SS Camaro - Track trips, build pics etc.

[01SSRedA4]

This, doesn't look right.



Decided to not chance it and just make the repair on the trailer:



Wheel holes are wallered out, brake rotor holes are too, and the centering register on the axle is ****ed. So I will be replacing all of them. Caliper took a little rubbing from the rotor but looks mostly cosmetic.



Strange was so kind to drill both 12mm and 1/2" stud holes. I will be going back with 1/2" this go round to see if I can stop this **** from happening again.



Here's the passenger side wheel studs.....whoops.

So I waited about a week for new 1/2 studs and a brake rotor from Strange. I didn't get in a hurry to get it fixed due to I'm still waiting on a wheel. I went ahead and patched it together yesterday and put the stock wheels back on the rear to get it off the trailer.

This is the damage to the caliper where the rotor rubbed the inside of it. Looks like i stopped in time and didnt do major damage to the caliper.



Here's the new 1/2 studs after installation.



Here's the complete assembly with the new center register and rotor. You can see from this picture the rotor is stud-centric meaning it depends on the studs to center itself. Common sense tells you if it fits with 1/2 studs and 12mm are smaller, then there was some slack with the 12mm. Enough to cause an issue? Well I cant say for sure but I do believe these were designed to work best with 1/2 because the fit is much tighter. Strange should mention this detail in their product literature I think.



I'm making a lug nut swap also. I'm including this picture for those who may not be familiar. Stock wheels use a hex nut conical seat on the top left. Drag wheels use something like the mag type hex nut with a washer. That type goes through the wheel to grip the stud all the way at the base making it stronger. Even with stock wheels you can use the hex nut ET (extended thread) and it gives a similar effect of the mag type where it actually passes through the wheel and engages more thread and in to a further point.



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[01SSRedA4]

Making some good use out of a pair of old 10 spokes. I figure these will hit the lugs a little softer then the radial giving the lugs a chance to survive plus they are sticky as hell so traction shouldnt be a fight like it was with the 18s. This is a Hoosier full slick 28x10x17.

[/QUOTE]

Kill mode!

[01SSRedA4]

Delay from technical difficulties.

I took off work for the race saturday, I had everything ready on the car. Car was washed, truck and trailer were washed and loaded.....and the weather just wouldn't cooperate. Friday night all cleaned up we sat in the garage hoping things would clear for the race the next morning....



They decided to postpone the race till the afternoon and around lunchtime when we thought the weather was going to break we headed to the track. That didn't work out and we ended up coming home dripping wet and the race postponed.



Around midnight the weather finally got moving and they had a fresh water logged track to prep for an early AM race day.



Sunday morning the weather was fantastic, temp in the 60s, and DA ranged from negative 400 or so to around 500 last time I checked.



Couple of random staging lane pics:







Fastest pass of the day, but I only ran 3 times. It went .08, .09, .08 in that order.









And finally some go pro footage:


I'm at 3:25 on XXX Motorsports footage:

[01SSRedA4]

So I figured while I was doing a gear swap I'd freshen up a little bit. I've always hated the fact that I spray painted the rear end in this car. Money was tight when I ordered it so saving money was important, now I can go back and undue that mistake. So ordered up some Richmond 4.10s. Gonna hold onto the Motive 3.73s for now, they may end up going back in one day.



Got it pulled and hung up for full disassembly.



And off to the powder coat shop!



Going more low key this go round, went with gloss black.



And that little custom touch that makes it your own and unique.



Been running a turn down for a while. I'm not about that life anymore. So I extended the 4" all the way out the back with a little heat wrap to help the gas tank.



All that hard work, lets relax by the BBQ grill with some LSX buddies.



Should have it reassembled this week, a few tuning tweaks, and off to the track March 11th weather permitting of course.

[culcune]

Thanks for this thread! Had not seen the thread, and had a good read going through your progression from a near 12 second car to a just-about-10 second car!

[Weldangrind]

Nice touch on the cover!


The sausage made me hungry, and I just ate dinner.

[Tranberg]

The money spent upgrades could have bought you 25 Hawks LOL

[01SSRedA4]

Got this thing back and it was an oily sandy mess inside. So I spent considerable time cleaning the inside. Now that it's clean it's ready to be reassembled.



Stopped at home depot and got some angle iron and some all thread. After all the rear ends ive built I'm finally building myself a case spreader.



The case has one 3/4 and one 1/2 hole for the case spreader to attach to, so I found some scraps that fit those dimensions. I did have to revise this design as it was blocking the bearing caps from going in. No big deal, we are learning.



Here it is set in place. You turn the buckles and the case spreads. Easy as pie.



And this is why you need a case spreader. I pulled this out during disassembly. No doubt it got bent during final carrier preloading last time when I swapped the spool in.



May not have this out again for a while so I decided to take some weights. This is the empty housing weight.



This is fully dressed weight. It has a spool, no brakes, aluminum rear cover.



I was an idiot to not powder coat this thing sooner. It looks very pimp now. Will reinstall this weekend. Stay tuned.

[Weldangrind]

Are you using an old-school crush sleeve, or one of the new solid spacers?

[01SSRedA4]

This has a solid pinion spacer installed.

[01SSRedA4]

Well the track strikes again.....or more bad luck. We had a test and tune planned for friday night. It got rained out. So saturday there was a big bracket race planned, so we decided to go then to get a few passes in. Rain was gone, car was pretty clean, and loaded.



This place was packed. Big money trucks and trailers everywhere.



And this is where I sat most of the day.....waiting....and waiting.




I got a total of two passes in, two really bad passes. First pass was 11.19 @ 118. 60ft was slow, 1/8, 1/4, trap speed. Wasn't sure what the issue was, it was a clean pass. I decided to reset the fuel trims since it was unusually cool that day and I'm running a SD tune. It should be noted the car was acting a little funky the whole day, idle surging, hanging high idle, etc. Well with no trims and another pass I ran 11.8x @ 110mph. That was WOT through the whole pass. I confirmed then that something was wrong. I did a quick scan of the car with HPTuners and saw a 10%+ driver trim and a 25%+ passenger trim. That would explain the terrible pass. There was nothing obvious wrong underhood so I will have to dig a little deeper another day when I get more time to see what the issue is!

[Weldangrind]

Man, I can remember when low 11's was quite fast for a street car. I can't wait to see what you'll run when the car is dialed in.

[01SSRedA4]

Dusty car. It hasnt moved in several weeks. New rtic cup I had made.

[01SSRedA4]

Havent updated this in a while but im still on my NA quest for tens. I think ive got it figured out with spending some money but I'm trying to not make any major changes to the car so for now im changing parts that I can grow into later when I change the build up. Ive been running a FAST 92/PTM 95 combo for a while. I bought the black fast 92 when they re-released it a few years back. I always wondered if I gave up anything not going to a 102 version. I came across a unique opportunity to swap intake for intake with a buddy who had a c5 and would prefer the better fitment of the 92. The back story behind this intake was it was on a motor with bad oil blow by and was installed by a hackjob shop. Once I looked it over I realized I needed to order some parts. I ordered a new inner seal, new fuel pressure gauge, new thicker lower injector o rings (146020COR), and a fuel line adapter (640940). This was originally a grey intake somebody painted black. After I cleaned it up, installed the new stuff, and fixed a broken vacuum nipple on the back, I sand blasted and hand sanded it. Here it is ready for paint.



Looked around for something silver. Thought hey lets go a little darker then go bright on the lettering.




Got about 3 color coats on it.



Then about 3 coats of clear



Then dressed it out with injector, rails, tb, and yellow lettering



Then the install, man this thing barely fits. I removed the located dowels from the bottom of the intake and bent the pvc line. No grinding on the pump. Added a new silicone SD hose also. Excuse the dirty engine bay.







Track times to come!

[01SSRedA4]

Another day, a little more accomplished. Pulled the old Hooker 1 7/8ths headers off. Slapped some paint on them and sold them locally.



The new TSP setup, 2" header with a 3.5" collector. That means I'm making a new Y pipe.



Ordered up some random pipe pieces and clamps.



In this picture you can see the Howe racing merge, 3.5 to 5 inch, and my old 4" bullet muffler I plan on reinstalling.



This merge obviously was too big so I ended up cutting it back about 3 inches so it would mate up with 4 inch pipe.



Here is the completed Y pipe and merge.



Had it coated with high temp powder.



The red valve covers had seen better days so I decided to change the color scheme up some on the top side.



Blasted them in the cabinet.



Same wheel graphite color that went on the intake.



Here are the packs and brackets. I touched up the red on the coils, blasted and painted the brackets graphite, and added stainless allen head bolts to hold the coils down. I also re-wrapped the tape around the harness.



Much better.







And my final surprise, 10 gallons of MS109. Gonna see if it picks up anything after being retuned for this fuel. Results soon!.