nsogiba

I'll definitely try to. I only made it to a few events last summer with my BMW but enjoyed every one. Love the atmosphere and setting.

Time to resurrect my old LSX stainless license plate frame, which lived a life of glory and burnouts and commutes on my 6.0 LSX BMW.

_DSC4656 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

the mild hardware on the BMW plate had left its mark on the stainless plate frame. not good.

_DSC4657 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

the black background to the LSX nameplate had seen some mileage too.

_DSC4658 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

a brillo pad made quick work of the staining

_DSC4659 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

I ran the brillo pad over the whole surface of the stainless plate frame for good measure, the wife definitely won't be happy about the outline left on her kitchen towels from all the dirt and corrosion removed. I thought this was pretty funny

_DSC4660 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

the solution for everything is carbon fiber (3M wrap)

_DSC4664 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

lay the background against the vinyl wrap

_DSC4665 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

work the edges out with your fingers for a smooth finish

_DSC4666 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

to be continued - need to go grab another beer!

nsogiba

ok, so work out the edges, trim it, and put it behind the plate frame - now we're talking

_DSC4668 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

ok - let's get serious - no more cosmetic BS - time to get dirty

_DSC4670 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

I am a big fan of cheap/free mods that return REAL gains, so the zip tie mod was in order. the existing air filter had seen better days.

_DSC4671 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

this should breathe just a bit better.

_DSC4673 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

I am a big advocate of starting fresh on maintenance history so I decided to start fresh on all drivetrain fluids, starting with the differential.

_DSC4674 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

The diff oil MAY have been changed - not sure. At 105K I'd rather not take a chance
_DSC4676 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

What came out wasn't too bad in all honesty. A bit dark but overall clean with no particulate
_DSC4678 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

I also changed the trans fluid (T56) with new Dex III, no pics. What came out (again) wasn't bad, but wanted to start fresh. Finally, a fresh oil change with 5W30 Mobil 1 Full Syn. and AC Delco Filter rounded out the fluid changes.

nsogiba

the MaxJax lift makes things a bit easier

_DSC4679 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4680 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Oil and Filter
_DSC4681 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Rounded out the maintenance with new TR55 spark plugs and Red Chevrolet Performance Plug Wires

_DSC4682 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

The old plugs looked so - so, but the gap on them was abysmal - up to .075" on the worst ones
_DSC4683 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Driver's side 1 3 5 7

_DSC4686 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Workspace

_DSC4684 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

105K worth of use
_DSC4686 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

new red GM Performance Wires
_DSC4687 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Luckily, I was able to reuse all the stamped metal heat shields for all the new wires.

Took the wife to the driving range and hit a couple buckets of *****. Car ran flawlessly. Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday - before I head to the father - in - laws, plan on washing the exterior, vacuuming inside, and cleaning the "udders" inside the engine compartment. Saw quite a bit of buildup while inspecting everything on the lift!

nsogiba

forgot to add the pic of the stock heat shields on the new wires

_DSC4689 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Super Bowl Sunday: spent a couple hours cleaning the musty smell out of the interior. vacuumed, cleaned glass, cleaned seats, cleaned dashboard/door panels, everything got a coat of armorall/leather conditioner and a quart of febreze spray. now it's inhabitable.

quick wash on the exterior. paint correction to come in a month or so
_DSC4690 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4691 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

took a ride out to Rochester to grab Z06 Ti's

_DSC4692 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4695 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

the "custom" exhaust needed to go. the shop that did the work was nice enough to weld in the bullets where the old flanges used to be, making the system one piece from the header flange to the tips. wouldn't be a problem if the exhaust didn't loop up over the axle. the bullets sounded okay when you romped on it but otherwise droned around town pretty badly.

The h-pipe was long gone, replaced by this x-pipe, which will stay


_DSC4698 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

generic bullets in all their exhaust shop crap glory

_DSC4699 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

snaking over to the tips
_DSC4700 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Tip alignment wasn't amazing, and the tip diameter seemed out of place and too far apart between sides
_DSC4703 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4704 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

chop chop. out they come

_DSC4705 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4706 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Blank slate
_DSC4708 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

pipes and flanges get in tomorrow, I need to mock up the mufflers and align the tips - then connect them to the existing x-pipe

Jeff T.

Man you've been busy!! Your drive reminded me of my ride home from Scranton to Chicago. Perfect weather and amazing mileage.

First thing I did was change all the fluids as well. I look forward to watching your progress!

nsogiba

slow but steady progress. I dusted off the welder, chop saw, and unpackaged the mandrel bend and flanges that came in.

First I installed the Ti muffler on the driver's side, getting the tip level, and then held the front flange in place with a jack and a 2x4.

Now that point A and point B were fixtured I connected the dots. The blank flange bolted to the muffler flange gave me a lot of leeway and made it fairly easy.

All tacked up:

_DSC4710 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4712 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Now I need to repeat the process for the passenger side.

blackmachdown

Nice project, subbed for updates!

f6john

I noticed an unusual seam pattern in your concrete floor. Did you saw out and rep our concrete for your lift?

RVETTE42

Great to see you adventure. I bought my C5 a little over 5 years ago on Ebay flew one way to pick it up. What a great adventure something I will never forget. Enjoy your car a bunch the mods have probably just begun.

nsogiba

Thanks! I went back and read the threads on your Z06 and your red 97, both awesome cars. It's amazing how much more modern the 97 Targa looks with the Z06 wheels.

Good eye. Originally I had a floor that sloped towards a center drain. This was great for washing cars inside during the winter but was not good for trying to install my lift. On a level floor, most folks just pop in some concrete anchors and are generally up and running within one day. I unfortunately did not have this luxury so as an engineer I decided to make it work. I cut the slab out there, removed quite a bit of stone, dug down, and poured a new thicker slab with a reinforced steel skeleton that the lift bolts to. I'm confident it will be around long after I'm gone. If you're interested in seeing my step by step progress from installing it in 2015 see my build thread for my garage:

http://garagejournal.com/forum/showt...=221146&page=5

Owning and modifying the last car was very time consuming and it burned me out. I am striving to go slow with this one and have a lot of fun. It was very important to me to find a fun car that responded well to light modifications and returned a strong fun factor for the money invested - the C5 platform does both of those very well.

I am passively looking for a C6 shifter and LS6 intake, will probably bolt up XS headers and X pipe this summer

nsogiba

So I finished cutting the bends for the passenger side of the factory midpipes, and got it all tacked into place. For some reason it went much more slowly than the driver's side. The compound bend (lateral and vertical move) was being a real PITA, but I finally got it to fit while keeping the tailpipes level. That was strike 1, got me kinda pissed off. Now that the system was tacked, I was ready to drop it and finish weld everything. Removed the 6 header nuts - 2 came out clean, the rest snapped the studs - that was strike 2. Disconnected oxygen sensors, removed midpipe hangers, and dropped it down. Set it on my shop cart and got all set up to finish weld it, and had a bunch of issues with the wire birdnesting inside the gun tip - so I had to stop and clear the jam every couple of minutes. Now I'm pretty ticked. Finally get a rhythm going and the wire runs out. Strike 3. At this point I decided to quit for the night before I lit the whole thing on fire.

Go inside to wash up and have a beer, and I see that Huron Speed is having a sale for their longtubes and x-pipe, $50 off and free shipping. I thought about how much fun it would be to remove 4 broken studs in the existing manifolds and 30 seconds later placed my order. I still plan on welding up the existing system I fabbed, but will keep it in the basement in case the catless x-pipe is too loud.



Cliffnotes: Welded stuff. Broke studs. Got pissed off. Longtubes on sale. Cha-ching.

dbgoodwin

I don't think they will be too loud for you. I have the catless XS headers through borla straight pipes and have taken it on 1500+ mile trips without it annoying me or my fiancé.

nsogiba

Interesting you say that, another guy on a local forum said the exact same thing, it must be a popular combo. I thought it might get too rowdy with the lack of cats, I guess we will see. I do not want a loud system since I intend on driving the hell out of this once the snow melts. I will be welding in some cutouts, though!

RVETTE42

You have a very understanding fiance.

blackmachdown

Thanks! I need to update the threads, got some new mods on the red vette, and the z06 is about to get a whole new tune!

blackmachdown

on my 97 I have Texas Speed longtubes with catted x pipes and BB bullets, I think if i didnt have cats it would be borderline too loud for my wife...i personally can't hear anything as is.

dbgoodwin

"Popular" read "cheap"

I personally just saw a really good deal on the borla straights when waiting for the group buy on my headers (a 10 month wait I think, no fun.)

Wanted to make some noise in the meantime, figuring I would swap back to the Stock system when I put the headers on. Obviously I had to drive it at least once with the straight pipes and headers, and was honestly surprised at how much less it droned than with just the straight pipes. It's been my DD for over 2 years with this setup, and many long trips have been made.

nsogiba

Longtubes came in much earlier than expected! I ordered them Sunday night and they were waiting for me Thursday afternoon. Not bad for a company that is closed this week and didn't expect to ship til next.

Boxes were wrapped up nicely. Cat was looking over the boxes, unfortunately I got the catless model, sorry lil guy

_DSC4721 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4723 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4725 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4726 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4727 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4728 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4729 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

I didn't look too closely at the fabrication quality yet but initial impressions are good. We will see how the fitment is, I have heard good things.

Starting the install. The midpipes were already removed since I had been repairing the stock ones
_DSC4730 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Fuel Rail Covers off. I need to scrub these things in some hot soapy water.
_DSC4731 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Battery disconnected and removed.
_DSC4734 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Belt de-tensioned. Also note that I wrapped the radiator cover in 3M CF vinyl. Started wrapping the headlight bezels as well.
_DSC4735 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Alternator removed and placed aside (I didn't remove the big battery positive terminal)
_DSC4737 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

There's not a lot of room by the accessories so rather than remove the belt completely I just tucked it in the alt bracket so that it'll be easy to slip on later.
_DSC4738 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Driver's coils and AIR stuff removed. I'll probably end up pulling both valve covers and scrubbing them clean
_DSC4740 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Also started fabbing the cutout pipes that will be welded to the x-pipe. Need to deburr and tack this flange (the cutout valve and turndown will bolt to the flange)
_DSC4714 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

saddle cut with a hole saw. I may need to cut it with a 3" hole saw to saddle to the new x-pipe properly
_DSC4720 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Cordawg

Looking good man! I just did the same thing with a red frc. Flew down south and drove her home.

nsogiba

been busy. installed the headers over the weekend

got the old stuff out, came out pretty easy

_DSC4741 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

shop vac'd and cleaned the valve covers, 16 years of grime
_DSC4742 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4743 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

dropped by the dealer around the corner for some new MLS gaskets. I thought the ones that came with the headers would be the crappy imported perforated metal/paper type by they also seemed to be of the MLS construction. Never had a bad experience with the OEM GM gaskets though so they went in.

_DSC4744 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

at this point I dropped the hammer and got the longtubes in. they fought me at first but I finally wrestled them in. It's a tight fit on both sides for sure. Had to grind a portion of bellhousing on the driver's side and slid those in from the bottom. On the passenger side they went in from the top after removing the starter and dipstick.


_DSC4745 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

on the passenger side the valve cover had to come off to make some room. good time to inspect the valvetrain, very clean for 105K.

_DSC4746 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

while removing the rear sway bar end links to make room for installing the Z06 Ti's the looked to be trashed, so I picked up metal construction, beefy Moog replacements with nice grease fittings for serviceability.

_DSC4747 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

with the headers loosely bolted in I installed the x pipe and intermediate pipes underneath and connected everything. Everything tucked up nicely, no problems. Finally I tightened down the headers, x pipe, intermediates, and axleback. Before wrapping up the install I cleaned everything with IPA so that any fingerprints/grease wouldn't get burned onto the pipes and look bad.

_DSC4748 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Coil packs, wires, AIR crap all back in.

_DSC4749 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

_DSC4750 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr

Wire clearance on one of the passenger side primaries was closer than I'd like, but I've put a couple hundred miles on so far with no issue. I'm really glad I kept the factory metal heat shields

_DSC4751 by Norbert Ogiba, on Flickr