Corvette Madness

[smokindave]

Hey all so this is my thread on my current modifications to my 2007 base convertible.

It’s a plain Jane with a manual six and I’ve owned it for close to seven years and have kept it stock other than a K&N air filter.

Over the years all I have done is replace all the brakes and rotors and changed out a wobbly harmonic balancer.
I do all of my work myself.

So over the years I’ve been very happy with my car,the last year or so I have been thinking about doing something with the exhaust to make it a bit louder but other than that wasn’t going to do anything else because I was happy with performance...that is until one day at work in April 2020.

I went into work and as I pulled into the acreage where our shop is I see a bright orange 2012 Mustang in the lot.
One of my work colleagues bought it and was in the shop telling everyone about his new purchase and all the modifications done to it and how fast it was and wanted to race any of us at work.

With our crew at our work there are two 2019 CTSV’s,a 1972 Camaro with a LSA and a 2019 Camaro with a Magneson supercharger tuned to 800 hp ant a 2019 Challenger and there’s one tuner car and of course me with my Corvette.

This was the young fellas first muscle car he ever owned and he wanted to race and he was egging us all on all morning.
None of us had our cars there that day as it was still early in the season and lots of gravel on the side roads still so on this day I was driving my Mercedes.

Its a 2013 S550 that I have owned for a few years and back when I first bought it I bought a RennTech plug in tuner for it.
It tunes it to 565 hp and 705 lbs of torque in a 4,900 lb car with all wheel drive.
It is a dream to drive,you don’t hear or feel anything but it does pull you back in the seat.

So the young guy was happy when I told him I would bring my Corvette to work the next day and we could go have our showdown.
He said why not race my Mercedes against him and I reluctantly agreed to race him and we raced and three times I left him and beat him like embarrassing bad.

The next morning in my Corvette we raced 3 times.
He beat me the first race,we ran side by side second race and he beat me in the third race.

Did I care that I got beat by a Mustang?
No not at all,was I bothered that a 4900 lb sedan laid a whooping on both cars?
Yes that’s a big affirmative...

And this is where my build begins.
I started shopping around for some boost.
And then I bought this...

 

[smokindave]

I was looking on Kijiji and couldn’t believe it when I saw a add for a Edelbrock E Force supercharger and it was for a ls2 c6 corvette.

Of course I bought it and took it home and right away got my car up on jack stands and got to work.

I got the front bumper off the car and then got the intake,coils,valve covers and one head off and then had to go to work.

First thing on Monday morning I fall off the top of a sea can at work and broke my back.

So I’m thinking my car will be on hold for six weeks and then I’d get back to work on the car.
I didn’t really have the much more to do to finish the job,the install is pretty simple and then take it in to Davenports and get it tuned.
Sounds like a reasonable plan....wrong!

Well at the time I was 59 and apparently the older you get the longer to heal.
It’s taken from July to the end of January to heal.
I have not been in my garage in all that time but I have been planning.
My build started off as a simple supercharger system running stock fuel pump and a 3.74”pulley on the supercharger,low boost would of made 554 hp at the crank.

nice and clean for so many miles

So I planned on doing head gaskets while doing the install,I thought that with boost and the engine having 90,000 miles it was a no brainer decision.

 

[Area Z51]

Good work so far. Keeps us posted, with lot's of pics of course.

 

[smokindave]

Good work so far. Keeps us posted, with lot's of pics of course.

Thanks,I’m working on that right now.
Cheers

 

[smokindave]

So I ordered some new head gaskets and then got thinking that if I’m going to force air into this engine maybe helping it get out would be beneficial and it is right at this moment that the madness began.

I started ordering parts:
- American Racing long tube headers
- Lingenfelter GT 9 cam
- Lingenfelter LSX springs titanium
- 3” supercharger pulley
- fuel pump good for 800 hp
- 60 lb injectors
- SLP Loudmouth 2 axle back exhaust
- Bilstein b6 shocks
- gauge pod
- air fuel gauge & boost gauge
- Scott plug wires
- Davenports plug wire protector
- Morimoto headlights
- OEM radiator

There are a few that I may of forgot but will edit parts list as I remember or as the parts list grows.
Cheers

 

[smokindave]

I had to pull the steering rack out to be able to take off harmonic balancer for timing chain change and to pin balancer.

I added low pressure to a coolant hose to help drain the system and lucky for me I did because I had a pin hole leak in the plastic on my radiator.
New radiator purchased.

new timing chain

cam out

springs and keepers installed.
I did lap the valves

three bolt cam in place.
Don’t forget the o ring on the oil pick up tube.

 

[smokindave]

And the putting back together begins

The warranty expired as soon as o replaced this pulley

Three inch Pulley

spark is well taken care of now thanks to Steve at Davenports

headers and plugs and wires installed

water to air intercooler radiator install

passenger side header installed

Morimoto headlights

preparing to drop drivers side fuel tank to replace the fuel pump

using some string to help fish through the fuel line.

this is the tool I fabricated to compress the fuel crossover tube.
I don’t know how anyone can do this job without some sort of tool.
I couldn’t find anything anywhere so I got to thinking.
The tool work amazing,turned it into a very easy job especially while installing the hose back into the fuel tank.

I spent a bit of time on my exhaust getting it all aligned perfect.
I also added a tack weld on each joint for piece of mind

loudmouth 2’s in place

cleaning up the calipers for paint

this is the first one painted.
If you are going to paint your calipers put the paint on lightly and a few coats.
I put this coat on heavy and it doesn’t look as good as the others that I did lightly.

light coated

all brake parts cleaned and lubed.

 

[12cents]

If this is madness, then I am lovin' it

 

[smokindave]

How do I edit,there’s parts I want to add to my list.

 

[Rruuff Day]

How do I edit,there’s parts I want to add to my list.

I replied to your private message Dave.

 

[smokindave]

Shocks are installed on all 4 corners.

I have searched for a cold air intake for a ls2 with the Eforce supercharger.
I really hate the idea of sucking in hot air...

I’m going to build my own CAI .
Template is coming along...

The finished cold air intake will be made with black puck board.
I’m now waiting for parts to come in.
I bought a 10 pack of plastic clips for the front bumper.
There’s only 2 on the car and I broke 1 so I’ll have 9 extras if any members need one.
I’ve also got some blacked out side marker lights on the way.

I did start tearing down one of my jet boat engines today.
It seized up while breaking in the cam back in the summer of 2019.
I’ll finally find out if it was me the builder or if it was faulty parts.
Everything was brand new,it ran for about 5-10 minutes before it locked up.
Oh well it’s something to do till my parts come in.

 

[Black 03 Z06]

Wow what an adventure. Thanks for taking us along.

 

[Canuck204]

Every time you get beat in a race it sucks lol. I know for me especially when I was younger whenever that happened I would end up buying more power parts, cant tell you how many times I've talked myself into a blower then decided to pause and put the cash towards a Z06 or C7 in the future. You sir said hold my bear and went all in and THATS AWESOME lol. Nice job finding a used unit too, I've had my eye out for a couple years. If the wife gets mad or you decide to sell keep me in mind.

 

[dbro]

sick, i just did a complete ECS kit over the winter.. just waiting for warm weather now :/

 

[smokindave]

Every time you get beat in a race it sucks lol. I know for me especially when I was younger whenever that happened I would end up buying more power parts, cant tell you how many times I've talked myself into a blower then decided to pause and put the cash towards a Z06 or C7 in the future. You sir said hold my bear and went all in and THATS AWESOME lol. Nice job finding a used unit too, I've had my eye out for a couple years. If the wife gets mad or you decide to sell keep me in mind.

I did see a used kit for sale once but it was for a ls3 engine.
The kit I bought was a new kit that a speed shop on a small town ordered to put in a SSR not realizing that it’s engine might be a ls2 but the corvette ls2 is a different set up then the SSR.
He ended up buying a different brand supercharger that made one specific for the SSR.
I think the kit I bought was on the shelf for a few years until I saw it advertised.
I got the complete kit for 7000.00 tax included.
When I first bought the kit I planned on putting it on as 554 hp and leave everything else alone but I got to thinking and started ordering.lol
Now I’m thinking maybe 600 hp but hoping for 650.
I can’t wait to get it to Davenports for its tune.
Within the next few weeks I’m sure.
Cheers

 

[smokindave]

sick, i just did a complete ECS kit over the winter.. just waiting for warm weather now :/

Nice!
Ya gotta just love boost and too much is never enough!
You should post a pic or two of your setup.
I’ve heard a lot of good about their setup.
Cheers

 

[smokindave]

View attachment 78351Shocks are installed on all 4 corners.View attachment 78354 I have searched for a cold air intake for a ls2 with the Eforce supercharger.
I really hate the idea of sucking in hot air...View attachment 78352I’m going to build my own CAI .
Template is coming along...View attachment 78353The finished cold air intake will be made with black puck board.
I’m now waiting for parts to come in.
I bought a 10 pack of plastic clips for the front bumper.
There’s only 2 on the car and I broke 1 so I’ll have 9 extras if any members need one.
I’ve also got some blacked out side marker lights on the way.

I did start tearing down one of my jet boat engines today.
It seized up while breaking in the cam back in the summer of 2019.
I’ll finally find out if it was me the builder or if it was faulty parts.
Everything was brand new,it ran for about 5-10 minutes before it locked up.
Oh well it’s something to do till my parts come in.View attachment 78355

I tore my jet boat motor down today.
I cannot tell you what went wrong other than oil stopped flowing while it idled in the boat.

Oil pump was new,I took it apart today and it’s in perfect working order.
None of the oil passages are plugged.
I have a old distributor that I modified to work on my drill was used when I first built the engine so I did prime the engine well.
I had oil coming to the top end.

I would of after priming the engine put the rest of the engine together and then install into the boat.

I started up the boat and let it idle for maybe 10 minutes but honestly it was probably only 5 minutes and it seized up solid.

Any ideas isn’t going to save this engine but might help once I replace this crankshaft so any ideas will be appreciated.

cam is in good condition,only the crank and con rod bearings took a beating.

That should buff out eh?!
This is where a crank bearing goes.

cam and hydraulic lifters are 100% perfect.
Hydraulic lifter bore is good to go.

This is where the con rods bolt up to.
I’m not going to bother with trying to machine this crank down.
New crank ordered tonight.
One crank cap did break so I will have to find a new one and get the block line honed once again.

 

[Rruuff Day]

Wow... I'm not a mechanic and purely simplistic guessing here but since it looked like you had oil to the lifters, is it possible you didn't have enough clearance at the connecting rod bearings....over torqued?

 

[smokindave]

Wow... I'm not a mechanic and purely simplistic guessing here but since it looked like you had oil to the lifters, is it possible you didn't have enough clearance at the connecting rod bearings....over torqued?

That’s a good guess the only thing is I had this boat out at the lake for a good hour long thrashing.
I ordered a new cam shaft and then tore out what I needed.
Nothing on the bottom end got touched.
I put the engine back together and then fired it up letting it idle till it seized up.
The top end looked like it had oil.
The only other change after the was first ran at the lake was I added a remote oil filter.
I wonder if I had a brain fart and reversed the oil flow by connecting oil line up wrong.
Hmmmm now I must go to the garage and investigate the remote filter.
Cheers!

 

[smokindave]

Today I took my grinder to my spot welds on my exhaust system and loosened off the clamps to realign the exhaust just a wee bit better.
I was at 98.7 % happy with the way I finished it so I had to make it 100%happy.
Later this afternoon I will tack weld joints once again.
I juswant to look at it from a few angles before welding up again.

I ordered some Morimoto taillights and fog lights last night so I’m in no rush to get my car off the jack stands.

I will update the thread as I go.
Cheers