The £7700 Corvette C6

The £7700 Corvette C6

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Discussion

minipower

897 posts

220 months

Wednesday 12th June 2019
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Fishy Dave said:
Thanks, yes, I really like the look of these seats, perfect proportions for the C6, but they have fixed backs and I'd need to import them. I've never had experience of vinyl seats, not sure if they'd be sweaty?
The owners of two corvettes I have seen in this country with them installed didn’t mention feeling sweaty discomfort. Can understand your concern though, as the black vinyl seats in my Marcos are awful in the summer.

T-bagger

446 posts

205 months

Wednesday 12th June 2019
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Great Thread and great car! Well written too, i love seeing people getting elbows deep and stuck in when things need fixing.

Court_S

12,997 posts

178 months

Friday 14th June 2019
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Another latecomer to the thread; cool car but an even cooler story re collection. Nice to see the car being used.

MrNoisy

530 posts

142 months

Saturday 15th June 2019
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Dave,

I have Corbeau A4’s in mine (with harness and sharkbar) and they transform the car on track. Will try to get some pics of my install - of note, they are in opposite sides as intended which makes no difference but allows easier fitment.

My Wilwood aero 6 race kit just turned up and is getting fitted next week(by me) hopefully, life/time permitting! You’re right, stock brakes even upgraded don’t last. I’m hoping these with a spindle duct kit will stop me having to do so much brake management.

It has been a pretty intense first half the year but hoping to get the Vette out a bit more now, tentatively aiming to go Snett on 04th July for a new brake shakedown. Having seen your sprint times it looks like I need the practice wink

Fishy Dave

Original Poster:

1,027 posts

246 months

Tuesday 18th June 2019
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Thanks all for the compliments above, it's what encourages me to carry on rambling.

MrNoisy said:
Dave,

I have Corbeau A4’s in mine (with harness and sharkbar) and they transform the car on track. Will try to get some pics of my install - of note, they are in opposite sides as intended which makes no difference but allows easier fitment.

My Wilwood aero 6 race kit just turned up and is getting fitted next week(by me) hopefully, life/time permitting! You’re right, stock brakes even upgraded don’t last. I’m hoping these with a spindle duct kit will stop me having to do so much brake management.

It has been a pretty intense first half the year but hoping to get the Vette out a bit more now, tentatively aiming to go Snett on 04th July for a new brake shakedown. Having seen your sprint times it looks like I need the practice wink
I've read about the A4's, they look good too. The Aero6 looks well priced, just a shame that all caliper upgrades seem to require new wheels, massively adding to the cost (plus the bling, chrome ones have grown on me redface). Let me know if you book the 4th, I'll try to get along, although am racing in the Spa 3 Hours the weekend before so money might be tight. I don't think the sprint times will worry you too much biggrin.

Fishy Dave

Original Poster:

1,027 posts

246 months

Tuesday 18th June 2019
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Back from Le Mans, our first time there. Why have we not been before?! Well, stories of drunken louts, Brit hating Gendarmes, cost and my wifes aversion to tents are the main reasons. Having the Corvette and this being the last year we'll see a C7 were good enough reasons to make the effort to go. At first we booked a chalet about 20 miles away, but then we heard of the Corvette Corral and through Facebook made enquiries. Gerrard and his wife have been arranging this for many years and whilst the location has changed, the spirit of bringing together Corvette owners from all over the world in a safe, secure camping area has remained. £320 was a bargain for the two of us, including most food and drink, plus the camping pitch, tv, security, clean, warm showers and loos.
The journey was a pleasure on Thursday, we used the Newhaven to Dieppe crossing and would do so again, avoiding the autoroutes, therefore no tolls, no police but plenty of views and pretty French villages.




Good to leave rainy England behind.


I was tempted to order the Milf hehe








The site was about a 15 minute walk from the track, in the technopark, just far enough away from the action. Thankfully it was fine weather, with light wind, as the ground was too hard for tent pegs!


Once set up we walked to the grandstand for qually 2. Thankfully we brought earplugs (wimps!), loved the rumble the C7's and AM Vantage made.



The plan for Friday was to get to the circuit in good time to queue for the pit opening at 10am and try to say hello to Darren Turner. Only they didn't open the pit lane to us non-VIP until 10:30. mad




He and the other drivers had to leave for the PH camp by then, ah well. Still, once in we had a good look up and down the pit garages in relative peace, although it certainly got busier.




We loitered around the Corvette garages, watching the mechanics do their work, noticing various guests walk through the crowd tape. I chatted to a lady who was letting guests through and politely asked if it were possible to get closer to take a photo and see the cars up close. She rightly said that it was going to be busy but would see if it were possible.


Jan Magnussen and Oliver Gavin were chatting to guests, but every so often the lady looked our way and smiled, showing we hadn't been forgotten. An hour passed, my wife showing great patience, but I thought we've waited this long....
By then Darren Turner had returned and was in the window above the Aston garage next door. I gave him a call and exchanged waves, at this very moment Oliver Gavin walked over to us and said he was happy to show us his car! He noticed I was talking to DT and asked to take my phone, the two of them chatted, along with the traditional LM two fingers up. It was a very cool moment and didn't go unnoticed by the ten deep crowd, what a privilege!
It turns out that the kind blonde lady who had helped arrange this for us was non other than Mrs Gavin! cool













He talked about the car, qually, tyres, BOP, general racing stuff. We thanked him for his time, took a few more photos of both cars and left the garages, what a thrill.





Back at the Corvette Corral for lunch and being as the site is part shared and subsidised by GM we were then visited by the drivers of car 64, Marcel Fassler, Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin. We had a talk from all three, a chance to chat to them and get autographs (they kindly signed my hat and book) and also heard from Jim Campbell, Chevrolet U.S. VP, Performance and Motorsports.



Toyota Gazoo Racing were just over the fence, with a constant stream of Supra coming and going, they look good to my eye.



A few of the Corvette that had travelled from across Europe. On Saturday morning I visited the car wash up the road.




Grandstand seats (T5 Dunlop) had been bought from a PHer who couldn't attend, pretty good viewing, although lower than the wire.









Beth wasn't feeling so good so we headed back to camp after a couple of hours, the crowds were crazy, almost impossible to move through the tunnels and pinch points around the village. Exciting to see both C7s had improved on their qualifying position, with the 63 in the lead for much of the time.



More Corvette had turned up, as had a load of American visitors as part of an NCM (National Corvette Museum) organised tour, they were very pleasant to chat to. Hog roast dinner, yum.

|https://thumbsnap.com/zI9ABWKc[/url]





Darkness (and the cold) had descended, so myself and the presidents of the Swiss Corvette Club (Peter) and New Zealand Corvette Club (Donna) headed back to the track to watch from various vantage points, both were great company. By this stage the 64 car had retired some hours before, having collided with a 911 (to loud groans from the Corvette tent, watching the race on TV).













Apologies that I have neither the skills or the camera to capture the action that well.

A decent nights sleep with ear plugs and after breakfast we packed up the tent and with Beth feeling better we went back to the track to watch between the Porsche Curves and start straight.




At this point we were in 2nd place, separated by a safety car but on the lead lap. Sadly it was the last time it would be so high with this spin on cold tyres after the safety car re-start. Limping back it had a stint in the garage, losing laps as a result.



We had booked the return ferry months before and knew we would have to miss the end of the race. A shame, but it meant that we had an easy drive back, with a few other Brits making the same decision.
It was a warm day, but not this warm! Clearly there is an iffy temperature sensor that needs investigating.








We were home by 1am, that's another 1000 miles under its wheels done. An excellent trip, the best large race event I've been to and with some unique memories.



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Edited by Fishy Dave on Tuesday 18th June 14:30

Fishy Dave

Original Poster:

1,027 posts

246 months

Tuesday 18th June 2019
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On a separate note I've ordered a seat, just the one to check if it fits. I've gone for an 'OMP Style', it's cloth, adjustable for angle, allows the standard 3 point and a 6 point, looks half decent and was well priced from Demon Tweeks. It won't be light, but as long as its comfortable and holds me in place better than the standard seat I'll be happy.

https://www.ompracing.com/en_gb/style-44807.html

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/uk/omp-style-seat-omp...


morgs_

1,663 posts

188 months

Tuesday 18th June 2019
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Glad you had a great experience, LeMans really is so special. It seems like your one was even better too, fantastic to get in the garage like that as well.

Geekman

2,867 posts

147 months

Tuesday 18th June 2019
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What a great thread: thoroughly enjoyed reading that.

One question - you mention in the OP that "Ivan, a Californian friend we met in 2016 was a huge help in arranging the car insurance through Geico."

Very interested in this as I've been considering buying a car in the US for a while, but assumed insurance and registration would be a huge issue. Were Geico happy to insure you on it for a temporary period, despite you not being a US resident and not having a US address? Also, how did you deal with the registration - I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that when buying a car, you'd have to go to the DMV to switch it into your name, which wouldn't be possible as you're not a US citizen. Did you just leave it in the name of the previous owner or was there a different process to go through?

Fishy Dave

Original Poster:

1,027 posts

246 months

Tuesday 18th June 2019
quotequote all
Geekman said:
What a great thread: thoroughly enjoyed reading that.

One question - you mention in the OP that "Ivan, a Californian friend we met in 2016 was a huge help in arranging the car insurance through Geico."

Very interested in this as I've been considering buying a car in the US for a while, but assumed insurance and registration would be a huge issue. Were Geico happy to insure you on it for a temporary period, despite you not being a US resident and not having a US address? Also, how did you deal with the registration - I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that when buying a car, you'd have to go to the DMV to switch it into your name, which wouldn't be possible as you're not a US citizen. Did you just leave it in the name of the previous owner or was there a different process to go through?
I'll probably get this wrong and contradict what I've previously typed, but here goes....
It seems that each state is different, with some being very difficult for non residents, others, like California are easier, perhaps as they are more used to non-nationals living and working there. In advance of collection I arranged my insurance with Geico through a combination of online, email, live chat and one phone call. Geico were easy to deal with, helpful even and the situation didn't seem to faze them. You don't need to have a social security number, I gave the address of my friend as where I was staying (not living) and took out an annual policy with breakdown cover, paid in instalments on a credit card. They took down my UK address and I emailed my passport, UK licence and International driving permit.
On the day of collection we filled out their equivalent of the V5/sales invoice, with one copy going to the US keeper and one to me. You have to re-register, smog and pay any due taxes within 14 days, but we dropped the car off to the shipping agent within 10. I cancelled insurance after a couple of months and got a part refund.
I'm a law abiding citizen and fortunately had no problems at all, but am aware that someone with a greater local knowledge may say that what I did was incorrect? However, short of being a resident I'm not sure I could have done much more, other than putting the car put on a transporter, but it wouldn't have made for a very interesting road trip! Would we have been in trouble in the event of an accident? Not sure, but I would certainly do the same again, in fact we have talked about buying a C7 after they are ten years old. smile

Geekman

2,867 posts

147 months

Tuesday 18th June 2019
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Fishy Dave said:
I'll probably get this wrong and contradict what I've previously typed, but here goes....
It seems that each state is different, with some being very difficult for non residents, others, like California are easier, perhaps as they are more used to non-nationals living and working there. In advance of collection I arranged my insurance with Geico through a combination of online, email, live chat and one phone call. Geico were easy to deal with, helpful even and the situation didn't seem to faze them. You don't need to have a social security number, I gave the address of my friend as where I was staying (not living) and took out an annual policy with breakdown cover, paid in instalments on a credit card. They took down my UK address and I emailed my passport, UK licence and International driving permit.
On the day of collection we filled out their equivalent of the V5/sales invoice, with one copy going to the US keeper and one to me. You have to re-register, smog and pay any due taxes within 14 days, but we dropped the car off to the shipping agent within 10. I cancelled insurance after a couple of months and got a part refund.
I'm a law abiding citizen and fortunately had no problems at all, but am aware that someone with a greater local knowledge may say that what I did was incorrect? However, short of being a resident I'm not sure I could have done much more, other than putting the car put on a transporter, but it wouldn't have made for a very interesting road trip! Would we have been in trouble in the event of an accident? Not sure, but I would certainly do the same again, in fact we have talked about buying a C7 after they are ten years old. smile
That's all really useful info, much appreciated. I've saved this thread and will look at it in more detail when the time comes: this was one of the main things putting me off doing it as I didn't fancy getting my car seized in the first week of ownership tongue out

Schmeeky

4,191 posts

218 months

Wednesday 19th June 2019
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Great write up of LM2019! Great memories, esp. getting to see behind the scenes a bit!!

Interesting bunch of cars on the ferry - what were the two you were parked behind?

Fishy Dave said:

Fishy Dave

Original Poster:

1,027 posts

246 months

Wednesday 19th June 2019
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Schmeeky said:
Great write up of LM2019! Great memories, esp. getting to see behind the scenes a bit!!

Interesting bunch of cars on the ferry - what were the two you were parked behind?

Fishy Dave said:
Thanks smile I'm pretty sure the car immediately in front is an Alvis, however, the very old thing in front of that I have no idea. I should know, but anything pre 60's tends to go under my radar. redface

Fishy Dave

Original Poster:

1,027 posts

246 months

Thursday 20th June 2019
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The first OMP Style was tentatively lowered into position yesterday.



The good news is that the OMP sliding rails fit the cheap ebay subframes I've had for the last 6 months. Also the seat proportions are far better suited to the C6 and it will allow me to retain both the standard 3 point belt and also fit a 6 point harness.

The bad news is that I sit a little higher than in the standard seat. Where the seat has a dial on both sides to adjust the angle, the one against the centre tunnel is preventing the seat sliding back enough, so the angle grinder may need to make an appearance! I may see how this feels for a few days, if I'm too high I will have to lose the rails.

The seats fit my proportions well (6', long back, slim to medium build), the base bolsters are very small and won't offer much lateral support, but with the harness and grippy cloth it should be enough. I've angled the seat base up a bit with spacers as it's very flat, maybe my arse will give it more of a contour in time?

Edited by Fishy Dave on Monday 8th July 13:55

Fishy Dave

Original Poster:

1,027 posts

246 months

Monday 8th July 2019
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I know it's been warm recently, but this is ridiculous! bandit



A new external temperature sensor was ordered and fitted, only a few pounds and I now have the correct display and can switch off the A/C. Guessing that it was permanently on to prevent me from certain death had it actually been as hot as displayed?

My wife followed me back from a friends and noticed the rear lights doing odd things, right side brake lights switching off when indicating right for example. Removing the rear I found that the load resistors had become very hot, broken free of the fixings (cable ties, stupid boy!) and then proceeded to melt a small part of the polystyrene bumper and shorted a couple of wires. I was lucky to avoid a fire. So, rewiring commenced, but this fault remained. I had some great advice from the seller of the blinker splitter https://cartown.se/index.php?route=product/product... I tried various things, but the fault remained. I had a spare (2nd hand) US lighting loom, so tried this and it worked perfectly, as it did in America, so at least I knew the BCM was ok.



After hours of re-wiring I still had the same fault! mad I found another company making a neat looking wiring solution, delivery was made in just two days as well, at half the total price of the blinker, much smaller and lighter too. splitter. http://www.elektronikbox.de/rearlight_C_uk.html



I wired this in and it cured the odd brake behaviour but I couldn't fix the indicators hyper flashing with 2, 3 and 6 ohms resistors. The instructions say to add resistors to the outputs, but after wasting almost a whole weekend on this I tried the input channels and a 3 ohm 100 watt resistor on each got everything working perfectly. This time I riveted the resistors to the metal bumper to help as a heat sink.

Finally I upgraded the front switchback bulbs to these new ones, they are super bright.



Time to do some driving!

Fishy Dave

Original Poster:

1,027 posts

246 months

Tuesday 9th July 2019
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For someone thinking of their own Corvette adventure dive in and buy this quick! Slightly higher miles than mine was but other than that it's the exact spec as mine. If I had the money I would buy this car as well and have a sister car dedicated to track days and racing.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c6-corvettes-...

Mr Tidy

22,412 posts

128 months

Wednesday 10th July 2019
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Fishy Dave said:
Time to do some driving!
Great posts on your Le Mans adventure - it seems you had a great time. thumbup

But I can't help wondering if you tried a "glass of milf"! laugh

pistolpete12

422 posts

154 months

Wednesday 10th July 2019
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Brilliant thread, just read the whole way through
great way to start an early shift.

Car looks awesome, as i got further through i thought i recognized the car.
I run in the Jap sprint series, but i also ran Anglesey Javelin series. So i can also say it sounds awesome too (we were in the rx8)

Keep up the great work!!

Shnozz

27,502 posts

272 months

Wednesday 10th July 2019
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Fishy Dave said:
For someone thinking of their own Corvette adventure dive in and buy this quick! Slightly higher miles than mine was but other than that it's the exact spec as mine. If I had the money I would buy this car as well and have a sister car dedicated to track days and racing.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c6-corvettes-...
If I had the time to get over to the States I would be all over that!

Fishy Dave

Original Poster:

1,027 posts

246 months

Monday 15th July 2019
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Mr Tidy said:
Great posts on your Le Mans adventure - it seems you had a great time. thumbup

But I can't help wondering if you tried a "glass of milf"! laugh
nono Not if you'd seen the ladies serving! biggrin Oh and I was travelling with my wife. whistle


Edited by Fishy Dave on Monday 15th July 11:26