to that he'd bested me in my Z06 when I first got it and in his Terminator earlier this year. It was my turn finally. I just spent 3 weeks out of town and now that I'm back the weather has turned, but I'm still itching to get it back out for a rip sooner than later. It was a lot of work, but luckily I didn't have to redo any of it.
Time for an update. I had an October race and the car was great, just put gas in and go. Fast forward to a couple weekends ago and I did an open lapping day. On the first lap of the last session, it stopped going. In the previous session, I noticed the car was getting difficult to get into any gear. On this session, I left the slowest turn in 2nd gear and found 3rd surprisingly easily but all I found after that was the rev limiter. I tried 4th and was greeted with a grinding sound so coasted back to the pits and about halfway into my trailer. It sounded like it was coming from the clutch/transmission area so I tore into that. Clutch looked the same as it did the last time I had it out but I said screw it and ordered a new disc. Apart came the transmission, surely I broke something in there right? Here's my schwanky 5th gear puller.
Here you can see how it fits right in.
Nothing was wrong with the transmission, save for these stupid "billet" dogshit keys. I realized after putting them in that there was a better alternative. The POSs on the left are powdered metal, and the keys on the right are chromoly.
I always cringe when I get to this part because this has screwed me over so many times in the past. This time did not disappoint, once the silicone was on the 3/4 syncro overextended itself onto 4th gear so back apart it came.
I tried a new method: pin it together with 2 bolts and no silicone, get all the guts in, flip it, and now all I have to worry about is silicone and the shift rails won't be moving around on me and screwing everything up.
Since last assembling the car, I received a new release bearing so that went in as well. You can see how hammered the old one was getting.
Time to install the trans? Nope! 3 year old pilot bearing exploded. That may well explain the shifting issues I had right before the failure. I could swear I smeared some grease into this thing earlier this year.
So this time I went with a bushing instead. Put the car all back together and the fork beats itself against the pressure plate. Awesome. I'll deal with that at home, so I loaded the car up last night to do just that.
Since I just can't get enough of T56s I opted to split open my spare in hopes that repairing it would be cheap. I was pleasantly surprised. Back in 2018, I left that same slow corner in 2nd, hammered 3rd (last lap of the last race of the weekend), and it went in with a grind. 3rd was done with just 1 shift. I split the ring. Turns out, the 3/4 rings I removed from my primary trans back in July were in better shape than the 3/4 in here, and they shifted just fine, so I'll just toss those into this trans and call it good.
5/6 fork pads are destroyed too. Weird. I have some on hand, easy fix. I also noticed I didn't have the iron 3-4 fork but I also have one of those on hand so I'll make that upgrade as well as flipping the reverse syncro and installing a carbon blocker on it. It also still has stamped keys, I have a set of chromoly 3-4 on hand but no 1-2 so I'm waiting for those to come in the mail and then I can button this thing back up.
And then I noticed this little surprise, broke one stud and I may have bent the rest. Fun. Winter plans were to do the poor man's 411 swap. I still have hopes I can get that done. But first is that atrocious right rear quarter panel, I need to finish cutting the replacement out of the donor I picked up a year ago so I can get that off to the scrap yard and out of my hair.
Tonight I finally tried my modified clutch fork and V1 cleared with the clutch to the floor.
About impossible to see where I built the end back up with the welder where it engages the bearing then smoothed it back down with a flapwheel. Ops check good so the trans is fully reinstalled into the car. Next I have to kick my poor Z06 out to the hangar so I can move this over 1 spot in the garage and give the wiff her parking spot back. I also need a mobile vehicle in this spot so I can kick it out to reassemble that other transmission. I'd be farther along, but I've been distracted by another vehicular project I have on my friend's lift. That's slowly drawing to a close so I'll be able to shift my focus to swapping out my right rear quarter panel. Then I'll be itching to cam the Z06.
If we rewind back to October 2020, we have the red dragon with a broken axle shaft first thing Friday morning.
You can see where it munched the axle tube. I popped a new seal in Spring of 2021 pre-season, it seated deeper than the damage but this is how it looked the other day.
Yeah that's not holding. It's not getting on the brakes far as I can tell. So I did a new bearing and new seal, this time drove it in a little past flush. We'll see how that works and go from there. I stuffed it in the trailer and tucked it away in the hangar. When I came back I could actually get to the M29 on the bench and got to it. I split the guts off the main shaft, got my billet keys in both syncros, and put it back together with a fresh used ring. But why? It looks fine, right?
Until you try to use it.
Then I knocked one or both magnets onto the ground. I can only find less than 1 magnet's worth of guts and ******* are $10 a pop. Plus I need the input seal. That's keeping me from getting this together now.
I have nothing useful to add other than to say I'm enjoying this thread and love that your car is dirty underneath and clearly well-used. My eastern Canadian bird is rust-free but also well-used and dirty AF underneath - this forum is full of spotless builds and it makes me feel bad!
07-02-2022, 05:43 PM
