Hi fellows,

Well setting aside the fact that current market conditions make my working quite intensive, I have been working on my spanking new 08 vette.

As some of you know, my current situation is potentially transient, between Uncle Sam, my company and my family there's a lot of uncertainties in there.
As I don't like pushing to another day what can be done today, I have decided to transform the car to make it as much as possible Euro compliant, without putting myself on the edge in the USA, in the event that I am to go back to France.

So basically what I've been up to, is making this car conform to Euro standards or getting the stuff together for last moment transformations. This is why I have posting questions about the Tech 2 and all that

In my current situation I am not completely out of the hole, I still have some issues to address and nail down.

Anyway, looking at Euro (French) and USA regulations, the main distinction that I have seen (don't take me to the bank on this, this is not legal advice, I'm an amateur) is with respect to the lighting components.

In a nutshell these are:

1. Headlamp washers: compulsory for HID lamps in Europe.
2. Self leveling mechanism: compulsory for HID lamps in Europe.
3. Lighting color differences:
   • Europe: turn signal is orange (mandatory), DRL is white (when present)
   • USA: turn signal is orange or red, DRL is white or orange.
4. Rear fog lamp, red, mandatory, distinct from breaks, turn signals.
5. Rear side lamp markers are red in the USA, orange in Europe.
6. Front side lamp markers are orange and self lighting in USA. Europe just reflectors, no lights (well there is, but in the headlamp, not on the side). Europe calls them park lamps, so people can see your car when park not to well.

I started transforming the front part of the car, that is to say the Headlamps and the Headlamp washer system.

The headlamp washer system is composed of:



1/ Headlamp washer high pressure nozzle x2
2/ Covers to hide the nozzles when not in use.
3+4/ Pipes for the water
5/ Reservoir for european edition (not acquired)
6/ High pressure water pump

Additionally you need to order a spanking new harness that has the CE4 option ...

Here is a photo of the parts received (note duplicate parts not on photo)



As you can see, some painting will be necessary

On to the next post ...

 

Well the first I did, before stripping the car apart and making holes, is to make sure that everything is working

So, as the electrical system is going to be impacted, I started by disconnecting the battery (minus first then the positive), which has a potential, rather annoying, side effect: the windows have to be re-indexed ...

Here is the battery of the vette:



Be careful, the red cable has this annoying feature of moving back into position, so if you put the cables like this:



They will fly back whilst you are busy on the other side of the car, I ended up dumping the + cable between the engine and the battery to ensure that it never came back to the terminal.

Before taking everything a part you need to have a clean work space and some things to hold nuts 'n bolts. I bought the 10$ cheapo magnetized receptacle that is cool:



Ok, now it's time to remove the existing harness at it's attachment point: that is to say the fuse box and to put the new harness in it's place. The point of anchor is called the X1 connector.

Here is the fuse box that holds the relays, and without the cover



Disconnect the cable that comes to the fuse box, which effectively powers the unit and un-tighten the 4 bolts. These bolts hold the underlying connectors (X1 to X4) and can't be completely removed unless the top part of the fuse box is separated from the bottom part.

You will see all around the fuse box, small latches that need to be removed in order for the fuse box top to come off.



So unscrew everything and remove the X1 connector (corresponding to the harness that goes to the headlamps and washer system), and pull out the X1 connector (easier said than done, damn thing).

You should have something looking like this now:



next post ...

 

So now we have disconnected the old harness (but not removed from the car), we can connect the new harness. Here is a photo of the X1 connector, new harness (T90 + CE4):



and here is the new X1 connector in the fuse box, along side the existing, disconnected X1 connector:



Next step is connect the ground of the harness, very important step, here is an example of a ground outlet:



As for me, I didn't spend 24 hours connecting them, I put all ground outlet to the same grounding bolt up front for the test:



Once that is done, you can connect the new hardware to test it out:



Before testing, make sure there aren't short circuits in the system, you will cry your eyes out ... here are some photos



don't start the car for this test because a lot of systems have been disconnected, just use the light command on the steering wheel to test.

For now, the headlamp washer pump can't be tested (more details on this later on as to why)

There is also a side turn signal repeater that is not on the photos but has been installed.

On to the next post ...

 

Ok, now everything is working and this weekend is Columbus weekend, so I have 3 days to install the front system completely (my vette is my DD, I don't have another ride to go to work, so it has to be functional at the end of the weekend).

First things first, mounting the baby safely

Un-tighten the wheels, jack the car and put permanent jacks at the recommended locations:



In order to remove all the panels of the car, necessary for the drilling and removal of the headlamps, take out the front wheel liners (front and back of the front wheels).

These liners are held by simple pins that expand like a classical wall plug, here is a photo of one that has been removed, and a photo of a plug just before removal from the car



In order to remove the central piece, I used two flat screw drivers, I know some use wire cutters but I wasn't successful with the wire cutters.

Of course there are a couple of screws to remove here and there, here is the rear liner of the front wheel removed. We will see it again when the time comes to take out the washer reservoir and make a hole in it.



Now with all the screws and plugs that are going to be removed I put everything into the yogurt pots that my kids eat and put labels on them so that nothing is mixed up, each to his own though ...
The front liner of the front wheel is more painful to remove, I understand that the manual states to remove each part individually. However I find that removing both parts together is way more easier and less of PITA



In the first photo, on the left there is the front liner and on the right there is the rear liner of the front wheelhouse.

On to next post ....

 

The next thing to do is remove the following panels, in order:

• Front bumper
• Left and right wing panels

Removal of the front bumper is relatively easy and pretty straight forward, the trick is finding the right screws and plugs to remove

Normally at this point, if you have followed the steps indicated above, there should only be 6 screws to remove from the top of bumper (in the engine compartment), 2 screws below at the bottom (the other screws hold various parts together because the bumper isn't in one part) and 4 plugs.
The 4 plugs are located at the air inlet, a pair is being on each side.

Here is the picture of the bumper that has been removed, you can see in the bumper the various parts held by the other screws:



Of course, I did not explain it, but there are cables to remove in order to get the bumper off, eg the fog lamps, don't rip the bumper out

Next panels to be removed are the wings, very easy from a theoritical standpoint, however there is one screw that is PITA to remove. That screw is located just in front of the door hinge, you can see it in the following photo, it is just below the top front hinge:



Additionally, there is one screw that is hidden below the rubber at the level of the windshield:



Be careful: the wings are mounted with 3 different screw types, depending on the type of material the screw goes into. Try not to mix the screw types, you will see when you unscrew them, they are noticeably different.

Once you have removed all the screws, the wings can be removed quite easily. Bear in mind that there is a small pin on the top of the headlamps, so you need to raise slightly the front part of the wings before removing the panel.

This is how the car looks like at this point:



On to the next post ...

 

At this point in the operation, it is a good time to take note of the headlamp positions.

First from a bolt perspective, there are 3 bolts under the headlamps that have a lot of leeway, it is a good idea to note the positions of these bolts with a marker/pen. Technically you can position the headlamps later on down the road, but I suggest keeping note of the position of the initial headlamps.

Additionaly if you don't have the target on how to configure the level of the beams, you can mark the projection of the headlamps against the wall. In my case as I don't have a clear wall, I put two planks and noted the beam against the planks (don't forget to note the position of the planks )

This is what I have done in my case:


Note: those who have the GM Service Manual (one of them is on the photo behind the planks), they indicate how to set the headlamps.

Furthermore, this technique has it's limitations because the form of the projected beam in Europe is different from the USA. When you get to France/Europe, you will need to get the headlamps positioned according to European specs.

The difference between the beams is clearly distinguishable, the shape is night and day in difference of form.

On to next post ...

 

Please careful: this electrical harness commands many important functions such as the impact sensors. Don't rip out this stuff like a redneck


Before removing the cable, you need to remove the battery. Be careful, it's quite heavy and my index has witnessed the weight and lack of space around the battery.

Here is a photo without the battery in the car:



The next thing to do is detach the fuse box completely because the harness that is to be removed goes beneath it.
The fuse box is held by 3 screws, two on top and one hidden attachment screw for the fuse box that is located in the front right wheelhouse.

Here is a photo with the screw that has to be removed, is has been slightly unscrewed so that you can see it and another with the box completely detached



From a personal standpoint, I completely removed the fuse box from the car so as to have more working space and be sure that I don't damage the top components, mainly constituted of relays.

Once you have done that, you will need to remove the air intake in order to be able to the cable out, and I suggest also removing the plastic on top the radiator:



In the event that you are clumsy like one of my friends or just happen to have large fingers, I suggest removing the radiator pipes too because the harness is located below them. Accessing the attachments points of the harness is going to be a finger cutting experience. I am rather lucky to have fine fingers so I took my chances with the pipes in place.

Side note the harness at the level of the radiator is attached to the hood release cable, don't forget to the attach them together later ...

At this point my engine bay looks like this:



Pulling out the cable is rather easy, it takes a bit of time though ...

Based on the layout of the cable within the engine compartment, the easiest way from my perspective is to pull it out by holding the X1 connector and pulling.
This is a figure of speech, if you hold the X1 connector and yank it you are sure to break everything.

Once that is done, this is how the engine compartment looks like.



By the way, large images are available, just substitute the medium keyword by large in the image link.

The new cable was put in by doing the reverse operation of the removal procedure. Do take note of what goes where when you yank out the harness so that you reconnect everything later on.

Before removing the SIR connector you can practice on the new harness because there is a safety mechanism to prevent unintentional removal.

on to next post ...

 

After having installed the new harness and connected the existing components, such as the SIR sensor, the first thing to do is install the new headlamps. This is an easy and straightforward process if you have adequately marked the position of the previous headlamps:



The next thing to do is install the side turn signals, and this will require some drilling in the side wings.

I put some masking tape to protect the paint and reduce chipping. The tape also helped me mark the layout of the lamps. I based myself on a photo of Euro vette to position the lamps, as shown on the picture hereafter:



The position are marked in mm and not inches, sorry

Once the hole drilled, I glued the side lamp turn signal support, not the lamp per say, just the white plastic support. I also put in some silicone to make it water proof. Don't know yet if it is a good or bad idea, but it's done.



Now it's time to put back the side wing onto the car and connect the electrical harness:



On to next post

 

The next step is to install the headlamp washer pump on to the existing reservoir.

It's a very simple process, you empty out the reservoir as you can see on the photo hereafter:



Be careful there's about 2 gallons of liquid if it's full, don't get stuck on a shortage of milk containers. Clean them first though

To remove the reservoir, you must start by removing the top plug that holds the neck of the reservoir. I just pushed the pin out from the wheel house. Then there are a couple of bolts to unscrew.
To pull it out you will need to remove the black cap on top, otherwise it won't go out.

Once it's out, put it on a nice stable table and drill a hole for the headlamp washer pump, in my case I took at 13/16" drill bit:



Don't forget to clean out everything in order to make sure that you get a clean reservoir

Once that's done, you can put back in and reconnect everything



Before closing up everything, I suggest filling up the reservoir to ensure there are no leaks in your circuits. You can also take a 12V power supply and connect it to the pump (which I ultimately did to ensure that were no leaks).

Next step is to install the headlamp washer system on the bumper, in order to do that all you have to do is drill some holes in the bumper just below the headlamps.
You should get something that looks like this for the hole, and with the headlamp washer installed:



As for the pipe per say I stuck in the bumper as you can see on the photo:



The next step consists in painting the covers, with the base, the color coat, and the clear coat:



Once the paint is nice and hard you can clip them on to the washer. Once that is done, you need to remove the white clip on the headlamp washers that prevents them from going completely in.

Here is the final product, up front



and the side repeater turn signal



This terminates the change in the front parts, there are issues but I will delve into them in the next post.

a++ Cedric

 

Note: The following issues are accurate to the best of my knowledge, my vision of the situation changes overtime as I understand things better (or as people help me out).

• The headlamp washer system that I have installed are part of the CE4 RPO. My car was not delivered with this RPO and as such is not activated.
  I am unable to activate this RPO, based on the input that I have I need a VCI number from GM. This VCI number can only be obtained by a GM Dealer, if it can be obtained.
  
• Self leveling lamps, the lamps I have are not self-leveling; as such this is not compliant with Euro specs. In order to be compliant I am going to have to remove the HID lamps and put in halogen lamps.
  
• The EURO harness has no connector for the side lamp marker, so I had to modify the harness so that I could have the side lamp marker illuminated with the park lamps that is in the headlamp system.

Anyway as of today, I am still working on the tail lights of the Corvette to make them Euro conform. I'm stuck because the harness can't be obtained; so I am probably going to end up making the harness myself.

Will keep you updated on the rear Euro lights, if of any interest.

BTW: I have acquired the GM Tech II, had it updated with the most recent software ... FWIW.

a++ Cedric

 

Wow, that's one heck of a DIY project. Thanks for posting all the photos. Best of luck getting it fully functional.

 

 

Thanks guys, still some stuff to be ironed though, but moving slowly but surely.



Cedric

 

Holy Smokes, Cedric!!! That's quite a project!!!!!!!

I've done a couple things to my Z06 (added power passenger seat and auto hatch pull-down latch), but those were nothing compared to what you're doing!

Wow - you even got a Tech 2!?!?

Looks like a really nice and well done job so far.

Good luck getting everything finished up and working okay.

Bob

 

 

Excellent post, thank you. I may be following you across the pond shortly and this will be a major help.

 

CL

Do you have video of the headlamp squirters in action?

 

nice job! when actually getting it inspected in Europe, just order a paper form DEKRA (www.dekra.de) saying that leveling is not needed as the C6 have no backseat togheter with an approved noice test.

Then you wouldn´t have to change headlights for the inspection.

PM me if you need the GM original part no of the back harness and for a hint where I got mine..

 

Glad I don't have to do that . All that work and you didn't do a wide body conversion?

 

I read all of this and probably understand 40% if that much, but it certainly is a very good write up. Thanks, and I hope it all comes together.

One question I have is I know the rear Euro tail lights are available in the US. I presume your issues are with all the rest of the requirements to make all the various tail/rear end lights work such as the fog lamp requirement, etc.

I wish you luck with this project and thanks for posting with all the pictures.