My Ongoing Mid-Life Crisis

I am 100% done dicking with meth. I ran WMI on the old speed 3 and this car.... coincidentally both times the pump failed right around the 1 year mark. One was a daily driver and one was barely used over the course of the year and both were 50/50. I know some guys run the kits for a long time with no issues but I'm paranoid. And in both cases that I ran it...the only reason I caught the failure was because I regularly monitor things and in the case of the vette, I pushed the "test" button every time I drove it to make sure it was spraying and affecting AFR or fuel trims.

Even if I were to run it again, I would be paranoid I think and it would be hard to just enjoy it. I don't have E85 at the pump here but nearest pumps are ~2 hour away and I found a good local source for the time being, so I'm going that route. Because it's not at the pump I'll probably just be doing a E30 ish mix and call it good and enjoy most of the benefits.

I could just go bigger injectors but I think swapping to a rising rate regulator is the best solution. I"m already at ~1.5ms pulsewidth at idle so I don't know how much bigger I can go and enjoy good idle quality without big dollar injectors (and I'd need 8 of them). Constant effective fuel pressure would make tuning easier and more consistent too so I think it's just the better way to go moving forward. My current setup was always going to be a compromise and not a really common route, so it was a bit of a gamble. I think it would have worked out with a bit less power, but here I am now. It's not a bad or dangerous setup for the time being, but if I were to go back to sea level I would make more boost and it could become an issue.

 

moar pics for build threadz

 

Just a casual 700hp, nbd. Nice job.

 

Well, it's been several months now and I still see no signs of SC belt wear, so that's good.

Only lingering issue is a different small 4 rib belt does squeal on startup when cold/wet, it's a belt that powers the PS pump and alternator and when those things are under load and the belt is still cold from sitting all night, it slips/squeals. Once up to temp it's fine....annoying but not keeping me from driving it at this point. It's a pain to get to, so I'll have to deal with it next time I have all the belts off.

Ditched mixing E85 on this car too. It doesn't come with a wideband stock, so the ecu doesnt do any sort of WOT fueling correction and it's just too finicky. And by staying on pure pump gas I don't have to worry about running out of fuel like mentioned above. Been kinda browsing around for some 1000cc injectors just to put me in a little bit more of a happy place, but not urgent. If/when I move back to sea level I would want to at least do that to keep me under 80 DC. But for now I'm going with the route of fucking with as little as possible.

So, running just 91 pump gas, gave it a couple degrees more timing and it seems to be happy and I have yet to notice any knock. Or the knock sensors are dead, lol.

Temps were 60* today so I took it out, and the car is now losing traction in 3rd gear around 5500rpm (peak torque), which is like 90 mph so that's no fun. I think it's just a combo of a little more power and another year of age/heat cycle on the tires, so it's time for them to go.

I don't have a ton of tire options, especially if i want same compound front/rear. Main options for rears are:

- Nitto NT555R
- Nitto NT01
- Toyo R888R
- MT ET Street S/S

On paper it sounds like the NT555R with regular NT555 up front would be a great combo for what the car is now, but from what I'm reading it sounds like the R888R (or even NT01) does everything better and in my sizes, the prices are the same. In the 200TW category, really the only thing is NT05, which I know aren't that great. And 300TW category just doenst make sense for the kind of grip I want vs how much I drive this thing.

Probably wait until spring time to get them, so I got some time to ponder.

 

Awesome

I have had 3 Vettes myself. bolt-on Z51 C6, cam etc C6Z & 600+ WHP boosted C5. Moved on to my Hellcat b/c I can daily the Hellcat all year I might be back in a Vette at some point. Hopefully, C7 or C8.