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Nice thread I was looking to get my car out to Charlotte or Wisconsin. My car is only in full SSR/AS prep for autocross but like this thread and one of Terry Fairs have shown a factory C5Z is more than capable with the right driver.
As a fellow C5 Z owner I've followed your progress with much interest. Sorry to hear of your engine troubles. When one does not have the budget to do this regularly it bites. It's one of the reasons I've come to grips with only doing 5-6 hpde's a year Anymore. My car is currently in the shop chasing an intermittent backfire and overheating issue. I just can't justify the funds to go as much or as hard as I used to.
I have found I greatly enjoy the 1/2 mile roll race events3-4 times a year. Not much skill required, but not nearly as hard (or expensive) as rr and 1/4 mile drags.
Having to choose what to spend the limited budget on sucks!
Like the OP, today I found out the 416 has to come out of my 04 Z16. I've been doing this long enough to know that if you want to play, be prepared to pay. I'm going to have to decide if I want to play anymore or if it's time to sell the car. Ugh!
sorry for not checking in recently but I do appreciate all the support!
Been a bit of a whirlwind since the last post. Jim Mckamey who has been a huge help in making me go faster this year offered up his backup LS1 to me in order to get through the rest of the season, with how tightly the shoestring race budget was already stretched this year it seemed to be my best option.
While stopped at a gas station on the way home I snapped a quick picture and posted it on facebook excited that my racing season wasn't over!
That image somehow made it to the friend of a friend and before I even got home I had received an unbelievable incredible sponsorship opportunity! Downs Custom Performance Automotive had a brand new crate LS3 that a customer had ordered and then canceled on and they were offering it to me!
I was totally blown away by the offer and good fortune so just a day after bringing home the LS1 we brought home a LS3!
In between all this motor picking up I managed to get my LS6 out (definitely a chore through the top but not as hard as I had expected)
The garage with all 3 engines sitting together:
I've been working diligently to get the motor prepped for swapping into the car this weekend, I'm adding an oil cooler and accusump to both help keep the oil at a better operating temp and to keep the engine under pressure.
In addition I've had some issues with my headers burning spark plug wires and AC lines which were getting pretty annoying to constantly change, to rectify that I wrapped the headers which will hopefully also contribute to keeping the oil temps a bit more reasonable:
Lastly A pile of the lingenfelter parts required to swap a LS3 into a LS6 car as well as a Radium Engineering Catch Can to prevent oil from escaping into the intake and a bit of a unpopular cam selection.
I am "upgrading" to the LS9 cam, forum research will show you that it removes about 10-15tq down low while adding 20hp up top.
This is generally regarded as a bit of a downgrade due to the loss of low end torque however even with stock ls6 power I was working diligently to keep from spinning tires during the low speed Auto-x/Speed Stop portions of the USCA events. comparing dyno graphs of bolt on LS6's vs LS3's even with the LS9 cam the extra displacement works out to more torque than the LS6, while the 335 Rivals really help with keeping the back end planted compared to the 275 RE71's what I really need is more HP up top for the road course portion where the 600+whp cars are running away from me. So hopefully this cam is a good fit giving me a bit more manageability down low for Auto-X and a bit more up top for Road course.
I'd love to go to one of those big nasty cams that gives 450-475whp but that combined with the required valvetrain upgrades is a $1000 if not more compared to the $100 to buy a LS9 cam. We'll see if it works out for me! either way the new engine is more HP/TQ than I've had before and was doing relatively well without.
So thats where I'm at! hopefully by the end of this weekend I have a running car and can report back while prepping for Road America!
Lastly A pile of the lingenfelter parts required to swap a LS3 into a LS6 car as well as a Radium Engineering Catch Can to prevent oil from escaping into the intake and a bit of a unpopular cam selection.
I wanted to offer this up as I recently added a catch can to my ls6. My can is a dual can system with sight lines so I can monitor the oil in each can and I noticed that I have much more oil in the one plumbed from the intake to valley cover (yes it is running backwards to the normal flow, but at full throttle the vacuum changes and pulls from the valley cover). Not sure if you are running the can for a specific purpose (lots of consumption), but you may consider running it between the valley cover and intake or at least test it in both paths.
I wanted to offer this up as I recently added a catch can to my ls6. My can is a dual can system with sight lines so I can monitor the oil in each can and I noticed that I have much more oil in the one plumbed from the intake to valley cover (yes it is running backwards to the normal flow, but at full throttle the vacuum changes and pulls from the valley cover). Not sure if you are running the can for a specific purpose (lots of consumption), but you may consider running it between the valley cover and intake or at least test it in both paths.
Good luck with the engine installation!
Miguel
Miguel, thanks for the advice I'll give that a try in both locations and see which seems to be doing a more effective job!
I think you made the right choice on the cam. My 416 puts out over 600hp and very close to the same tq. Running 315 NT01 out back I still have to be very judicious with the throttle coming out of corners and always wish I had a little more up top.
Post weekend update! the new engine is in and fired up last night!
getting the engine in the car and bolted up to the torque tube proved to be the easiest part, had to install and remove the drivers side header several times during the install, the knock sensor cleared the header by itself but the plug into the knock sensor touched the header so we moved that to one of the other m10 holes on the side of the block. happy with that location we put the header back on and began the oil cooler routing which mean the header had to be removed again to get those tightened down.
Lifting the subframe back into place and getting that mounted down is one of those tasks that you want a friend to help with, I had a BBQ with free beer with the stipulation that before beer came out we had to get the subframe into place.
This system seemed to work great because I had 8 friends show up which gave me 1 person on each brake/control arm to raise those, 1 friend guiding each motor mount in, 2 people lining up the front subframe points and 2 people lining up the rear subframe points while I operated the jack to lift the subframe and the hoist to lower the engine as needed.
Finally after quadruple checking everything we were ready to fire it up! I primed the oiling system for about 20 seconds by running the starter with no fuel pump/coil packs plugged in and then the moment of truth! it fired right up just like it had always been in the car!
I've still got a fair amount to do before the first road test but I'm happy with the work that I've accomplished so far!
And bringing this thread back from the dead for the 2016 season!
I realize now I never finished out last season partially due to how hectic things became.
When I left off I had installed and fired up the LS3 but the computer still needed a re-tune as it ran rough. lots of little buttoning up was needed and the car generally had to be finished in time to make USCA's Road America event.
In the process of getting a baseline tune on the car we discovered 0 compression on cylinder 6, a leak down with valve cover and rockers removed showed that one of the valves wasn't closing all the way. Through no fault of Downs or myself as the engine was brand new with 0 miles had never been opened, and with time to sort the car running down I had made the decision not to install the cam until after RA.
I called up Downs explained the issue and told them I was going to remove the head, figure out the root cause and then fix the cylinder head/issue and still plan to make RA.
In a more generous than I could ever deserve gesture they asked if they could help make this right and if there wouldn't be a better engine choice local. (at this point there was 10 days until Road America) Turns out in fact yes there was:
Behold, A Lingenfelter built LS7, 5 days later nestled in where the crate LS3 used to live:
(Note The twin disc ACT and also the accusump which I stretched my personal finances to the limit in order to pair with the LS7 in the hope of handling the massive power and not destroying a motor so far beyond my budgetary affordability prospects that it might as well be built from billet unobtanium)
Re-swapping the engine for a 2nd time went slightly faster as everything was fresh in mind, less time hunting for connectors what plugs where etc. However making AN lines, learning how to stack up a twin disc clutch, mounting the accusump etc all took time.
This madness ultimately ended with my brother in law and I working 36 straight hours on the car without sleep, firing it up for the first time and driving onto a borrowed trailer and cleaning up from the thrash to begin a 9 hour drive consisting of a southward detour to stop at Lingenfelter for a quick dyno tune before arriving at Road America Saturday morning just in time for the late signup and drivers meeting. Thankfully I had managed to catch about 6 hours of sleep throughout this process although I was nervous about thrashing an unshaken down car.
(I think this is also officially the first picture I have of the car on the new Forgestar F14 18x11, 18x12 combo wrapped in BFG Rival S 315/335 tires)
Luckily for me the Road America event is run a bit differently from other USCA events in that the track is largely taken over by the Nascar series on Saturday so the road course and welcome party runs first which gave me a chance to break in the new powerplant, everything seemed in order and I was looking forward to a full nights rest before tackling Auto-x, Speed Stop and Road Course all in 1 day.
To spare some of the boring details the car is an absolute barrel of laughs now I'm not sure on street tires that it's really all that much better for auto-x and speed stop type events than it was at stock power levels but its great fun on the road course.
I placed a paltry 13th in the speed stop (excuses are like arm pits but chock up 40% more power and an unfamiliar clutch plus only getting 2 runs due to fixing a leaking accusump fitting) my worst finish in any USCA event segment to date.
By the auto-x I was starting to get a handle on things, a few runs later and without having to launch so much I was able to put in a respectable 4th place finish on the tight technical gokart track auto-x by never once going WOT.
The road course the car felt incredibly balanced on and I managed one of my highest road course finishes with a 2nd place behind a pretty awesomely setup/driven Viper.
At the end of the weekend the speed stop really hurt me and I placed 4th in GTS which is the lowest I've placed at any Optima qualifier, but being able to drive the car back onto the trailer problem free felt like one of the biggest victories I've ever had.
I felt that event/and events leading up to it deserved it's own post so I'll make another getting up to current.
Amidst the 2 engine swaps and all the other stuff going on with that I somehow found time to interview and get a new job! Said job requires 5 months of training in Japan in order to get up to speed, with that in mind (and a departure date in early November) I wanted to do my best to get a couple more events in before I left and went 5 months without any car whatsoever.
After Road America I took a few days and didn't do a single thing on the car besides change the oil for the 2nd time (we did an oil change after the road rally before all the track events)
This was a great breather and really let me get used to driving the clutch during traffic and general commuting.
Throughout 2015 I'd experimented with putting black ductape over the z06 front grille screens, I'd read on the internet that it helps with front downforce and from my own testing this seemed to add a small amount of grip without any negative side effects other than looking ugly.
So I set out to make a less ugly version. Amazon came to the rescue with a .1" thick sheet of ABS plastic, a couple false starts and an hour of CAD (cardboard aided design) later I had this:
I then spent way too long tracing the pattern onto the ABS and scoring it then cutting it freehand with a razor blade. but it looked pretty good and didn't need any trimming or cleanup afterwards! maybe those measure twice cut once guys are onto something:
The final step was slotting the drivers side for the tow hook to pass through, by this point I was running out of patience and looking for an excuse to fire up some power tools, turns out a thin harbor freight angle grinder makes a perfect tow hook slot with rounded corners and all!
Next up was one of my favorite local events making a return after 2 years away, a Autocross at Grattan raceway, speeds are a bit higher and the rubbered in road course makes for great traction, The car felt far more hooked up than on the Road America gokart track, turned out it was.
I managed my first ever FTD with my brother in law (can't not let him drive after all the work he helped with swapping engines twice) managing a 14th fastest out of 110 being a bit catious.
2 weeks later was yet another local autocross this time at a much smaller lot. Hoping that by now I was more used to the car and might do a bit better I had high expectations coming off the last event and FTD.
Unfortunately I wound up coning away 3/4 runs which would have been my 2nd FTD ever and in a row! but my brother in law put his purse down and set a clean time good enough for 2nd FTD and held FTD until the last car of the event ran it's final run and pulled off a flyer to beat him. Overall we had a blast and the car continued to get more and more hooked up as I made small swaybar and shock adjustments.
For one last road course Hurrah I signed up for the final Gridlife Time Attack event at Gingerman (with some trepidation about returning to this track due to losing the engine here last time) Up until this point I had run in "street modified" however with tires wider than 285 I had to move up to the faster "track modified"
This event seemed like it would go well as the car had been running flawless thus far. however it seems that my cooling system just isn't up to the task of the heat the LS7 pumps out, I was plagued by overheating if I did more than 1 hot lap which I'm not great at 1 flying lap and usually take a few to get into the "zone" However the new engine and bigger tires were still sufficient for a 2 second improvement over my last trip there.
Gingerman is sort of my "home" track so I usually baseline my improvements/mods there. I ran a 1:39.2 after running a high 1:39 in the first session out I was hopeful of cracking into the 1:38s however without being able to do more than 1 lap per session I never did.
A bit of data review prior to the last session showed that I was running lower corner speeds than I had on the stock motor and 275's and that I was instead making up all my time on the straights. Determined to fix that I headed out into the last session with the game plan of pushing the car harder in turns and seeing what I could do. Leaving turn 9 and heading towards 10B a quick glance at the datalogger showed I was on pace for a high 1:37 or low 1:38!
Looking at the datalogger proved to be a mistake as I lost my focus, completely botched 10b nearly going into the grass, in addition to the overheating I'd been also battling 3-4 shifting issues all day and in frustration and anxios to regain lost time from 10b I ground and missed the shift to 4th not once but twice, by this point the lap was pretty much a lost cause but I finished it strong and wound up going a hair faster than my previous best of the day 1:39.3
And so that ended my 2015 season, it turned out my lap time was good enough for 1st in Track Modified RWD and 3rd overall in Track Modified behind a GTR and an Evo. I also earned enough points from the previous events to take 1st place overall in season points for the Street Modified class! a good end to the season.
Look at those awesome vent block off plates!
The day after this event I got a call from Jimi Day telling me I had earned my way by points into the Optima Ultimate Street Car invitational and my spot was waiting for me, unfortunately for me my brother was getting married the Saturday of the OUSCI and I was leaving for a 5 month training program in Japan on Monday so I had to decline.
And so with that my season came to an end, I quickly de-stickered the car, gave it a thorough detail and put the cover on until I could return home with a Laundry list of improvements in mind for 2016.
And so that brings us to today, I return home from Japan on the 8th and waiting at home I have a thoroughly refreshed and strengthened base model T56 transmission which I had built by Rick at RTK (who was fantastic to work with even while I was half a world away.)
I'm hoping the longer gears help with putting power down on various tight tracks/corners and having a longer 3rd gear will prevent some of the "do I shift to 4th here or not" sections of road courses. I'm also hoping I never have an issue with grinding gears again. If my theory about longer gears winds up making the car slower I'm figuring I could put a 3.73 differential in the car to get 1-3rd gears back to the stock z06 ratio while also getting a shorter 4th gear which will definitely help on the road course!
I still need to pick up a new radiator and have waffled back and forth between a Ron Davis or a Dewitts all winter long but I think I've made up my mind to bite the bullet and do the Ron Davis. Along with this I have some plans for a new hood vent setup and after talking with Trackspec they don't think I'm crazy and want to help so that should be exciting!
With regards to USCA I was disappointed to see they aren't returning to MIS that's a local event for me and running on the banks is always fun. the next closest event NCM happens to fall on the weekend of the first Gridlife event of the year which involves a huge festival lots of music, friends and cool show cars. Had it interfered with any other Gridlife event I probably would've skipped it to attend NCM however I wont miss the season opener.
Realizing I'd either have to drive major distances 3 times (always a bit nervous about that because I drive to the events not trailer) to get enough season points or hope the car is good enough to win 1 event and earn an invite I decided to do the latter and since I'm only doing 1 I wanted to make it a bucket list track. I'll be working all year to get the car as good as I possibly can before August when I attend the COTA USCA event and hopefully am in the hunt for an invite to Vegas!
In addition, with some funds and time free'd up by only doing 1 USCA event along with SCCA announcing they're letting C5-6's run the new CAM classes I decided to attend some of those, I've got a local friend whose much faster than me and he and I will be co-driving my car at most of the Ohio/Indiana/Pittsburgh Match tour and Pro Solo events as well as attending the Solo national championships in Lincoln NE. I'm hoping his teaching and feedback will help make both me and the car better at autocross and drag style start launches which should pay dividends for USCA speed stop and autocross events.
This post doesn't have any pictures so instead have a bonus "miscalculations video from the Road America speedstop where I make several appearances on my 2 runs trying to wrestle the new power to the ground starting around 38 seconds in.
Good luck at COTA! That field is already stacked with lots of really competitive cars & drivers. The GTS class has more expert run group entries (12) than any other, so whomever comes out on top will have definitely earned it!
Is everyone signed up for at least one CAM event this year? It would be kool to see Jim McKamey sign up for the Indians CAM Challenge. I believe that would be his home turf.
Is everyone signed up for at least one CAM event this year? It would be kool to see Jim McKamey sign up for the Indians CAM Challenge. I believe that would be his home turf.
I'm signed up for Indiana, as well as the Wilmington Pro Solo, I'll have to give Jim a call and put the bug in his ear to sign up, not sure if he's still running the ridetech development car though.
Originally Posted by OptimaJim
Good luck at COTA! That field is already stacked with lots of really competitive cars & drivers. The GTS class has more expert run group entries (12) than any other, so whomever comes out on top will have definitely earned it!
Thanks Jim! I've been keeping an eye on the entry list and a running tally of if any of those guys earn invites before COTA, it's going to be a stacked field either way, GTL isn't really any easier with defending champ Danny Popp.
Originally Posted by flash911
Congrats Klod on the hard work and good finishes last year. I'm a bit jelly of the TWO free motors, but happy for you too!
I'll be running two Optima events this year, including LVMS next weekend. Have fun at COTA!
Cheers,
Thanks! I'm still blown away about the motors to this day! good luck at LVMS!
Well I was hoping to have some better news by now but alas do not.
Over last weekend I got to borrow a hoist under the promise of having my car off the hoist by the end of the weekend, rather ambitious given the work that needed to be done but I figured worst case I could make it a roller in a few hours.
So my brother in law and I started unbolting the entire drivetrain, by the end of friday night we were close to the image below save a few misc bits, we spent an hour saturday morning looking over the car with fresh eyes, caught a couple wires that were still connected and then lifted everything off:
The plan was:
- put new diff seals in on both sides with updated part numbers (drivers side started leaking after wheel bearing repair at NCM last year)
- Install the RKT built MN6 transmission I saved up for all winter to buy.
- Install DTE diff brace I got in trade
- rebuild torque tube for a vibration under WOT that started at final event of last year.
- fix oil pan leak from LS7 swap
- install oil catch cans to prevent oil blowing out of valve cover vent tubes all over.
- find source of 5-10psi lower than normal oil pressure that started at final event of last year (suspected oil pickup tube crack or o-ring leak)
- install new dewitts radiator/oil cooler to help with hotter temps from LS7
We started at the back of the car and worked forward, once the diff was rebuilt I realized I hadn't ordered the o-ring to mate the diff back to the new trans so we paused there, moving onto the torque tube everything looked fine, with only 35k miles on the car I figured they would but that vibration had to be coming from something (foreshadowing)
so we put the torque tube back together without changing anything because why fix whats not broke.
About this time I realized there wouldn't be time to get the engine work completed and get the car back to a roller, rather than kill myself trying to finish everything in a weekend we made the call early to pull the engine, put it on a stand and do engine work at home over the week and then re-install everything next weekend.
My brother in law spent some quality time with a box of brake cleaner cans, an air hose and a wire brush and managed to knock a ton of sand still left from my off track excursion at gingerman last year. the leaking oil pan and rear diff had turned the sand more into a nasty goo but the subframes look a lot better now!
It's really amazing how well this stuff holds on.
After getting things cleaned up we bolted the subframes back to the car rolled it outside and headed home
Fast forward to last night, finally had some time to start working on the engine, first up pull the oil pan off and see if we can't find the source of low oil pressure, dropping the pan I didn't see any preliminary cracks. ah well, pull the pickup tube off to check it more thoroughly and also check the o-ring condition.
About this time my brother in law found chunks of metal in the bottom of the oil pan....uh not good. Removing the pickup tube showed the o-ring was fine but did show the cause of low oil pressure....lots of bearing material.
And that pretty much brings us to where we are today, I was already feeling pushed for time tring to get the car ready for the Wilmington Pro Solo and now after this I just feel the wind knocked out of my sails.
An engine from a well respected company that's supposed to be one of the best in the GM business lasted 500 miles which comprised of 1 USCA event, 2 local autocrosses and 5 laps at Gingerman before starting to lose oil pressure.
The worst part is there was no warning of this besides the pressure, the engine sounded totally healthy no knocking etc. in hindsight it's now obvious to me the vibration I thought was torque tube couplings was likely the engine although it didn't make any noise so it was perhaps naive of me to think it would be as simple as a pickup tube o-ring.
I'm not sure what the next steps will be at this point. I contacted Lingenfelter but the salesman I worked with when the motor was purchased no longer works there. The gentleman I did talk to wanted to talk to some other folks and said he'd get back to me.
So that's where we are now at with the car, I had hoped to be up and running by the end of this weekend but that has moved back indefinitely for now.
Not sure if I missed it but are you using the OEM dry sump with the LS7? I have a yellow C5z that I'm tracking at grid life this year. I hope to see you out there.
03-06-2015, 02:50 PM
