We all talk about our mods and I'm sure in the majority of situations the mods work out great....but, how about those that don't work out so good and end up with you pulling your hair out. Fess up.....let's hear about those.

For me.....the most challenging mod has been switching to a double din. Many have done this....many have given me much appreciated suggestions but it has been the most frustating undertaking I've done. Keep in mind I've done the HUD upgrade, added bezels, added insullation to the entire car, changed the steering wheel, new door panels, sequential tails then LEDS, etc, etc, etc......but the da*n DD upgrade has been the most challenging.

Others?

 

This one is easy, it was the rear fender wide body kit that I did most of the prep-work on. Body-work sucks b@lls ; it takes a-lot of patience.

 

For me, it was when I put a set of custom wheels on my current car. Went with MRR GT5s, and when I first got them, the rears went on the car, but the axle stud stuck out too far for the center caps to fit. Went round and round with MRR about this and they basically told me it was my car that was the problem and just cut the axle stud a bit. After I told them no way I was going to do that, they ended up making a special set of center caps that allowed the cap to fit over the axle stud. Subsequently other owners had the same issue, so it wasn't just my car.

Not long after I got the wheels finally put on the car, one of the front wheels had some pitting issues in the clear coat - and MRR declined to warranty it because the wheels had tires mounted on them. When the tires were mounted, there was no pitting at all - it happened after the wheels were on the car for a short period of time. So the vendor I bought them from stepped up and paid for a new front wheel out of his pocket.

Finally, I recently wanted to replace one of the rear wheels due to some minor cosmetic blemishes (rock chip, other minor scratches I accidently put on the lip of the wheel). Called the forum vendor up, he ordered me a new wheel to be shipped from the manufacturer. You would figure that MRR could get that one right, and when I got the wheel, I just mounted the tire on it and then attempted to put the wheel on the car. When I went to put the center cap back on the new wheel, the axle stud was again sticking out too far - even with the modifed center cap. I looked at the old versus new wheel and then noticed that the new wheel had a thinner hub width (I guess that is what you call it), which made the wheel sit in closer to the rotor hub and therefore caused the axle stud to stick too far out again. (The offset was listed the same on the old and new wheel.) MRR again claimed that the wheel was the same as the other one (even though I sent them pics which clearly showed the difference in the widths of the area in question), and refused to do anything about it. So I was stuck with a wheel that would not work on the car.

I will take the blame for not test fitting the last wheel before mounting the tire (something I should have done after the first go around with their wheels), but there was absolutely no excuse for them sending me a wheel that didn't fit in the first place. At that point I had had enough and ended up selling the wheels - I was not going to deal with them again. A forum member got a great deal on a used set of wheels and almost new tires, and I will never, ever, recommend MRR wheels to anyone based on their customer service. The wheels themselves overall were OK and looked good on the car, but that is only part of the ownership experience to me. And I am not blaming the forum vendor on this - fault lies at the feet of MRR.

Rant off.

 

Why was it a frustrating undertaking?

 

I got two...when I first got the car I had big dreams of a 550 HP SuperCharger...so when I was getting the clutch replaced at the last second I switched to a six puck clutch plate rated at around 600 hp and torque from the 500 hp rated more traditional no chatter clutch plate I had originally selected....since then I have decided on a torquer cam setup that will produce around 450 hp and torque....so going with this chattery clutch that effects daily driving is a bit erksome to me at this point lol...but its not all that big a deal

but the one thats really eaten at me is the painting and glossing out of the center consol:





I did the work myself and it was my first time doing something like that...it looks okay in pics and from outide the car...but from the inside I did a REALLY shoddy job of it and it looks very ricey ricey....really fubarred my interior.....

this weekend I'm gunna strip it all down and try to do a proper job of it :-|

 

The alignment.....getting the HVAC unit aligned then the new HU. I'm sure simple for most but for me it was incredibly frustrating.

 

Id have to say the LED replacement I did on the entire interior of my car was the most frustrating.... and sure tested my patience.

I spent about 20 hours of reading on it and locating parts I needed to do it. It took me about 20 hours of labor to do total. I took it slow, and walked away when I lost my patience. I did not want to damage anything in my frustrations. I spent about 11 hours doing the Radio and HVAC. What a pain ! The other 9 hours was on every other bulb in the car.

I was glad when I finished it because I REALLY love my interior lighting now. Good bye yellow bulbs ! Hello nice clean "WHITE" lighting !

 

[/QUOTE]

looks super clean!!!
I just fixed the display on my HVAC and thought about how nice it would look to redo all the lights in it to LED.. Then i remembered i would probably break it with frustration and gently put it back together! haha. good job tho!!

 

um just a question but is my door control panel supposed to light up like that stock? Cause it sure doesn't! Niether do the buttons on the dash come to think of it. Hmmmm I may need to do this and would be really intrested in some info on it from you if you have the time to set me off in the right direction.

For me the most frustrating thing I have done so far was fixing my seat tracks. I swear it took me 2 hours to do the first one and and 45 min of that was trying to figure out how to get the damn back bolt out. what a pain but my butt isn't sliding back and forth so I'm happy. I've only had the car for a month so not to much into the mods yet but I'm building a list.

 

biggest pain in the back side, replacing the power steering pump and lines to the rack after installing a new cam. Required the asssistance of a friend/neighbor and the all his patience since, mine was gone.

 

Thanks !

Here is where I started reading on the subject:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...od-thread.html

See my web site and look under "C5 LED Enhancements:" for some information on what I did.

www.ToqueZ06.com

This will get you started. You just need a lot of patience, a decent knowledge of electronics, and soldering. Most people that don't have electronics experience will fry the radio and hvac doing this. If you read thru the above thread you will see it happen multiple times.

Good luck !
Toque

 

The most complicated mod was without a doubt fitting my Pioneer Nav/audio system. I had to pull the console and fit wiring and at one time, I wondered if the car would ever go back together again.

Post #16: http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...l-in-here.html

The least fun was ripping my knuckles apart fitting the #7 spark plug

The biggest problem was fitting my T85 Euro headlights. The package arrived and one was broken. The replacement arrived and, as I was fitting the lights, I wired one up and turned the switch for a test to make sure the connections were OK. The light sailed off the fender and broke. The 3rd light went in OK

The worst fit was my reversing camera. My mount behind the license plate looked like a dog's dinner (my fault). The electronics box had a tuning **** which tuned it to the frequency of the camera. It continuously went off tune so all I ever saw when I went into reverse was a squirly picture. Useless. It lasted a month before I ripped it out.

 

worst mod? ARP rod bolts last summer without a lift. I have a '98 and read several posts about rod bolts being the weak link so I picked up a set of ARPs for some added insurance. I had it all tore down before I researched and learned you had to get your rods resized. At that point, I decided to make the best of it, and pulled the heads, got them milled .020" and hand ported them. I also threw in a set of LS7 lifters and a new set of rings and main/rod bearings. It was a relatively simple mod that turned into an involved journey very quickly.

 

Love it....although my complaints about my DD frustration seem to pale in comparision to the posts. Any more?

 

There have been a few very frustrating mods. Like toque mentioned, replacing the interior lights with leds sucked. Another was switching to arp wheel studs, but that wasnt too bad. By far the most frustrating mod was the pfadt roll bar. I was ready to give up several times but i got through. It didnt help that it was 100 degrees out.