Why is this irrevelant? Did the original poster specifically say the mods had to relate ONLY to corvettes?

Do you belive that the laws or Physics or Thremodynamics behave differencty in vetts than they do other cars?

[QUOTE
Since you have yet to celebrate your 2nd month of Corvette ownership, it might behoove you to do a little more listening in this thread than talking. Just some "friendly" advice.[/quote]

Yep, no one could have as much automotive knowledge as you, after all you bought a Z06 and have owned other Corvettes in the past making all other opinions worthless...

Like I said before, you post like a politician speaks. You imply things to give yourself deniability when challenged as being bias. I call them as I see them...


You point out correctly that this is the first corvette that I have ever owned. However, you only assume that I have never re-built or modified Corvettes for other people....


First, you are the one who brought the Bug and Avalon into the discussion NOT me. I simply added a comment to somthing that you started. So, if you do not think it is revelant, why did you put in in the post to start with?

I can say that I did install a set of rear mount turbos on a C6. It was a early kit and I helped to design and fabricate the mounting brackets and oil manifolds in my machine shop. The guy seems loves it and it did not blow up. However, I understand if you want to discount that as being irrevelant since it is not my car and the mods did infact not go wrong.

P.S. How much time do you spend digging through past posts???? Any good searching tips???

 

 

Quicksilver my understanding is you had one other 03 Corvette Z06 that you modified and had a bad experience with especially the PCM thing when your car was down a month which kinda makes me chuckle but I don't know the details of what happened. So in my opinion based on you having one modified car I don't feel your qualified to say modified cars are junk and a headache. . I don't want to talk about what mod's you did on your C4 or C3's

I have much more experience then you since every modern corvette I owned had some sort of modification. At 1st I grant you I had some issues with a few things. After doing research and only purchasing quailty proven products I haven't had something go wrong in a very long time that was because of a modification.

I am on Corvette #10 my C4 was bone stock except the wheels. Every other car had something done to it even if it was just a intake and exhaust.


The car in my Avatar had heads/cam/headers/tune/clutch/intake/intake manifold. I sold that car to a forum member in Jan 2004 and he still has it and when I talked to him recently it was still going strong and was enjoying it.That car was a 1997 C5 coupe.

I hope a Zr1 drives up to you and says "you should've bought one of these" and floors it.

 

Which cars did you think he was talking about here?? Mustangs?

Once again, did I say that???


Thats not the issue. The issue is what experience do you personally have with your own modified Corvette?

How many mods on your own Corvettes have you seen go bad



Instead of concentrating on what you think I am "implying" you'd do better to hear what I actually SAID.

Because what you think I am "implying" is nowhere close to what I actually said.


Until YOUR Corvette has an issue following a modification, you are not in much of a position to speak on it.

But thats not what you were doing anyway. You were trying to pick a fight.


Sranger, I have been here a while and have been in many scrapes and handled much rougher "people" in here than you. You want to pick a fight, know that I don't run.



To point out their irrelevence, and by extension the opinions expressed in your prior post irrelevence with regard to this topic.

A 6 week Corvette first time Corvette owner, making an attempt at "flaming" in a topic which he has no personal experience of????

Just as irrelevent to the discussion as that Volkswagen and that Toyota.

I'll take your word for that.

Precisely. Its not YOUR car. And if it pops tomorrow, no hair off your back is it?

Sure. I'll tell you the easy ones. But my special techniques, well if I told you, I'd have to .....

For you.....Since you just got here a few days ago, ...for yours, about 2minutes.

I searched under "First Corvette".

 

On the subject for mod's gone wrong. Don't believe the magazine catalog's HP increase numbers. Back in the C5 days they said the timing tricker would be 10 rwhp increase I fell for that before I was on the forum in 5/01

 

Bad luck with tail light seals, couldn't get the tail light to fit with the seals in place. Others had the same problem. The vendor gave me credit for the unused seals. Live and learn.....

 

So basically you are admiting that something can be implied in a post and does not necessarly have to be stated in literal text to have a valid meaning. Thanks for answering your next comment for me...

See above...


I took the Chicklets off... Does that count?

Again See Reply #1. You made my point for me....

Please show where I literally said I was picking a fight with you. Do you mean that you think a fight was implied?

What fight. Please show specifically where I said I was starting a fight???

P.S. I have been on public forums since days before the internet. In the old days they were called BBS systems and used banks of dial up modem on CPM and UNIX boxes. I ran one for a few years. I also know my way around a good on-line discussion...


I see your point about it not being my car, but is does not change the technical nature of the modification unless you believe the car knows who owns it and acts accordingly....

I see, you judge a person only by how long they have been a forum member or owned a particular car. Their life long knowledge, training, experiance, etc... is irrevelant... I don't necessarly agree with you, but I must admit that it is an interesting way to judge people...

 

Tried shifter after shifter until i found one I liked (MGW) Finally,
Callaway intake, made with the flow sensor up-side-down, finally corrected, car threw codes, ultimately jettisoned. Pretty minor stuff but annoying none the less.

 

Let me straighten it out for you. Better yet, PM me if you want more than what follows. I could write a volume on the issues I had with my modded '03 and my modded '05.

I have owned several cars. But my Vettes are 1986 Vert, 2003 C5 Automatic, 2005 C6 Z51, 2006 Z06.

They were all modified. The '86 modded like it was just gave me minor issues, "check engine" on the dash. Never did figure out what it was, the guy I was working with then just reset the code periodically.

The '03 problems hit me perhaps hardest.

This car was perfect until I started screwing around with it.

Mods to it were the usual bolt ons, Vararam, stat, KOOKS headers, plus high stall converter, 3.42 gears.

The day of the gear, torque converter install, I went to pick the car up.

If you know about gear swaps in automatics, you know that the transmission has to be tuned to allow for the new gears and torque converter.

The shop did not have the capability to tune the car so I relied on a mail order tune from RWTD to get the correct gear scaling.

I loaded this tune into the car at the shop. I test drove it. It shifted well, everything was fine. Paid the speed shop owner, got on the road and promptly smoked the transmission in it. Before I got home.

Tranny wasn't topped off with transmission fluid.

Transmission literally trashed.

Shop owner/Installer initially tried to deny fault. Tried to blame the transmission tune which I installed in the car but after speaking with Rodney and other forum members, they insisted that I be there for the autopsy.

I got the car back to the tuner the next day. Took off work. They drove it. 2nd gear and above lost. They put it on the lift and start putting transmission fluid into it. No dice. Too late. My transmission was gone.

Now had I not been there, they would have never owned up to not having topped off the transmission and would have blamed the tune.

Shop owner had to fess that the transmission was not topped off.

I have to leave it there for a rebuilt transmission.....and had to order a new torque converter and wait for it....and a new transmission cooler.

Get the car back. Rolling fine, when one day I let the revs drop too low vs the car's speed, and it throws a code. Car trying to take off in 3rd gear. Of course it knocks and stalls. This is an automatic mind you.

Aftermarket torque converter has additional slip so it throws a code corresponding to a clogged valve body. This code will make the car behave as it did when I had the issue.

Was there still debris from my first transmission in the lines which caused this??? Or was this a common code following high stall converters in C5s and F bodies?

I took to the internet. Used my search skills, asked around.

Turning the code off with tuning, which is what was recommended by the crowd in LS1 Tech, meant letting the shop off the hook in case it was a clogged valve body as a result of remnants and debris left over from their previous F/U.

The mail order tuner did not want to send me a tune with the code turned off. Covering his own ***, because of the prior incident whereby he had been(wrongly) implicated in the first transmission failure.

Finally he agreed to send me a tune with the code turned off. That worked. No more problem with the tranny.

Now lets go to the headers.

I won't bore you with the codes which I had to have turned out as a result of the cats not heating up enough, this is a common problem.

Headers cause increased valve train noise. Especially in a automatic pulling hills under load. If you have ever heard it, it sounds like knocking, pinging.

So lets get the A/F ratios in line. With that Vararam on it.

How to do it? Voltage or wide band? Dyno or street? Track or normal driving?

I played around with them all. By now, HP Tuners was on the scene. I had an 02 bung welded into one ot the headers and ran an LM-1 into the car. Got the A/F as good as they could be gotten.

But not before I burned out one of the catalytic converters in the KOOKS X pipe.

Burned it out during a dyno pull.

Noticed it on the way home after the pulls.

If you have never experienced this, it sounds like something let go in the engine. Sounds almost like, well a broken valve spring.... and unless you know what to look for, it can be difficult to find.

The substrate lets loose from inside the cannister. Part of the time it rattles around inside of the cannister, usually on part or full throttle. The rest of the time, ie at idle, it is silent.

So you get out of the car you usually don't hear it.

Had to get a new catted x pipe from KOOKS. If you know the KOOKS system, you know that the rear 02 bungs in their X pipe face upwards towards the tunnel plate of the car.

Well the new one I got, the bungs faced downward. Meaning that the rear 02s would have to be mounted downward. Decreasing ground clearance. Thats if there would be enough slack in the wires.

Now granted the rear 02s were off. But I wanted the option of turning them back on, if a better tune came along which would allow me to turn all of my emissions codes back on and still run the high flow cats.

This nixed that option. I plugged the rear o2s in the new X pipe and kept going.

Lets move on to the Vararam.

The Vararam gave the performance it promised to deliver. It's build quality, sucked. But the tune was difficult because of the increased air flow and the foam rubber filter they were using back then. Nailing the A/F ratios was a nightmare on the street.

Here in the northest, in cold weather, the air charge can be cold. Very cold when that wind chill is down out there.

I threw a weird code from the Vararam because the IAT was too low for the coolant temperature. More tuning needed to "resolve" this issue. Of course when the CEL comes on in the middle of driving the car, you don't know what it is. In a modded car, until you look up the code, it could be anything. And even after looking it up, it could be anything. Remember my "valve body" issue?

At this point I had come to a crossroads. It was all or nothing. Heads and Cam or a C6.

My buddy who I told you about with the 2000 had gone all out. Cartek heads and cam package, the coil overs I told you about, lowered, high stall converter 3.42s and all the other bolt ons.

The final day we were playing around with it. Shortly after his heads and cam package, we took it out after he had it shipped back home from Cartek.

Had a blast with it. That was on a Saturday. He called the next day, Sunday to tell me that after he dropped me off at home, yesterday, that his transmission had started slipping.

It could not stand up to the new power.

He ordered a built Rossler, later that week,.........you don't want to know what he paid for it. He had plans to have a local installer do I need to say any more?) install it for him.

After coming home that Saturday, I was all set to go heads and cam planning on sending the car to ECS after getting off the phone with them and being quoted a price.

Thats when my friend told me not to expect my transmission to live long if I went through with it.

This would have meant transmission #3 at some point.

I bought a C6.

I'll give you a break and we will get going on the modding issues with that car.


Back in a minute.

 

Quicksilver,

Again you and your friend didn't do your homework before you jumped into the mod's.

1st building up a automatic car with a stall and stock tranny is crazy. Not many people or tuners would recommend doing that especially if the guy putting the stall in isn't doing the tune.

2nd I don't like KOOK's headers but I have never personally had them. Based on what I have read American Racing Or LG is the only way to go. I've had Lg's on two of my C5's and they worked great and as advertised. Again proven products that are flawless on many but not all installs on this forum.

3rd The Vararam I remember when this snake oil air filter system came out. Everyone said the build quality was rough but it gives you the most hp. The system did one thing right it brought in cold air beyond that it wasn't anything special and the build quality is below par. I don't see many issues with this system cause codes. I drove my Z06 with a vortex back from Milwaukee in Dec it was -9 and I had a Vortex bottom breather intake I am sure the IAT were very low and no codes.

4th Mail order tune. I know the vendors still offer this but I personally would never/ever do it unless I lived in Alaska or something. Mailing your Pcm away is crazy. Back in the day I had the crappy ls1edit. My 97 ran strong and never burned up any cat's. The only way you burn up cats is by running lean which apparently you were so even if you had a wideband your car was not tuned correctly.

Based on what your personal experience I can understand why you have a bad taste in your mouth about modified cars. Myself I have had good luck with my experiences so I will keep on modifying but doing my research 1st

Currently in my garage waiting to be installed
LG Long Tubes "just arrived today"
L92 Heads factory GM parts
Ls7 Intake manifold GM
Rear Pfadt coilovers This may be my favorite Corvette mod I have ever done we will see. Fronts are installed and I likey.
L76 Fuel Rail

I guess when I post my car blew up because of mods you will be there

People do your homework the magazine catalog suppliers/vendors are filled with bogus promises. If it wasn't for people modifying there vettes I think the Corvette wouldn't of even lasted in the 70's. Quicksilver I would celebrate people making there cars different if it wasn't for them there would not of been a 06 Z06.

 

One last thing the 2 biggest car's I had problems with were.

1988 Rx7 with 302 FI built motor. Misc electrical problems and such.
1979 280zx with a 350 V8 and a dos based injection system.

I will say those cars were a ton of fun even though they were both troublesome. The look on people mouths when you started them were priceless.

 

I have to correct this statment alittle. We aren't done testing the mounts doesn't mean that they are not strong enough. Some people have said that we are just out to make a quick buck and just throw stuff on and sell it. We have always tested the hell out of a design or product. Before it ends up in a customer's hand. We haven't seen any problems with the mounts, well besides the guy who posted his problem. Which did change a few things in our design, now we are testing that.

Randy

 

C4s 2 shocks
C5s 1 shock
no C6s yet
I think everyone saw the one on the new Z
other cars too many to count.

One thing in common with every situation.

A crash of some sort

Randy

 

Alright, lets move to the C6.

The C6, well I was ready to go.

It had the power I needed so I felt no need to go into the engine.

I started out with long tube headers. LG Pros this time, and because of the build quality of the Vararam and the foam rubber filter, decided to go with the Callaway Honker this time.

This time, I had my plan tight. No junk. Only the best.

The Honker.

Install went real well, quality piece, but always had the same case of nerves I had with the vararam on the previous Vette, every time I drove the car in the rain.

The headers and the tune.

This was it. The watershed moment for me. The end of the road.

The header install went well. I have been turning a wrench all of my life, and have always done much of the work on my own cars. Tuning though is an art I suppose, but I digress.

The headers, well I am a a perfectionist. I had a driver's side leak which I just could not get rid of. Set my torque wrench to retorque the bolts after a few days of the install figuring that they had backed off a bit. 14ft/lbs if memory serves me.

And promptly snapped off a header bolt. Flush with the head. Nothing to grab ahold of. Only good thing was that it was up by the alternator as opposed the the firewall.

This was on a Thursday. Only way out was to drill it out. Easy out.

I spent the weekend weighing my options and finally on Monday had to make the call.

Now the guy who had smoked my transmission in the C5, well we were still on good terms. I respected him for replacing the tranny and torque converter without much of a fight. Of course had I not been standing there when they were filling the transmission, the case may have been different.

I took the car in to him and he got the bolt out with a right angle drill and replaced it.

While he was there he tightend up all of the clamps for the slip fits of the LG pros and remarked that this was not the best setup. That I would be constantly fighting exhaust leaks underneath the car.

Around this time is when I pulled the ECM and sent it away to be tuned.

I did my homework, realizing that a mail order tune would get me close and eliminate the check engine light from the rear 02s not being hooked up, but the fine tuning and data logging would have to be done on the road.

The mail order tune was just to tide me over until I could get to the track as well as on the road for the data logging.

I had sold my prior copy of HP Tuners with my C5. I asked the mail order guys what they were tuning with and selected one who told me that he was tuning with HP tuners, as I knew that I would purchase it in the future for any further tuning needs. This tuner said that his tunes were not locked, so that if I wanted to make alterations to the tune, that I could.

I sent that shop my ECM. And got it back. Car ran great......for about a week.

Thats when it started to misfire. Very rarely, but still misfire. I thought little of it, its just "learning the tune". Or it could be due to the header leak, (not fixed at that time) Besides, I have HP Tuners coming, I'll iron it out then. Plus I am going to take care of that header leak."

Then one day a buddy of mine came over to see the car after the header install. We went to fire the car up. She wouldn't start, took us about 15-20 attempts. Finally she hit. But she wouldn't recognize throttle input until after 5 minutes or so of idling. After that, it ran normally.

We went to put some gas in it, jumped on it a few times and headed back home.

Next morning, same thing. This time 20 or more attempts to get it started. I started to worry that at that rate, I would burn out the starter. I started asking for opinions.

This is where the real fun started. Some said it was the tune. Some said it was the throttle body going bad. Some asked if the guy who extracted the bolt had welded onto the remnant of the bolt to get it out figuring that this caused an electrical glitch, some said that I needed to bore a hole into my throttle body blade, some asked me if I had polished the throttle body figuring that I had screwed it up.

The tuner however.....said that it was not his tune..... argues me down.....now imagine that. In addition to the above, he said that it could be a problem with the fuel pump.

I decide I'm through with them because as one forum member points out, "the tune was the last thing that you did" when the problems started. Another forum member had his car tuned by the same vendor, and was having similar, .....no near identical problems, which he stated in my thread.

So now where to start?

At the tune. Take it back to a stock tune and see if I still have the problem. Work the problem. The UPS guy brought HP Tuners in. But I needed a stock calibration. Who can give me one? Forum members offered. Or I could send it back to the tuner and have him reflash it back to stock. 3-4 business days round trip unless I want to pay extra for overnight, both my way overnight and his. No thanks.

I load HP Tuners onto one of my laptops and hook up to the car planning to license the HP tuners, read the tune, compare it to a stock tune and let others look at it.

No dice. It can't read the VCM. IT IS LOCKED

Now I was told by this outfit, that they did not lock their tunes. I called them up, irate.

In that conversation, I learned that the ECM had not been tuned HP Tuners, but with LS2 Edit. Which unbeknownst to both them and me at the time, by default locked the ECM and made it unreadable and unwritable to anything else.

I demanded to speak to the tuner himself who was an employee of this shop. I was denied access to him.

I demanded that my stock tune be returned into my ECM. This meant removing it from the car, shipping it back out, waiting for them to reprogram it to stock and sending it back to me.

I pulled it. Sent it...........and Fed Ex lost it.

When they finally found it, it was in another part of the state. They had transposed the last two numbers of the Zip code. I waited for them to deliver it to the tuner.

They got it, after several days, "returned it to stock" and sent it back to me. I waited again the turn around time. Keep in mind, I am payhing for the shipping and return shipping.

I got it. Put it into the car. Drove it a few miles and again attempted to license my HP tuners.

No dice.

I called the vendor again. Not happy because I could not tune my car at all. They insisted that it was not locked and that it had the stock tune in it. I verified this by seeing the 1-4 shift light, and the code for the rear cats. It was indeed a stock tune. Again, I asked around, posted inquiries on this board and searched others.

Turns out that LS2 Edit, even when reloading the stock tune, or any tune for that matter, locked the ECM by default.

I had a door stop. A paperweight.

I spoke to the shop again and informed them of what was happening. Enclosed instructions for unlocking the ECM with LS2 Edit which had been posted up from another forum vendor since they did not seem to know the specifics of what their tuning software was doing to people's ECMs. Told them to reflash it back to stock.

I pulled it. I sent it. They flashed it. They sent it back........still locked.

By this time, I had heard that the only way to get it unlocked was to send it to the folks at LS2 Edit themselves.

I pulled it. I sent it. They reflashed it back to virgin condition, I reinstalled it and was able to license HP tuners to it.

How much wasted time, how much frustration, how much money in shipping, how much of my "labor" in jacking up my car and removing and replacing the ECM?? How much headache? How much arguing? How much uncertainty? How many inquiries?

Now it was finally time to tune my car. But by now, I had seen enough.

This was not what Corvette ownership was all about. I couldn't enjoy my car. I didn't like that.

Meantime, in the midst of all of this, I had developed an interest in the Z06 and had test driven one.

I made up my mind, "no more". With the '86 I had a few issues, but I was a younger man then with a different temperament. The '03, I saw even more issues due to my modding it. Finally with the '05, I had seen enough.

I made up my mind that in the fall, I would de mod it, sell the parts and get a Z06. However one year ago today, an opportunity to put all of that behind me presented itself.

i have not looked back.

 

Sorry didn't mean to imply you thought there was a issue and impresses me that you guys are spending time and money doing the testing. My buddy that has your coilovers on a C5 Z06 has called you a few times and is very impressed with your customer service and he bought his used Your company treated him the same as if he purchased from you. I also purchased my Pfadts used but if I was paying full price it would be a tough decision.

 

My personal experience is all I am speaking to in these final posts WickedC5

BTW Wicked, enjoy the conversation. Enjoy the dialogue.

There were no American Racing headers in 2003-2004. KOOKS, LG, Breathless, FLP were pretty much running the show then.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that American racing headers was started by someone from KOOKS.

Mail order and the Predator, Hypertech, or someone with LS1 Edit was about all we had in '03 '04.

Also, it was common practice back then to go with a Yank, Vig, Pro Torque, etc high stall converter without any other transmission mods.

So you have to put all of the above into "perspective" in terms of the time frame and what was known back 3-4 years ago..

Sure, perhaps now no one would add a high stall to a stock tranny. But then it was common practice. Check the C5 board for verification of this.

 

Or unless I believe that it could be that if it craps out that its no skin off your hide, but rather the problem of the poor bastich whose car it is.

If thats what you "see" then you need to remove your blinders.

I am judging you on your attempt to try and pick a fight in this thread with your post which included:

Its really not worth my effort since by your own admission, you have no personal experience with your own modified Corvette. But I have never been one to run from a fight. Have at it. Take your best shot.

 

I can understand the leak but I broke a header bolt when I put the stock manifolds back on my 1997 that I sold a couple of months ago. It had nothing to do with the Lg's I had on previous. I should have used brand new bolts rather then one that have been heated up many times.

Your PCM issue was a easy fix all you needed was a tech2. The dealer can reflash a locked computer and put it back to stock I can't imagine it would have been more then $100.00

I agree there are many tuners that have really screwed up cars. I have some tuning experience but I am lucky we have Charlie at RPM and I know Ryne at CMS. Ryne is 3 miles from my house so if things go wrong he will take care of it. Many tuners are the ones responsible for blown up motors and Christmas lights of CEL.

 

Uh, no. Actually, with LS2 Edit, that won't work.

Not even a Tech 2 would do it. At least then it wouldn't.

In my efforts, I came across posts from people who had attempted it. No luck.

Not even with a Tech 2. I believe LAPD is local to you??? Ask them. because one car which they tried to fix with a Tech 2 which had been tuned by the same tuner, they had no luck with either.

That ECM would not allow a reflash from LAPDs Tech 2.

If your car had been tuned with LS2 Edit, you were ****ed.

Ask me how I know. Man, Wicked, I can show you several people who were screwed with LS2 Edit.

Supposedly why they did it that way was so that the dealer could not "accidentally" overwrite your tune.

Now, there is supposedly a new version of it.

When I went through that ************* nightmare, I learned so much about tuning and tuning software, out of necessity, that ....well... I'll just leave it at that.

There is stuff about that tuning software, and how it came about, which would literally make your hair stand on end.

I had much correspondence with the folk at LS2 Edit about their rivalry with the folks at HP Tuners. Which was another reason why they made LS2 "ironclad" was to keep the competition, HP Tuners, and EFI Live out.

If the ECM is unreadable to anything out there, then they saw that as a competitive edge.

However it backfired and pissed people off because their property was locked. By default if tuned with LS2 edit. And when I say locked, I mean locked.

BTW, the tuner who tuned that ECM and locked it, also thought that the ECM was readible and writable with a Tech 2. That was part of his insistence that it was not locked.

Check out the HP Tuners board (at least from that time frame) and they will tell you otherwise.

 

Someone from Kooks did start AR but the shop I use sells them and there customer service has been A++. They don't have comebacks on the cars they put them on.

I think Efi live was out in 2004. Like I said I had Ls1 edit and a autotap back in 2003 but dumped it for EFI live sometime in 2004 Hp tuners came out shortly there after. I know people did converters on stock cars but I can't speak from experience. I did see many people blow them up at the drag strip. A guy I know crashed his automatic C5 with a procharger on it do to a bad tune with the tranny settings.

I actually think your 05 would've came out fine if your patience wasn't so thin from the 03. Although 05's had there own factory issues so who knows.