We are ahead of schedule! I didn't think she'd be back on the ground before new years but we drove it a little Wednesday night. Like every other body part I've taken off this car, the hood was a massive pita to get lined up. I'm not a body guy though so it may have been easy for someone that actually knows what their doing lol. Its still not perfect. The passenger side of the bumper needs to come down or the leading edge of the hood needs to come up. Its off by close to a quarter inch. I'm honestly thinking about putting a shim under the hood mount so I don't have to tear the whole front off again.


First bath since we brought her home.


All dried off and shiney. The wheels cleaned up better than I was expecting with just a simple wash.

Modern wraps still amaze me. The depth and contrast they can get out of a vinyl film is crazy.

 

Awesome news you got to drive it some!

I can vouch for lining up a hood from scratch on a C5. It is not a fun task and if luck is not on your side it can take hours.

 

For sure and if just the hood isn't bad enough, I had both fenders, the bumper, and the entire supporting structure under the bumper off. And pretty much every part in front of the firewall is adjustable!

On another note I'm thinking the nitrous will be about worthless in first gear. I rolled into the throttle and got the pedal about halfway down before I lost traction....without the nitrous. The road/tires were cold though so hopefully it will hook better on warm dry pavement.

 

Looks good from here. Like that wrap. I may do that one fender at a time.

 

Go for it! Take lots of pictures and post them up here when you do.

The more I look at this car I'm thinking I may wrap the pillar behind the roof panel in carbon also. I haven't decided for sure yet though.

 

Haven't had a whole lot of time to work on the car lately but I did manage to pull it out of the garage and take it back up to the shop. I did end up pulling the intake to replace the oil pressure sensor. It was super easy with the intake off. Gave me a chance to clean up some of the mess under there. The sensor was blowing oil through the electrical connector and had pushed the little gasket out if the back. All the oil made for a great surface for every little possible bit of dirt and grime to stick to. It was pretty gross under there. Fixed now though. The whole engine bay needs a good clean and detaile but its way too cold for that. It was actually snowing here this morning! I can't wait for the weather to brake so we can start driving this thing!


All cleaned up in the daylight



The disaster under the intake and coil covers

 

I have still been working on this thing. Been too busy to post and as promised I'm extremely slow at accomplishing anything but its getting there. The picture below is the only current side shot I have at the moment but I'm posting it to show the ride height. The front is lowered as far as it will go on the factory bolts. The PO had the rear all out of whack, almost 3/4" difference in ride height between the drivers and passengers side! I leveled it to the lower of the two sides. I could go a little lower in the rear but it scrapes as it is going in and out of the shop so I'll leave it be for now til I can get some gravel and lesson the slope into the barn.
I'll try to get some better pictures next time I have it out. The weather is still all over the place so she stays inside under a cover.




I also finished the paint work and buffed the front half of the car. The car has been resprayed sometime in the past but whomever did it put the clear on extremely thin. So unfortunately I don't have much to work with for getting all the imperfections out. I still need to buff the rest of the car but I ran out of daylight when I was working on the front end.

I have been chasing an oil leak since we bought this thing and finally tracked it down. It was the oil temperature sensor. Its located above the oil filter and if it leaks bad enough will spray out directly on your exhaust! Made a freaking mess under the car. I replaced the pressure sensor because that was leaking too and all the pcv hoses while I was at it. But the big leak was the oil temp sensor. I'm mentioning it because when you look up common LS1 oil leaks everyone swears its the pressure sensor or the pan itself. The temp sensor can dump a TON of oil if its bad. So much actually that I didn't think it could all be coming from there.

Enough of that though.

Last bit to update is we started on the interior. I have the new steering wheel and the shift and e-brake boot in my possession. The new seats are ordered. I'll update again in the next couple weeks with some before and after pictures once it's all in. The factory drivers seat is trashed and imo sucked when it left the factory. And our oem steering wheel is just gross. I'm plan to modify the center console and upgrade to a double din touch screen and eliminate the ash tray to make room for the nitrous gage and switches but that will be down the road. For now we're just replacing the seats, boots, and wheel. Should make a big difference.

 

I was working on the vette today so I grabbed a couple pics. Trying to get a good angle of the new ride height.

 

I started working on the interior so I'll go ahead and post up the "before" pictures now.








Seats, steering wheel, shift boot, and e-brake boot are all going. I'm also adding a nitrous gauge and switch panel where the ashtray is now.

It may be a couple weeks before it's done because the seats aren't here yet, I had to order a spacer for the steering wheel to be able to use the horn the wheel came with, and the little orange piece that tells you what gear your in was broken when we bought the car so thats getting fixed while the center console is apart. Waiting on that too.

 

I put the new steering wheel in. Need a spacer for the horn to fit but the hard part is done. Also got the shift and e-brake boot in. E-brake was easy. Shift boot was a massive pita because you have to glue it to the indicator display. Didnt get the speaker covers redone because its cold here and I'd need the doors open to do that lol. Maybe sometime this week. Still waiting on the seat brackets but I have the seats sitting in the shop next to the car waiting to go in.



You can clearly see the nasty speaker covers in this pic.

 

^ what seats did you go with

 

Sorry I haven't been on here in a bit because I've been crazy busy with work. I went with the knock off Corbeau Evolution X seats off ebay. Black with red stitching and carbon accents. There the ones that you have to install backwards. As in the recline lever is on the tunnel side. I did get them installed but I haven't gotten any pictures yet because it was dark when I finished. We also ordered the matching arm rest cover from JF-CUSTOMS, the same company that made the shift and ebrake boot because our armrest is torn.

Still waiting on the rest of the bits for the nitrous switch panel and I have no idea where the spacer is for the steering wheel so I can put the horn button on. Also still need to dye the speaker covers.

I'll get some pics up as soon as I can get it out in the sun and take some. I'll keep updating this thread as we work on it too but as I've mentioned this is a toy and I have limited time to work on it so it will be slow going.

 

Nice thread and good job. What SW is that?
Happy modding and Cheers!!

 

SW.....steering wheel? I'm not sure. It was sold as a Momo but the price wasn't right for a Momo so I'm thinking its a knock off, like Speed Daddy or something? Its pretty nice whatever it is. I had a grant in my Conquest and this is much nicer.

 

I painted the speaker grills black. They are metal. The PO claimed it was blood on the drivers speaker cover and he couldn't get it out. Its actually rust though. I tried getting a couple more pictures of the interior. If its ever actually sunny when I'm off I'll pull it outside and get pictures in the sun with the top off. These are the best I could get for now.

 

Thanks for the SW response. It is indeed a nice SW. Another question though, it doesn't look like it would hold an airbag or am I missing something? Cheers!!

 

You are correct sir, no airbag. A harness bar and harnesses are on the list of upgrades. I plan to eventually remove the passenger airbag too.

 

No airbags! Die like men!

 

Eh.... I don't really condone removing safety devices from vehicles BUT airbags are in cars because the factory seat belts do a **** poor job of restraining the occupants in a crash. Imo if you have properly installed 4/5/6 point harnesses the airbag becomes redundant. A buddy of mine calls them bombs that do more damage than they prevent lol. The down side to a harness is it restrains you....all the time. In a dd it can suck. Been there done that. As a second car that sees very little use its not an issue to me. I know I just opened a massive steaming can of worms where all the haters can jump on the "don't remove airbags" bandwagon and site all the anecdotal arguments and laws etc etc. Its ultimately my car and no one has to worry about it or ride in it.

I would encourage anyone that wants to remove an airbag to do their research though and make sure they are taking the proper steps to keep themselves safe in the event of a crash.

 

Never mind the lighthouse...what's his plan for the Plymouth Arrow?