Transcription
[Music] I want to upgrade my 2007 Corvette Z06 so it can keep up with a Porsche 911 GT3 that costs five times as much, and I've got a stack of parts to do it with. But before I can start upgrading, I need to fix a few things, and I gotta fix them today because we've got a track day tomorrow.
Now, this car is completely stock with only 53,000 miles on it, and so I expected it to be a lot like it was when it left the showroom floor. But as it turns out, it has some issues. First of all, the driver's side rear shock is completely blown, which causes some super sketchy handling characteristics. It also looks like we've got a warped brake rotor, and the Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires are seven years old, which means that they've gotten hard with age and they don't grip like they used to.
My plan when I first bought the car was to do a baseline lap so that as I do upgrades, I can compare it. But when I took it out on track, it only managed a 1 minute and 43 seconds, which is terrible, and I attribute that to all the issues. So before we start upgrading, we need to fix it.
It's raining right now. It has been raining all week, and it's going to rain next week too. But tomorrow is going to be dry, and the track is open, so I need to get these fixes done today so I can get Goldie out on track and get a new baseline lap time. Suspension, brakes, tires... all those things require the car to be up off the ground. So to do that, I'm going to use my QuickJacks. Let's get the wheels off.
[Music] [Music]
Couple of things I noticed about the old tires. The fronts are down to the wear bar nearly on the inside, but on the outside, there's a lot of tread left, which tells me that they're not wearing evenly, probably due to how much front camber was in them. Rears are more even. Rears have a fair bit of life left on them too, but could definitely tell from driving them that they weren't offering the grip that they should. And so we've got these brand new set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4S's, which are basically the replacement for this Super Sport.
So I can't mount and balance tires here myself. I need to get a shop to do it, so I'm going to call around and see if anybody's available to do it today. So one thing when you're changing tires and you know they've been on the car for seven years. This car has TPMS sensors, and those go bad eventually. And so what I don't want to do is leave old ones on there. This is what a TPMS sensor looks like. It goes inside your tire, measures the pressure, tells the car what the pressure is, you get a readout on the dash.
So it's lunchtime. I'm going to eat a quick sandwich, and then we're going to drop those tires off, and then we're going to get to work on the car.
[Music] Good Lord!
[Music] All right, I just dropped the tires off at MTA Auto Repair. They seem like a really nice group of guys. They say that they're gonna have them done for me pretty quickly, and they're going to give me a call. So I'm gonna head home and start working on the shocks. I guess the rears are easier than the fronts, so I probably better start on the fronts. So we need to get these things unboxed. Here they are! The Bilstein B8 is a relatively inexpensive upgrade over the factory part. Hopefully, it can absorb that shock!
[Music] Hello? The tire place just called me. They've got the tires mounted. It's only been like an hour or so, so they must have jumped right on it. So I'm gonna go grab the tires and come back, and that way I can just work until I'm done.
Just got back with the tires. Very excited to have those done. There they are. Okay, I've got the shock bolts removed, so the shock is loose, basically, but it's not going to come out unless I can compress it. So I'm going to use what they call the zip tie method. All right, we got one out using the zip tie method, so I'm going to get the new one in. I think the other ones are going to come out a little easier.
Well, it's almost 5 o'clock. Shock number one is finally on. There she is. Took way longer than it should have, but I think the other front one will go a lot faster. Then the rear ones are supposed to be easy, and I think the brakes are going to be pretty straightforward.
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Well, it's getting dark. I have not finished the front suspension yet, and I'm going to take a break for dinner. This is taking longer than expected. It's about 7 o'clock, and I just finished the front shocks. Moving on to the rear shocks.
[Music] All right. It wasn't too bad. Thankfully, the rear shocks are much easier than the fronts. So I'm going to knock out the last one, which is the one that's blown. All right, this is the offending shock. And we got this one. It's straight up broken inside. No wonder we were having problems. Let's get this new one installed, and then we're ready for brakes.
It is 8 o'clock, and I finally finished the shocks. It's time to move on to the brakes. Not doing anything fancy with the brakes. For pads, I got a set of Hawk. These are their HP Plus high-performance improved brake pads. So these are for street and some track use. I have a bigger brake upgrade planned, so I didn't want to break the bank with these. I went with a set of Centric plain-faced rotors. Hh my gosh! You ever notice how it gets later in the day, you spend less and less time cleaning up after yourself as you go? No slots, no holes, just a brake rotor. Let's get them installed. I'm getting tired!
[Music] [Music]
It is 8:59. Let's see how long it takes me to do this.
[Music] 12 minutes! 12 minutes to do that one. It's 9:16. All set. Just need to put the wheels back on. I do have one more little box that I'm going to open today. By the way, I've got some other stuff that I'm really excited to show you guys, but we can't give it all away in this episode. There is a hint in the thumbnail. We've got some chrome wheel lugs, also got some fancier ones, but we're gonna save those for another time.
[Music] Well, I think I've got everything done. The best part about any project like this is taking it for a test drive. So that's what I'm about to do. Fingers crossed that everything's fixed.
All right, I'm back from the test drive. It was a lot of fun. Brakes bedded in, no more vibration under braking, new tires feel excellent, new shocks seem to have solved the issues. Got a warning light for ABS not working, and my TPMS sensors, they're not married to the car, and I got a tool that's supposed to help me do that, and it didn't work. I might be doing something wrong. So that's a couple of things for me to try to sort out tomorrow morning before I head to the track. But for now, I'm exhausted, so I'm going to bed. See you in the morning.
All right, it is the next morning. It is a track day. I've got a little bit of time. The ABS warning tells me that I probably forgot to hook up a wheel speed sensor. So I'm going to jack up the car, take the wheels off, and check all the wheel speed sensors. Sure enough, like an idiot, I disconnected the wheel speed sensor, didn't hook it back up again. There it is. So hopefully it didn't get damaged or anything, but it's as simple as putting it back in. Yeah. Cool.
So the only light that's on now is the TPMS light. I am going to try to fix that one time, but I'm not going to worry about it if I can't. This is the tool that we use to relearn the TPMS. You put the car into accessory mode, then you hold the lock and unlock buttons on the key fob simultaneously until the horn honks. Holding... All right, now it should be in TPMS relearn mode, and so you use this tool. And if it works... Which it doesn't seem like it is... Oh, we got it! Hey! Come on! Yes! Yeah! Honestly, I did not think that that was gonna work.
The car is back to the exact same condition it was before in terms of everything working. It's just that now we have good shocks, good brakes, good tires. So I'm going to pack up and head to the track.
[Music] Well, we've been out here at the track for a few hours now, and we have not driven yet, because apparently the ambulance driver got in an accident on his way to pick up the ambulance. They finally located an ambulance, which means the track is about to go hot, and we're going to go out and drive.
All righty, YouTube, this is Aaron!
[Music] Why hello there, Sammi! I heard you fixed it? Yeah, we've got new tires, replaced the shocks, front brakes, so should be at least, like, decent today... we'll see. Oh yeah, this is way better than last time, holy crap! It was so bad last time. He's getting after it! Smelling those brakes! Getting a ton of vibration under braking. Maybe my issue isn't fully solved. Ugh. I feel like this thing should be doing a 1:34, and that was a 1:39. So I was like, four seconds faster than the last time I had it out, but under braking, it is getting this super heavy vibration, which is what it was doing before, which, you know, I don't know, um, what would be causing that. Ugh! I don't know. Well, that's going to take some figuring out, but... Huh.
Just came back from that session. It uh, did not go very well, sadly. Uh, things seemed really promising at first. The new tires felt really good. The uh, the shock issue was gone, so I could really, like, you know, run the car through corners. It felt really good, and then when the brakes got hot and we started braking aggressively, I was getting a ton of vibration through the pedal and through the steering wheel under braking. I'm going to diagnose that, but that's going to be for another episode. I want to say thank you guys for coming along for the ride. We'll see you next time. Did you know that the best way to support this channel is by watching another video? So I put a link to one right here. Go ahead and click on it, watch it. See you next time.