Corvette Central is excited to announce that company Founder and CEO Jerry Kohn will be inducted into Bloomington Gold’s Great Hall.  Bloomington Gold, held yearly in the state of Illinois, is one of the premier Corvette gatherings in the USA.

The 1970′s were a time when new Corvette parts were scarce and most Corvette owners spent time sifting through used parts at swap meets. It was then that Kohn, a tool & die specialist and Corvette enthusiast from Michigan, was searching out much needed parts for a 1958 Corvette. He soon found that the parts he needed were either unavailable, of poor quality or overpriced.  He recognized the opportunity to create his first reproduction parts: grille teeth for 1953-1960 Corvettes. In October of 1974, he took his first sets of reproduction grille teeth to a Corvette show in Illinois. Soon, other Corvette owners were asking for grille teeth and Jerry began making sets for fellow restorers. The need for reproduction Corvette parts greatly exceeded Jerry’s expectations, and so Corvette Central was born.  Today, Corvette Central manufactures over 3,000 parts at its facility in Sawyer, Michigan, and has over 50,000 different Corvette parts and accessories to choose from.

According to Bloomington Gold’s announcement: “The 50 people and 50 cars that played the most significant roles in the Corvette phenomenon are being selected for introduction into the Great Hall between 2010-2014.  Each year 10 people and 10 Corvettes are featured at the annual Bloomington Gold event in June. ”

For more information on Corvette Central, please visit www.corvettecentral.com

By Chris Petris

Petris Enterprises

Do you have a C5 with a horn that no longer functions, or worse, one that blows continuously? Your local GM dealership will probably provide you with a quote of $900+ for an airbag assembly to remedy the problem. That’s a lot of money to fix a horn!

Testing for a malfunctioning horn switch begins at the underhood electrical center. Locate and remove the horn relay for circuit testing. A 12 volt test light will be used for testing. You cannot damage any of the horn components (including the horn switch in the air bag) when using a test light in this manner, whether the test lead is on battery power or ground. Connect your test light lead to a good ground (the battery is the best place). The horn relay has four terminals; you should find that two of the four horn relay socket terminals have a bright light (battery voltage) during testing. Now the test light lead is placed on the battery’s positive terminal for the next test. When probing the remaining two horn relay socket terminals, you should find one that will illuminate the test light when the horn button is pushed. This is the relay control wiring coming from the horn switch. If you cannot get the test light to illuminate when pushing on the horn button in one of the two remaining socket terminals, the horn switch is the most likely problem. The remaining socket terminal should light dimly as it feeds low voltage current to the horns themselves. If the socket terminal does not illuminate your test light dimly, the horns have an open circuit (horns are bad).

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If you’re gonna pound on an LS engine that features OE rocker arms, you need to perform this simple aftermarket trunion/bearing upgrade!

In the process of building any LS engine, if you plan to use OE rocker arms (whether re-using originals or using new OE rockers), you should be aware of the critical need to perform an upgrade to the rocker arms. Specifically, the OE trunions and trunion bearings should be replaced with an aftermarket upgrade kit.

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By Chris Petris

We left off with Split Mod’s engine built and ready for installation; now we are moving on to the transmission, differential and camshaft choices.  We discussed the various options available for the driveline before any engine components were chosen. All too often, camshaft incompatibility with drivetrain components leaves projects in the “garage art” category.  To keep an owner happy, all the driveline components need to be carefully matched for optimum performance.

Fuel economy should be a factor if owners want to frequently driving their finished project. Camshaft technology has come a long way from the early Duntov 30-30 small block camshaft that was the rage in the late sixties. Camshaft lobe duration refers to how long the valve is left open during the intake stroke. There are also terms like lobe separation and centerline that make major differences in engine performance. Camshaft lift concerns the volume of fuel charged air that can be drawn into the cylinder.

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Article and photos by Chris Petris

Power steering is a mechanical wonder that many of us often take for granted. For some, it is hard to even remember a time without power steering. Today’s systems are cost effective to manufacture and are very reliable with just basic maintenance. It is likely that these systems will remain in place for several more years despite the pressure to continually increase fuel economy.

The power steering system consists of a reservoir, pump, relief valve, control valve, power cylinder, and high/low pressure hoses. The system is effective because of the pressure differential that is created by the power steering pump. A quick explanation of how power steering works is in order. The reservoir supplies the fluid to the pump, which is driven by the engine via belt. The fluid is pressurized and sent to the control valve and the relief valve. When the steering shaft is turned, the control valve sends fluid to the power cylinder and the power cylinder uses a piston to aid in reducing steering effort.

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What follows has been reprinted with permission from Corvette Online. Written by Paul Huizenga

Welcome back to the second and final part of our series on upgrading Project Y2k, our in-house 2000 Corvette, with the help of Corvette Central Performance and their Stage 1-4 kits for the C5. In part one, we installed the Stage 1 and Stage 2 kits, which are comprised of bolt-on intake and exhaust upgrades, along with a flash tuner to maximize the power gains from the hardware improvements.

The stock car’s 317.79 rear wheel horsepower and 334 pound feet on our Dynojet chassis dynomometer netted an eighth-mile time of 8.751 at 80.67. With Stage 1 and 2 installed at the end of Part 1, we had picked up an additional 23 horsepower and 9 pound-feet, and had a new timeslip showing 8.616 at 81.97. That’s not bad for basic bolt-ons and a few hours’ work, but we were eager to move on to Stage 3 and 4 and see how much farther we could go with Project Y2k.

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Article and photos by Chris Petris

You know it will eventually happen: your C3 Corvette’s door hinges wear out and the resulting alignment issues cause a multitude of problems. Sagging, broken seals, road noise, and water leaks to name a few.

Have you ever wondered how many times you have opened and closed the doors on your Corvette, especially the driver’s side door? It has to be thousands of times and the number only increases as a car ages. Owners used to lube their door hinges at every oil change. As oil change intervals increase and busy schedules ensue, these small but important maintenance tasks are often ignored and will eventually lead to door misalignment problems.

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Article courtesy of GS Creations, LLC

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What follows has been reprinted with permission from Corvette Online. Written by Lindsey Fisher.

Corvette Central part # 575042

The latest and greatest Corvette coilovers have arrived. Offered by Pfadt, the new feather-light, single-adjustable, coilovers have a new design offering many revolutionary components and benefits. If you want the latest technology for your Corvette, look no further than Pfadt for a unique ride.

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Article courtesy of Clifton Klaverweiden, Corvette Online (www.corvetteonline.com)

Even though they are one of the defining characteristics of a C2 Corvette, the repairing or replacing the roll-over headlights can be one of the biggest pains you’ll encounter in restoring a C2. In this video we found on YouTube, the guys from Red Dirt Rodz give us an overview of how to get the job done while keeping your sanity intact.

It’s not uncommon for the headlights to be badly damaged, malfunctioning, or missing altogether in a C2 that needs restoration. Luckily, the aftermarket has just about any parts you might be missing, right down to a complete replacement kit, like the one Red Dirt Rodz picked up from Melrose T-Top for their 67 C2 Roadster. The kit includes every nut, bolt, screw, and hard-to-find component that you literally could spend a lifetime searching for individually from scrap yards or eBay.

Overall, the install is time consuming, and requires quite a bit of forethought, but all in all it’s definitely the type of job the average enthusiast should be able to do themselves. That’s not to say that there aren’t a few “gotcha’s” that you’ll need to watch out for, but luckily having a great video like this from Red Dirt Rodz to walk you through the assembly will make the job much, much easier on you when it comes time to work on the headlights of your own second gen Corvette.

By Chris Petris

Corvette Central’s Split Mod chassis will be headed to the 2012 Corvette Expo (Houston, Texas) in February. To bring you up to speed, the 1963 split-window coupe had no engine or transmission when it was rescued. The severely rotted chassis has been replaced, and now we are working on the drivetrain. Corvette Central had a complete 1986 Corvette convertible L-98 engine and transmission assembly stored away, making it a perfect candidate for Project Split Mod. The 700R4 transmission that was coupled to the L-98 was mothballed to be used for a later project. Gear changes would be transmitted through a Keisler Engineering RS400 five speed overdrive transmission. There were many reasons for the engine choice, other than the fact it was sitting in storage waiting for someone to use it. Aesthetics were a concern, what with all the recent LS engine transplants under the hood of early Corvettes.  It made sense to have a traditional look.

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What follows has been reprinted with permission from Corvette Online. Written by Paul Huizenga

For a significant number of Corvette owners, the car as delivered from the factory is as good as it can possibly be – they go to great lengths to preserve originality and maintain their Vette exactly as it was when it sat in the dealer’s showroom. Others take pleasure in customizing their Corvette, extracting more performance wherever possible.

You might guess what category we fall into.

So, as soon as we got Project Y2k in the shop, we rolled it on the dyno to get some baseline numbers, then before the drum on our DynoJet had stopped turning, we had our friends at Corvette Central on the phone. You see, they’ve launched a new performance division, sensibly named Corvette Central Performance, and they’ve got staged upgrade packages lined up for the C5 – a perfect fit!

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For your convenience, below are the published OEM front and rear tire sizes and speed ratings for every Corvette produced between 1984 and 2009.

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Our friends at Nook and Tranny have published a great technical resource for GM LS engines.  We have reprinted the beginning of the article below.  To see more, visit http://www.nookandtranny.com/Info_LSx.php

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By Chris Petris

Photos by the author

We left off with the Project Split Mod body on a dolly for transport to the body shop and a severely rusted frame. Much has happened since our kick-off of the Project. The body was dropped off at the body shop for all the necessary repairs and painting. We now have a rolling chassis ready for body installation. We mentioned about all the severe rust the frame and chassis pieces had endured. It just made good sense to hang new and or remanufactured parts on our Impact Restorations supplied 1963 frame. Why fight the really difficult to remove original parts off the crusty original frame? The original rusty parts will be used for documenting correct parts.

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Corvette Central has issued a recall for two fuel pump flex lines that were PURCHASED AFTER 8/30/11.  They have the part numbers 351415 and 351144,and are used on 1956-62 Corvettes.  These flex lines may leak due to a faulty crimp on the hose end.  If you purchased one of these products after 8/30/11, please stop using it immediately and contact Corvette Central (800-345-4122) for information on how to return it.

Story by Chris McDonald, Auto Enthusiast Magazine, November 2011

Reprinted with Permission

There are many reasons why you would consider changing the weatherstripping on your C4. Over time, the rubber breaks down, hardens and cracks, leaving an unpleasant appearance, poor seal, wind noise, and the dreaded drip.

If you own a C4 and actually drive it in the rain, you will eventually experience the dreaded drip, leaving your floor soaked and pant leg soggy. No matter how slick the paint, or well maintained the machine may be, dry, cracked weatherstrip will be the last detail, often overlooked and leaving an otherwise stunning car to just be rather ho-hum.

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General Motors has issued a recall for  5,755  2011-12 Corvette coupes for potentially faulty hatch hinges that could break loose in a crash.  According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the rear hatch hinges on cars built between January and September do not meet federal weight capacity requirements.  The NHTSA campaign ID Number is 11V491000.  GM will notify owners per the comments in the official release below.

Report Date : October 9, 2011 at 12:45 PM
NHTSA Campaign ID number : 11V491000

Vehicle Make / Model: Model Year(s):
CHEVROLET / CORVETTE 2011-2012
Manufacturer: GENERAL MOTORS LLC Mfr’s Report Date: OCT 03, 2011
NHTSA CAMPAIGN ID Number: 11V491000 NHTSA Action Number: N/A
Component: STRUCTURE:BODY:HATCHBACK/LIFTGATE:HINGE AND ATTACHMENTS
Potential Number of Units Affected: 5,755
Summary:
GENERAL MOTORS (GM) IS RECALLING CERTAIN MODEL YEAR 2011-2012 CHEVROLET CORVETTE COUPE VEHICLES, MANUFACTURED FROM JANUARY 24, 2011, THROUGH SEPTEMBER 1, 2011, FOR FAILING TO COMPLY WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF FEDERAL MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY STANDARD NUMBER 206, “DOOR LOCKS AND DOOR RETENTION COMPONENTS”. THE REAR HATCH HINGES MAY NOT MEET THE LOAD REQUIREMENTS SPECIFIED IN THE SAFETY STANDARD.
Consequence:
THE REAR HATCH COULD SEPARATE IN THE EVENT OF A CRASH, INCREASING THE RISK OF INJURY.
Remedy:
GM WILL NOTIFY OWNERS AND DEALERS WILL REPLACE BOTH REAR HATCH HINGES FREE OF CHARGE. THE SAFETY RECALL IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN ON OR BEFORE OCTOBER 7, 2011. OWNERS MAY CONTACT CHEVROLET AT 1-800-630-2438.
Notes:
GM’S SAFETY RECALL CAMPAIGN NUMBER IS 11258. OWNERS MAY ALSO CONTACT THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION’S VEHICLE SAFETY HOTLINE AT 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153), OR GO TO HTTP://WWW.SAFERCAR.GOV .

Story Mark Kaufman

Reprinted with permission

Many a C5 owner has heard that unmistakable machine gun sound emanating from the front of the car when turning on the headlights. And if that noise isn’t annoying enough, at least one of the headlights doesn’t come up, or doesn’t go down.

Anyone who has gone through this knows the fix is to replace the factory nylon gear in the headlight motor with a replacement bronze gear.

But what’s up when the gear has been replaced – by a dealer – and it happens again? Certainly the teeth on the bronze gear have not worn down to the point where they disengage from the motor drive gear. When it happened on our subject 2001 convertible, we popped the hood and discovered that epoxy used to hold the gear cover on the motor had failed and fortunately was lying beside it. As a result there was enough play on the gear shaft to allow it to disengage from the drive gear and “rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!” each time you tried to use the lights.

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