Next on the list was the suspension. The Corvette handles great but the base coupe suspension compromises some performance for ride comfort. When we were at Bloomington Gold I specifically rode in the RideTech cars because I was interested in their coil over suspension. After researching more into what was available I settled on just replacing the sway bars and shocks.
I contacted Sam Strano (multi time SCCA Autocross National Champion), Sam is active on multiple forums and has a small parts business. Sam's business sells the coil over suspension I was looking at, after talking to Sam and describing what I wanted to do with the Corvette he sold me on his spec sway bars and Koni adjustable shocks. If they work for him on his Corvette and are less than 1/3rd the cost of the coil overs that works for me.
Sway bars from top to bottom: Old Rear Bar, Old Front Bar, New Front Bar.
Sway bars from top to bottom: Old Rear Bar, New Rear Bar, New Front Bar.
Koni Adjustable Sport Shocks
After I got everything installed I drove it for a few days and played with the dampening on the shocks. The difference is night and day over the factory equipment, the car is much more stable on small bumps during braking, it has significantly less body roll and the ride is only slightly harsher than it was before. The nice thing is, I can soften the dampening on the shocks in less than five minutes and it rides as nice as it did before I put them on.
I plan to do a HPDE day this summer and decided to add a few things to the corvette. First on the list was a rear tow hook, corvettes do not have a good area to tow from in the event you run off track and end up in a sand trap or somewhere you cannot drive out of. Any strap or tow line to the suspension will most likely damage the bodywork because of how it wraps around the car and how low the car is to the ground. I also wasn't willing to pay $130.00 or more for something I felt I could make for a few dollars.
I looked up some of the installation instructions available online and pictures of tow hooks. From that I was able to ballpark the dimensions of the tow hook and fab one up. It only took a few hours with the hardest part being the hole in the bottom plate.
The tow lug simply mounts to the aft cross member using the exhaust hanger attach points.
This year Indianapolis was chosen to host Bloomington Gold. This show represents for me all the things I dislike about car shows, chrome, cars that are never driven, wax type discussions, etc. I am interested in the performance side and while I respect the whole 1 of 3, 100 point car that is Bloomington Gold, I would not have driven 50+ miles to go.
I was not even aware that it was being hosted here this year, the advertising apparently was done mainly through newspapers, I saw nothing on the local news or heard any radio ads. One of my reports at work, left a newspaper on my desk which spoke about 1000+ corvettes participating in a "Gold Tour", After reading the article, the proposed route and it being at the brickyard I had a reason to go.
The event was scheduled Thursday - Saturday June 25-27 with the Gold Tour ending the event Saturday night. We arrived mid morning Saturday and were only there a few hours when the vendors started packing up to leave. There were rides being given by Ron Fellows group driving brand new Z06's but by the time I figured it out it was too late to participate. We did get to ride in the Ridetech Z06's on the autocross course.
At the autocross course Lingenfelter had a second display with this awesome Karl Kustom Z06. While there were a lot of very impressive corvettes there, this was among my favorites.
Couple of Z06's in the parking lot with handicap tags, the blue one is a stage one aero and the yellow a stage 2. I did not see a stage 3 this weekend.
We waited in line for about 45 minutes to sign up for the Gold Tour, for some reason they did not allow online signups. That evening it took a little over an hour to get everyone lined up and start the Gold Tour.
The tour route was planned for just over 41 miles in which they had every intersection we passed through blocked off. The police were very active in pulling stray vehicles out of the line of corvettes and actually had major intersections blocked off for well over an hour as a line over five miles long consisting of 1,000+ corvettes went through.
Once the tour started we entered the track and did one lap (limited to 65mph). I really had no anticipation of driving around the brickyard but admittedly once you are doing it, it is very cool.
The last two shots were taken by a co-worker as we entered the Metropolis parking lot.
There are a few videos of the Gold Tour posted on the net, this is probably one of the better clarity / views out there. Tania and I are center frame at 10:40.
In August of 2013 we finished our flower bed / retaining wall project along the front of the house. We had some block left over to start along the side of the house but did nothing with it last year. This spring we decided to finish the project so I ran over to Lowes to get some more block. They had none in stock and no one there could tell me much about why or if they were going to get more etc.
I came back home and called Lowes tech support line and found out the company that supplied the block went out of business. They gave me a name of the manufacturer and suggested I try calling other stores to see if there was any stock remaining. I had no luck with that so we spent a weekend driving to different home improvement stores and landscape companies looking at block. I found out that there are quite a few different companies that make decorative concrete block. There is no standard for it, it changes from lot to lot and all of the landscape stores have "better" block than the home improvement stores, or at least that is what they claim.
In the end we did not find a suitable substitute and I was back on the phone making calls. Twenty three calls later and at least one French language phone switch board I found a guy at a landscape store in Davenport Iowa. He knew the company that made our stone which was about 20 miles away from him. He also thought he had a phone number for someone that had worked there. I told him I needed two pallets or four tons and he said he would make some calls. Two days later he called me back and said he had two pallets on the way and I was able to get them for the same price it would have cost me at Lowes. The bad part is Davenport is a 600 mile round trip and the only thing that I have access to that would handle that much weight is a 16 foot box truck.
After work Monday May 18th I picked up the truck and we drove to Le Claire and spent the night. The following morning it was a 15 mile drive to pick up the stone and another 300 home. We had all four tons unloaded and the truck back to the rental place before 5pm.
What four tons of block looks like
Over the next four weeks we put in a few feet a week and these are the final results.
Since we moved in we have had a resin folding table in the laundry room. Because we did some work with the sink as well as repaint I decided to get rid of the resin table. I was able to locate the company that made the cabinets in our home and order three lowers that matched.
Other than needing to add a duct I was covering to the kick panel they were easy to install, then came the odyssey that is Corian. You cannot buy it if your not certified you cannot install it if your not certified. The simple top was more expensive then the cabinets themselves and even though I ordered everything at the same time it took two more weeks to get the top installed.
Part of my plan was to add a Rev-a-shelf ironing board. I was able to find a fairly good price on one at a store in Rapid City SD. It is fairly heavy though and the shipping was expensive, so Tania's parents picked it up and brought it with them when they came for Matty's graduation.
I have been researching different options for a spot free rinse when washing my car. On a moderately warm day it is next to impossible to get it dried without some spotting. This is mostly due to the quality of the water in this area.
Water quality is generally based on Total Dissolved Solids or TDS which is generally measured in Parts Per Million or PPM. The EPA advises against consuming water with more than 500ppm TDS, the national average is 350ppm The area of Brownsburg I live in is on Indianapolis water, I measured the TDS at 398ppm well above the national average.
Initially I plumbed a soft water spigot into the garage because it was cheap and easy, it helped some with making the car easier to dry without spotting, but didn't come close to fixing the problem.
After much research I decided I was going to go with a Reverse Osmosis or RO system. Initially the wasted water (best case 3:1) was a deal breaker for me, but I came up with a plan to use the excess to water the flower beds around the house. Two things happened that would change my mind, I broke my thumb preventing me from doing all but the most simple tasks and Costco had a sale on the only other real option, a water De-ionizer.
This was a proven simple to use system that is designed exactly for what I wanted to do. Its initial cost is less than the RO system but it has a higher long term cost, unless I decide to process the resin myself.
The system works great, I could not be happier with it and only wish I had gotten one sooner. I can wash the car in 20 minutes, let it air dry in the garage and have next to no spots. Both cars can be done in less than an hour on the hottest days. It can also be used to rinse the windows on the house or any other items that would be time consuming or difficult to dry.
This February I was in Atlanta for work. I normally don't like to travel much but when I can go to a much warmer location in winter its not so bad. Unfortunately for me it never got above 20 degrees while I was there.
Leaving the hotel on the last day I was walking to my rental car and fell like an old man on some black ice. My thumb hooked on the handle of my roller bag and promptly bent back to my wrist. I was quite sure it was broken, but had a flight in two hours back home. Getting through security with two laptops, shoes and belt off was quite fun but I made it through eventually and had the pins put in three days later.
So now I get to wear a splint for six weeks before the pins can be removed.
Now that the garage is useable again I was able to finish some projects
on the vehicles. The truck got a new water pump, lower radiator hose and
a good clean out of the overflow tank. I also replaced all of the
parking brake cables along with the 130k mile shocks. Along with the
clutch I put in it a few months ago it should be good for the winter.
This let me park the corvette for the winter and get it ready for some
mods. When I did the headers last spring I noticed that the EGR
connection at the intake had split, it was something I had put together
after I got the car to fix the original owners glued together solution. I
don't know what the rubber elbow was from but it wasn't going to last
long and wasn't a good solution.
A better solution was the braided toilet tank fill line I replaced it
with, I'm sure when found out I will be banned for life from any
corvette forum, club etc.
Right now the most recent dyno was 415/414, my plans for the winter are a
Spinmonster cam and possibly TFS heads I want a good solid 500 rwhp
naturally aspirated.
In the garage this week I added a motor rated switch on the compressor, I
wanted a light to indicate that it was on to basically tell me "hey
dumbass turn me off" when I leave the garage. The switch works great the
indicator light not so much it puts out all of .005 lumen. I need to
figure out something brighter.
The big thing this weekend though was finding this on CL.
The cabinet has good glass and new gloves, the gun is in good condition
and it came with three five gallon buckets of media and five new filters
for the dust collector. The previous owner removed the motor from the
dust collector, he said it had sucked up something that stopped the
motor. While he had it off he rigged up the canister to work with a shop
vac, but I got the original motor with the unit and it works fine so I
will be putting it back.
Today I ran a new drop for the cabinet, physically it only sits 12 feet
from the compressor but I tapped into a leg in the middle of the garage
and added 16 feet to put it around 35 feet from the compressor.
I decided to update my air line couplers, the ones I had were based on a eclectic mix of what came on the tool, where I have worked in the past and what I could find to make it work. Toss in some HF specials and I had couplers leaking everywhere.
Doing some research on Garage Journal, Milton was mentioned a lot but it really came down to you get what you pay for. Once I decided on Milton, I needed to decide on what type of coupler, choosing the "V Type" didn't take long. The couplers are capable of 74 SCFM air flow and in addition to the default "V Type" plugs they will also accept "M" and "A" at their own flow rates.
Its very obvious the "V Type" is quite a bit larger.
Removing the couplers as the weak link for flow in my system left one last item, the connection from the black lines to the work benches. I went with a 1/2" hyd line and a black pipe coupler. Much better than the 3/8" hose with couplers on both ends.
Last weekend I worked on some cleanup in the garage and was able to get enough room to get the cherry picker and mower back in the garage mostly thanks to all the help Tania gave me.
This week I worked on re-organizing some of the items, I never had truly went through my cabinets and tool box and organized everything like I wanted it.
My first project was re-purposing some vinyl shelving by cutting off the lip and bending them in a brake. I was then able to just insert the ends of the shelf through the pegboard holes in the back of the cabinet. Some clamps using existing screws in the cabinet hold the main part of the shelf. I'm very happy with how they turned out with basically no cost, right away I found three cans of WD to put on them WTF?
Next project was a simple hangar for my angle grinders. It seemed like they were always in the way on my work bench, I don't really know why I had not done this sooner.
Lastly project wise I got rid of the carpet remnant entry mat and bought a real one along with some stair treads from Lowes last weekend. This week when Tractor Supply put their 4'x6' horse stall mats on sale for Black Friday, getting two was a no brainer, I was tempted to buy four and put them under the benches too.
I still have a good weekend of organizing left but it is nice to be able to use the garage again.
