Track Day 44 -- CSCC @ PIR

Leading Up to The Event

This track day was an exciting one! Not in the sense anything at the event regarding the Corvette itself was exciting... but in the sense that just 24 days prior I had blown up the torque tube on the Corvette at my 43rd track day. That may not seem terribly exciting, but I also didn't receive the transmission and differential to even put the car back together again until 16 hours before this event. Thanks to the help of a good friend Dave and my wife Karla though... I was able to get this all put together in time!

As you can see above, the torque tube nuked itself. This begat a large series of tasks that needed to be completed to put the car back together.

The list of what had to be done was lengthy:

• Drop the rear subframe
• Start removing driveline components working my way forward to find the problem. (diff, trans, torque tube)
  • Remove exhaust and tunnel plate to access torque tube
• Take trans out for overhaul (let's be thorough that it's all rebuilt right)
• Take diff to shop for insepction (No overhaul reccommended / good shape)
• Run wiring for later addition of trans + diff temperature sensors and pumps + fans for coolers
• Adjust center console to better accomodate new gauges

Here you can see the back of the torque tube... and what I think people fail to realize with changing out the drivetrain is that it isn't just unbolting and reboltng it in... it's the crap tone of wires and brake line routing and everything else you need to make sure is all in the correct place so it's not touching hot exhaust or rubbing against anything that will wear. There's a LOT of time spent futzing around with small details to get it all setup right.

There's also a lot of time just spent researching the solutions. What is the best transmission upgrades to get? Who offers what and at what price points? Do I even need Stage 2 or do I really need stage 5?!? There's a lot to navigate in there. Throughout that whole process I also became an expert on the C5 Corvette torque tube, and managed to source a larger 12mm torque tube and other upgrades to overhaul the torque tube myself!

Anyways, with this event getting closer and closer I was starting to think I would just be sitting this one out. The transmission and differential were out at a shop getting sorted out, I had other side quests underway I hadn't complete... this didn't seem to be happening.

THEN, just 16 hours prior to the event starting I got the call that my transmission and differential were complete. Fuck yeah! Let's sling this thing back together! I called my friend and lemons team member David Gende up for some help, and we began to put the car back together!

There's almost no pictures of me reassembling the car as it was a rush job... but I flew through it.I can't lay, it was stresfull as all heck with tons of tools scattered all over as several projects had been going on at the same time and I didn't have time to clean them all up to prep to complete this task.

Midnights rolls around though, the car is all together... I am putting it down on the ground and finishing tightening the lugnuts and...

A wheel studd breaks off. Well... damn. So now I have to pull one whole corner of the car apart enough to swap out the wheel bearing. This will come to matter later, but I pulled this off in under an hourt hen hop in the Corvette to go put a heat cycle on the transmission and get some gas.

I get home and lay down for some sleep at 2:30am, needing to be up and on the road for the event the next day at 630am. I haven't pulled a late nighter like this in quite some time... but I pulled it off and was actually going to be able to drive my own car!

How the Event Itself Went

Showign up to PIR we were early enough to in theory have smooth sailing in the morning, but unfortunately the gentleman running the gate was all thumbs for getting folks signed in. Once past that slow queue of folks we grabbed a spot and got to getting settled. Note to self, for CSCC get there earlier and make sure you've got a whole area figured out for yourself!

At this event I had two other major obligations besides driving: My wife was doing her first track day in the Honda Accordion, and I was to be instructing a student. Unfortunately for the instructing plans the Porsche my student showed up with he didn't pass the broomstick test (helmet clearance in a convertible to be safe) and was unable to participate in the event. That sucked for him, but worked out for me as I was mentally gassed and had a lot of time to be spending on my Corvette.

I popped out in the intermediate group sessions. This let me drive at a mild pace as I was breaking the transmission in, and also fit my time table a bit better as I would have been very rushed to attend that first very early advanced group session.

The car overall did good. I wasn't driving it aggresive, both because I'm in the intermediate group and should not be putting any pressure on those folks, and because the transmission still needed some heat cycles in it before I was supposed to go over 50% throttle. So I took my time exiting the turns, short shifted and in general kept my top speeds down. 

Without much surprise, there were a few problems with the car. They all appear to be solvable, but it definitely toned things down at the event for me even further.

As you can see from the lit up dashboard... there were problems.

First Issue - ABS/ Right wheel bearing speed sensor: The right rear wheel speed sensor was throwing a code. This would nearly always happen when going over 40mph or so on that wheel bearing, so I didn't have ABS. I think this can be fixed though, even if it's just a wheel bearing swap.

Second issue - Reduced Power Mode at High Speeds high RPM full throttle: The car would throw the code P1514, which triggered when the PCM-calculated "expected airflow" at any given throttle position does not match the airflow read by the MAF. This is a common problem with tuning larger cams on cars, which appears to be my situation. This would unfortunately happen to me at the top of 4th on the front straight, at high RPM and full throttle. The car would go into reduced power mode, I'd cost through turn 4, restart the while coasting, and it would be fine again. A solveable issue, but a headache none the less.

Third issue: Shifting is really firm and ultra notchy. I replace the shift linkage as part of this job. I would later grab my shifter centering tool and recent the shifter, which helped, but I was still having a bear of a time getting into reverse and the gates on gears felt challenging. I think I need to adjust the clutch master just a bit so the clutch disengages a bit further?

These issues overall don't seem that hard to overcome though. They all have reasonable paths forward I can decypher, so I'm happy with what's going on.

Starting to get Familiar with Racebox and the Racebox Mini

Pictures and screenshots to come, but I got a deal on Racebox Mini and I'll be writing an article about it. I was just starting to play around with this at the event, and so I can't say a ton just yet and I have a bunch left to figure out, but it definitely seems to have some pretty cool potential!