Installation of Corsa Indy Pro Exhaust

January 30, 2004 - 6172 miles

Purchased from Fitchner Chevrolet - www.fichtnerchevrolet.com

 

................Getting the car ready in the driveway.................................The new Corsa exhaust ready to be installed...........

 

...........................Car up on 4" ramps.......................................Sway bar and exhaust unbolted and dropped to ground.....

 

Stock exhaust removed. Car had to be raised full height of hydraulic jack capability, 21", plus the 3.5" thickness of the 4x6 wooden beam in order to remove exhaust system on passengers side.

 

I lowered the car back down to a comfortable working level to do the Corsa installation. All installed, aligned and torqued.

 

Finished!!! Two hours start to finish with the help of my friend and neighbor Keith. NOW she sounds like a Corvette!!!!

Corsa without the Magnaflow X-Pipe

Corsa with the Magnaflow X-Pipe

 

Magnaflow X-Pipe Install

February 11, 2004

After driving the Corvette for a week with the Corsa Pace Car Exhaust I decided to add the Magnaflow X-Pipe to get rid of some of the popping and motor boat idle noise.

To do this required a special exhaust pipe cutting tool even though they do not tell you that you are going to need such a tool, you do!!!

Found this on the internet for $20. Found others identical to this one for $45. It pays to check a lot of sites. Each section of the chain has a cutting wheel. Apply a small amount of pressure and rotate back and forth as far as you can swing until it cuts through.

These are the pipe ends after being cut. The exhaust cutting tool does a really nice job and made the cutting very easy. I replaced the supplied "U" bolt clamps with Accuseal Torca clamps. The Torca clamps are seen on the pipes in the above photo. These are the same clamps provided with Corsa Exhaust systems but not with the Magnaflow.

I was not impressed with the exhaust clamps provided with the x-pipe. If I had not seen the Torca exhaust clamps provided with the Corsa system I would not have given it another thought and used the ones provided. The Torca Accuseal clamps are so much better than the standard exhaust clamp. It is a band with one bolt to tighten. No chance of crushing the pipe as with a standard "U" bolt type clamp. With this in mind I set out to locate a source for the Torca clamp. It took the better part of a day to find them locally but was finally able to locate and obtain the clamps from Xtreme Motorsports in Tempe, AZ. If you are going to install the Magnaflow X-pipe I highly recommend changing the clamps to the Torca. You can get them here for $3 each plus shipping: http://www.xmsengineering.com.

This is the original H-Pipe after being cut and removed.

Well, as it turns out that was the easy part. Getting the new x-pipe to mate up with the existing pipes and the Corsa exhaust was a long and hard fought battle. The first problem was the x-pipe only had slits in one of the pipe ends. The slits aid in acquiring a tight clamp and in sliding the x-pipe over the existing pipes. I called Magnaflow about this and a day later they finally called back still scratching their heads over the matter. You see, know one seemed to know for sure if there was supposed to be slits cut in both pipes! Yikes!!!! The other bigger problem was that one of the pipes on the x-pipe was not straight. No matter how I pushed, pulled, hammered and grunted it would not go on more than 1/2". Time to get serious and drag out the come-along. Found two good anchor points and eased the x-pipe into place. I wish that I had taken more pictures but, the concrete was cold and my joints were starting to ache. It took a fair amount of time and patience to get the Corsa exhaust lined up again but it's done and I really like the sound.

See the comparison sound files above.

While I had the AE up in the air I also installed the CAGS skip shift eliminator. Very easy install!

12 Disc CD Changer Install

February 3, 2004

Purchased from Fitchner Chevrolet - www.fichtnerchevrolet.com

The only regret that I had in purchasing my 2003 Anniversary Edition Corvette was not ordering the 12 disc CD changer. Today I remedied that situation by installing one.

Locating the 4 pin plug and the 3 pin plug to connect the new harness to was a lot easier than I had expected. I have read numerous installation articles from Corvette owners that could not locate the 3 pin plug and had to splice into wires to make the connection. Neither of the plugs were located exactly where the instructions said they would be. The instructions state that one of the connectors is taped to the harness and that was true but it was not in the fuse box area but was under the edge of the carpet. The instructions continue to say that the otherplug is clipped to the metal bracket above the fuse box. It is clipped to a bracket but it is not metal and it is not above the fuse box but is below and to the right of the fuse box (see above photo - the area circled and marked "4 Pin" with the turquise blue square). If you follow the main harness that is coming from the back of the car you will locate first the 3 pin, that is taped to that harness and the 4 pin directly above it.

I am not saying that this is going to be true in every situation but this is where my connectors were located.

 

You have to remove a fair amount of interior trim around the passenger side door to route the wiring harness. I used my electrical fish tape to pull the harness from the back to the front. I chose not to remove the piece that surrounds the rear speaker as it required twice as much work due to the shoulder harness restraint, weather strip and other connections I thought I might destroy in the process. As it is, when I tried to free the back edge around the speaker I broke one of the retainers that hold the plastic trim in place. My local Chevy dealer was able to provide a replacement.

 

The small black hole to the lower right coner of the speaker is where the retainer goes that I broke. You can see the path of the harness in the background above the wheel well. The harness is held in place by factory mounts that are holding other harnesses.

 

Here is the CD changer installed prior to running the harness. This is where I made the most changes from the instructions that came with the changer. First, they want you to use a GM epoxy that needs to be cured with a heat gun to 180 degrees before you can mount the changer. I used 3M two sided tape instead. I covered the back of the bracket with it and stuck it to the tub before anchoring it with the provided pop rivets. I feel that it will hold it as well as any epoxy and give the bracket a small amount of cushion as well. The other thing that I did differently was to cut holes in the gray liner, that you see in the background, to allow the mounting studs for the angle brackets to come through. The instructions call for slits to be cut in the gray material so that it can be fit around the brackets. I just have four small holes and the brackets are tightened down over the gray material. Makes for a very clean look.

Best part of all is loading up the magazine, turning on the power and it works!!!!!!

Garmin 2620 GPS Mount

If you own a C5 I am sure you will agree that the cup holder is worthless, at least as a cup holder. I generally use mine to hold my cell phone. I just got the Garmin 2620 GPS and was not happy with the "bean bag" look and the fact that if it was on the dashboard it obscured to much view, was to far away and the sun made it difficult to read. I set out to find a solution that would not require a permanent install but would still meet all of my other needs including be able to swivel it toward the navigators seat. Below are photos of what I cam up with.

This is your standard, everyday, mostly worthless C5 cupholder. But wait, there is something hiding under that rubber insert!

 

It is the pedestal mount for my custom made GPS pedestal! You can see the mount is held in place with 3 self drilling screws. I am probably going to add 3-M double sided tape to the back side to give it even more strength but, test drives have already shown it to be very stable.

The GPS is mounted to the top of the pedestal using the standard Garmin dasboard mount and the permanent adhesive strip that comes with it. The pedestal is all steel construction, powder coated satin champagne (the closest I could get to the interior color). Because the GPS utilizes it's own Garmin base, it swivels freely 360 degrees and allows you to lock it in place. The pedestal is 6" tall. It is a comfortable height and it does not interfere with the view of the clock. You do need to position the GPS so that it does not interfere when shifting a six speed into 5th or reverse.

Here it is swiveled toward the navigator's position.

You can remove just the GPS or the whole pedestal with no tools. The pedestal mount remains in place and the pedestal just slides out of the mount. You can then put the rubber insert back into place and your mostly worthless cup holder is once again a mostly worthless cupholder!