Great update, keep plowing on!
Not sure about the wheels hitting the A-arms, do your wheels have the right offset?
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Great update, keep plowing on!
Not sure about the wheels hitting the A-arms, do your wheels have the right offset?
MK3.1 2004 Mach 1 donor. ABS, PS, TC.
GTM #304 LPE 525hp LS3
2000 C5 Lingenfelter LS1@489hp
1999 Corvette FRC/Z06 track car
they are the optional wheels from Factory Five? is it possible they got a set with the wrong offset?
Last edited by tucker298; 07-08-2017 at 02:30 PM.
What a great update and awesome way to celebrate the 4th. Keep up the good work.
You're getting closer! Your scope plot shows an odd looking signal. It's a very low amplitude (differential of 1 volt) and the bottom of the wave
is spiked/pointed.
The bottom of the wave should look like the top of the wave - flat.
By setting the tach parameters in the PCM to 14/15, you should be able to achieve more "time" to get flat bottom portion of the signal.
This changes the 'pulse width' (PWM) . Hopefully you will get your tachometer to stop jumping around.
Moving forward however, my module will not work unless the voltage differential is at least 3.5 volts with reference to
ground.
The wave needs to swing from 13 volts to 0 volts, or 0 volts to 5 volts as shown in my diagram (bottom of the image)
or the scope plot.
Good luck!
brent_scope.png
12volt_tach.jpg
Custom LCD Gauges , Data Loggers, Control Touch Screens
www.LCDdash.com \\ 647-522-9953 \\ Voice & Text
Proud new owner of GTM Gen 1., #105 - 08/27/11
LQ9 Powered, G96.00 6 speed transaxle
I'd like to start out with by voicing my disdain for photobucket! thanks alot photbucket, $400 for third party hosting!? anyway, its their business and thats how the free market works BUT I can't help but feel like I got the bait and switch....... anyway, the vent ducting for my vintage air has some pin holes in them so i want to order some replacements but I already threw them away and figured I could just order a new set from factory five but they tell me to buy them from vintage air and VA sends me back to factory five, I see that summit sells them, could someone measure the diameter for me and the length so i can just order them from summit, thanks!!!! I see summit sells a 2'' 2.5'' and 3'' hose and i think there were two different sizes?
AC hoses? Anyone? (From my last post)
I think the main hoses are 2.5", and the defroster duct hoses are 2".
Then again - I put it together 4 years ago so I may be wrong !
-Michael
thanks Mike! I ordered them up, if its wrong they aren't that expensive
Soooooo I built a body buck for the car, got what appeared to be very specific and detailed directions from a quick Google search, I'm sure some of you guys have seen it before. I built it to the exact dimensions, which was easy to do because the directions were very detailed. So just to let future builders know, its a great set of instructions and a great starting point but the dimensions are a little off. The weight is distributed on three vertical boards. For me, the middle board was a few inches high and caused a teeter totter effect so the body wasn't sitting evenly on all three boards I'll post pics later but I just wanted to put it out there so it doesn't surprise the next guy. I'm not saying don't use it! It's a lot better than starting from scratch, you're just not done until you put the body on and massage the buck a little.
Last edited by tucker298; 07-11-2017 at 09:18 PM.
fixed the buck, easy fix! just trimmed the middle board to fit inside the windows and the rest of the dimensions pretty much lined up........ took a pool noodle and cut a slit in the middle and slide it on top of the middle board to give me the 1\2" I need to make contact with the roof.
Last edited by tucker298; 07-16-2017 at 09:50 PM.
No matter how I edit that last post i cant get the picture to insert right side up?
Is this better?
buck-3.jpg
"May you be in heaven a full half hour before the Devil knows you're dead"
Success!!!! I sent the PCM back to Speartech to have them look into the settings and make sure I'm not spinning my wheels with trouble shooting wiring when the data coming from PCM was wrong to begin with. Speartech called me and told me that the settings were off ( sent the PCM off to a tuner after I got it who must have messed up the tach settings) they set them back and tested it. I had them rush the shipping back to me annnnnd it works! Speartech fixed a problem they didnt create at no cost, great guys!
I cant believe how much time this problem has cost me! but finally its behind me.
Last edited by tucker298; 07-18-2017 at 10:19 PM.
That's awesome news. Now what's next on the to do list ? Can't let the momentum slow down.
"May you be in heaven a full half hour before the Devil knows you're dead"
Soooooooooo the doors I've grossly underestimated them! theres so many variables in the 12 different adjustments you can make and every adjustment fixes one problem and creates another..... it probably took me 8 or 9 hours to get one door and shutting right. Then I moved to the drivers side door with confidence thinking I know what I'm doing now and it has humbled me. I thought I was going to take the lessons learned from the passenger door and knock out the driver side door real quick but now I'm starting to think maybe I just got lucky with the passenger door lol. Any way I'll attack it later this week with a fresh outlook.
sooooo its been awhile and I apologize! Let me catch you guys up to speed, the body is on and both doors close nicely. I've been super busy at work but Ron told me its been too long and we can't let the project get stagnant and he was right, it felt really good to get some progress on the build again. I'll update this with a lot of pics to follow but first I'll complain a lot lol. I know a lot of people complain about the body, and if your reading this Factory Five they are ALL right! I can't believe how poorly every piece of this body fits. Trying to explain away how ill fitting the body components by calling it an advanced build or saying all the hard work makes the end that much better is a poor attempt to sugar coat a sub standard body. If they had any pride in their products they would have listened to all these reviews and fixed it. Although I'm aware they attempted to with the Gen 2 body they simply didn't. This isn't a news flash to anyone that follows the forum but I had to say it to keep future owners aware that in no way has the body improved, at least up to body #436. I'm pleading with you Factory Five, please update your manual, please give us at least an option for an LS2/3 exhaust system for the kit, please at least pretend to care that your body's fit is substandard. Now that I've got that off my chest I'll proceed with the updates!
First off the weekend started off on the wrong foot with the previous owner buying the wrong hood hinges! I thought I was well prepared for this weekend by ensuring I had located all the parts for the hood install in advance but as we started looking at how to bolt the hood hinges onto the hood hinge brackets it became apparent, the previous owner bought the wrong ones!!!! now it was friday night when we found this out and I had to find a pair of C5 hood hinges stat! Luckily Raleigh is an hour away and their was a dealership that actually had a set of L/R C5 hinges new in box at their parts department! that stole a few hours from our Saturday morning but we were ready to finally start. I was curious if the hood hinges were C5 or C4 or any corvette hinges, they are not, I even looked to see if maybe the hinges were camaro hinges pulled by accident, they are not any generation of camaro hinges. I have no idea what hinges these things go to but they won't work for the GTM lol
but before we could attach the hood to the hood hinges we had to see where the hood wanted to sit and try to see how close that was to where it should sit. Well immediately after setting the hood down you could see this, like everything else with the body, was going to be a fight. The hood was off center line and was several inches high in the front. First we had to find out why the hood was sitting up so high up front and what was keeping it from coming down. The head light buckets were sitting on the hood hinge brackets. After much back and forth we figured the best plan was to cut the hinges as far back as possible in order to minimize the amount of cutting needed on the headlight buckets. After hacking up bracket and bucket the hood finally sat down and aligned in an acceptable spot. Not ideal still but we can work with it from here.
This part really irritates me, the wheel well lined up nicely so it makes a circle, and when you do this (on my car) it makes the hood about half an inch short from lining up properly at the back of the hood where it meets the doors. so its either line up the wheel well and extend the back of the hood or line up the back of the hood and re work the entire wheel well....... and seeing how ugly that meet up area is, where the hood meets the body and the door I decided to leave that area short so we can try and extend the hood to hide this area.
after fighting the poorly molded hood for several hours, actually attaching it was fairly easy. I haven't put the hood latches on just yet because the manual is really really vague about how high or low to place them and I didn't want to start drilling holes in the body with a guess. I'll figure that out and let you guys know what I find out. Shane if you have a technique for attaching the hood hinges and hood strikers please let me know!
Nice to see you are making some progress!
What are your front alignment specs (ie don't screw with the wheel wells until you have it set)? How much caster?
MK3.1 2004 Mach 1 donor. ABS, PS, TC.
GTM #304 LPE 525hp LS3
2000 C5 Lingenfelter LS1@489hp
1999 Corvette FRC/Z06 track car
We then moved onto the hatch, which was attached but need some trimming, not only did it need tons of trimming it was also warped. Like the doors, the manual says the hatch is intentionally made oversized so you can trim it, which by now I've translated to " we don't have a good body mold or quality control so we made it sloppy and you can figure it out"
and lastly Ron continued massaging the tail light buckets that he fabbed up to be able mount the tail lights that I wanted. Putting some body filler and sanding to get us another step closer to seeing those beautiful aftermarket 2nd gen camaro tail lights.
Beeman,
I'd have to get the sheet from my friend that did it for me, but I do remember him saying it was very close to the Z06 settings in the alignment machine.
thought this was a really cool video series about how to make some custom parts. I know the series is about making a mold but you can clearly see how using this technique could be helpful in a custom rear spoiler or from splitter etc. I'll probably try this for version 2 of my rear spoiler, the Styrofoam version came out ok but i'll see how this does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJMMI6fTU0A
I know its our rival lol but great builds just need to be shared! this car is top notch.
Last edited by tucker298; 10-18-2017 at 09:04 PM.
OK. All the other SLC builds I've seen had DYMO tape and garbage inside. Looked cool from outside, but not much on the interior. That build right there....if FF doesn't go after them, it might be my long-term project after the 818.
LMAO! Now Brent, you know the body is made so poorly so that you can learn fiberglass skills and become a better builder! Or FFR doesn't give a sh!t, one or the other. I've been trying for years on both forums to shame FFR to do something about the GTM body. I've seen so many sold at the go-kart stage because of the advanced bodywork it makes me sick. It's the single reason so many GTM kits are unfinished today. They don't care, they already got your $25,000. It really bothers me as a composite guy. One of the first things I was taught was to get your plug shaped correctly so the parts will be too. I've reduced the hatch glass replacement kit to $600 if you want one. It'll save sometime, vent heat, and give a clean roofline. Three things the FFR hatch can't do. Either way, keep at it and you'll have a nice finished product in spite of FFR. As far as the SLC, the bodies can be sanded and buffed in gelcoat they are made so well... Fran Hall is the man. (Sorry Dave) (Not Really Sorry)
Last edited by carbon fiber; 10-19-2017 at 07:58 PM.
I won't rule out an SL-C build as well...I actually bought my GTM kit from Fran.
So how do you get out when you wreck that red one or have a fire, and lose electrics?
MK3.1 2004 Mach 1 donor. ABS, PS, TC.
GTM #304 LPE 525hp LS3
2000 C5 Lingenfelter LS1@489hp
1999 Corvette FRC/Z06 track car
if you read the comments on that SLC youtube video you'll see that those are 2005 Elise tail lights, so any future builder looking to swap tail lights theres another good option.
beeman, the one and only thing that kept me from considering an SLC was the windows don't roll down, I know that might seem trivial and i don't drive with the windows down very often but that really bothered me........and as I type this, lamenting about still having to do the windows I'm thinking to myself "was roll down windows worth all this?" lol
carbon fiber, you're really tempting me with that! i just towed the car to an exhaust shop to have them get my tips set right in the body and if that doesn't cost too much then I might be able to budget that!
IMG_2652.jpg Optilux H71010451 Model 2500 Angel Eye 12V/55W Halogen Driving Lamp Kit
saw these fog lights on a former builders build log, was a grey gen 1, they're only $50 and look to be worth it! I like the halo look on the fog lights, i'm going to try and have halo rings on the brake light and an led strip under or around the headlights.
Last edited by tucker298; 10-22-2017 at 04:10 PM.
So I got the car towed to an exhaust shop to have them weld up the exhaust properly so it comes out where it should on the body. The exhaust was just welded up quickly while in the go cart stage but it was high when we put the body on, no surprise there. Great shop! was a little hesitant when I popped in to ask him if he could do some adjustment on the exhaust on my kit car and I showed him some pics of the engine bay and what needed to happen. He reluctantly said yeah bring it down and I'll make it right. Well when the flat bed truck arrived with my project car the whole shop came out to see and i fielded tons of questions haha he was very excited about the car and told me he was excited to work on it and I had to promise to bring the car back when it was finished. A few days later he calls me and tells me its done. He said he's never seen a project car get so much attention. Customers would randomly take pictures of it and ask about the whole time it was in his shop. The tow truck driver said people would just drive next to him and look at it, he's never seen an project car get so much attention. THEN I couldn't wait to take a quick spin around the neighborhood to hear the exhaust again and when I did a high school kid came running out of his house and asked me if he could take a pic of the car real quick. I know you guys already know this but wow this thing gets attention no matter what stage its in. It really motivated me to get back in the garage!
Last edited by tucker298; 10-25-2017 at 10:46 PM.
I've had this problem with an irritating squeal coming from the pulley system. I started to investigate it finally and sounds like the belt tensioner pulley that got relocated. I just ordered a new one (was pretty cheap) and hopefully its that easy, if not hopefully the belt isn't out of alignment via a misaligned pulley. None of the pulley looked like they were wobbling or out of alignment but we'll see. If you google LS belt squeal theres a TON of hits lol seems to be a common problem.
I added Tinos screen to my build to add more "tech" to the interior, there will be a removable IPAD grafted into the interior where the radio usually is that will manage everything from music to the windows, the tail lights will be updated with LED's and halo rings, The fog lights up front will also have that. Shaved door handles and poppers. I say all that because I LOVE the super car look and performance of the GTM and I'm trying to bring the tech and sophistication up to match. The last thing I had envisioned was an LED strip in the head light buckets like most newer cars. They seem to be very inexpensive and a lot of options, this is my first shot at looking for the right light for that job. I'll tie them into the fog lights and also the turn signal. According to the website when the turn signal is activated the white led turns amber and blinks with the turn signal. Cool concept, we'll see how it plays out, barely past the good idea stage right now.
Last edited by tucker298; 10-25-2017 at 11:04 PM.
You may want to contact Shane about the squealing. I believe he sells an upgraded pulley kit that was designed to address this very issue.
Yeah, the belt noise issue is common with GTMs. The FFR provided relocation bracket isn't strong enough and either has to be modified (weld on an addition that goes further to the drivers side for stability) or you can buy the bracket kit Shane sells that's beefier and has a threaded design that eliminates the factory style tensioner.tensioner mod 2.jpgtensioner mod 5.jpgMaybe they'll fix that on the GEN III