I agree with the big red flag comment. Especially when the OP used Seven (7) question marks??????? It just looks like an unnecessary dig against them! IMO if the OP wanted to get an unbiased opinion on the grading of said hardware then one (1) ? would have sufficed! Seven (7) ??????? automatically denotes a guilty tone to the question which just begs one to side on the err of negativity before even reading the question… Just my opinion… Maybe the OP innocently used Seven (7) ???????’s

Whadya think ???????

 

oh man....too much....

 

I just read all of your posts in this thread. I must say that I always thought Vettenuts meant "Vettecrazy"
Now I know you are a Vette man that knows his nuts! and bolts.
with a "nuts" possibility on the side.

 

Didn't bother to read the whole thread, but I know for a fact that GM dosen't design a new bolt if they can use a pre-exiting bolt that is similar and will work. Also, if a similar fastener is being used at the same build station for a different location it is going to be used in both places to save cost, time, dual storage locations, possible location installation errors, etc. FACT, if a bolt is used on a flexing joint it must have a fastener that will also flex. If too hard of a fastener is used the fastener will take all the load and fracture or cause the part to take on too much load and break. Too soft and it will stretch and loosen up.

 

Over engineered bolt, under engineered differential casing.

 

 

The Enerzizer bunny is a bad ***.... Lets ask him more on the topic...

 

Everything flexes to a certain designed degree.

My thoughts on the differential brace is that is keeps pressure on the transmission / differential joints to prevent excessive flexing at these points since they are the weakest link due to the long mainshaft used in our vettes. Most other vehicles have extension housings that support the mainshaft whereas the vettes (C5 / C6) do not have this support design.

 

??????

I would have asked ECS directly/discretely. If I had chosen to post about it not knowing whether the practice was acceptible or not, I would have just presented the question and left the vendor name out of it.

 

Honestly, when I first saw the title, I thought mabye he was someone who had never used ECS before and was gonna ask about people having good or bad experience with them..

We can split hairs all day and disect and play semantics... bottom line as I said before people need to lighten up. I am sure ECS did not loose 100 customers because of this thread They have a very solid reputation on this board.
People need to relax

Lets move on.

 

, hence post #52.

 

Well, You all can speculate how you would have handled this with the vendor. I bought three moderately priced ECS products and had issues installing all three. The brace was the last product I installed and it was the closest to a direct bolt on then all three. It had in my eyes a hardware deficiency with the brace that I was not good with and I installed the same strength hardware the factory did. By the way Getrag builds the differential and they use 10.9 hardness in the side covers and 8.8 hardness in the pinion cover. So the bolts left over from another platform or some bean counter said to use them to save money just doesn’t make sense in that application. I have after the brace post contacted Doug at ECS on the issues I had with all three products. His did explain why ECS does what they do in reference to the hardware strength. A couple other issues I had, had to do with them making the install easier for the mechanically challenge (other customers calling and complaining about install problems). I wasn’t going to show pictures but then I will for sure get a bunch of speculators again (and I know I still will). Here is the bolt for the tensioner retainment. It is VERY close to the belt on the top pulley. The bottom pulley is the A/C tensioner so it will move away from the bolt when the belt is installed. This was done for ease of install.

What my install looks like.

The factory A/C tensioner retainer location they use for the lower mount for the ECS tensioner. This bolt from the factory has a Teflon/plastic washer installed on the shoulder of the bolt to hold the front of the tensioner to a specific tolerence (I suspect because I didn’t engineer it). With this factory bolt in place there is .045 of front to back movement at the outer edge of the pulley. With the ECS spacer installed there is a complete .10 of movement at the outer edge of the pulley. This was also designed by ECS to ease installation across different years of C5’s and aftermarket A/C tensioners. I thought .10 of movement was excessive and took care of it.
The factory bolt and washer.

ECS spacer installed as purchased

As I installed it


The last piece I installed was the oil line block. Doug didn’t comment on this one. Every machined side of this block except the one where the gasket goes was nice. I filed smooth the gasket surface to stop any possible oil leaks from the roughness. I also had to cut down these bolts 3/8 of an inch because that is how far they stuck out when bottomed in the block. No I didn’t file off 3/8 of an inch to smooth out through surface so that’s not the reason for the bolts to be too long.
Block surface

Long bolt

Cut bolts


The brace, well we have worn that issue out. There are those that will install the same as factory hardware and those that won’t. Yes, it’s that simple.

I install the tensioner and the oil block over Xmas so calling ECS wasn’t going to happen. This allowed me to continue with my build and keep it on my schedule. I figured I would get the standard “we have sold 1000’s of these and never had a problem” answer anyway so why add to my aggravation. The answer Doug gave me was very close to this but with some explanation.

Again this wasn’t a post to demean ECS and if you think it was I believe that’s an immature view. It was just constructive criticism and did bring out some good discussion on hardware awareness.

ECS or I do not condone any of these "mods/changes" so if you do them do them at you own risk.

 

Just a little insight on why GM may have used a higher grade bolt than appears to have been required.
The higher grade bolts will cost more than the lower grade bolts when Joe the Vette owner buys them from wherever.com. This is obvious to all. What might not be so obvious is that in assembly type manufacturing, that "higher cost" bolt can actually become a lower cost bolt IF it is used in multiple applications. Reducing inventory in assembly production is one of the most commonly used ways to save costs in recent times. Reducing inventory has a cost saving ripple effect.
Stock floor space is recovered (which can be used for more mfg), tax is saved on reduced inventory, less material planning is needed, ect.
So if this "higher grade bolt" can replace a number of other bolts (with different part numbers) there can be a decent overall cost saving to the manufacturer.