Jeff's winter Corvette thread.

[Jeff V.]

The outer pipes are the straight thru, valved ones.

[Duck Vader]

Listened to it on my phone. Honestly hard to tell if I like it.

I'll try to listen to it on the computer later. Do you have a before /after?

[aaronatstate]

[quote=""Jeff V.""]The outer pipes are the straight thru, valved ones.[/quote]

[Jeff V.]

This guy has before and after.




If you just want the sound, go to 1:40 for before and 11:40 for after.

[ChargerX3]

So a little bit louder. It looks like he rev'd it much harder for the after though.

What matters though is if you like the outcome Jeff. Is it any better?

[Jeff V.]

Yeah. I really like it. It's louder where I want it to be. It's a little bit raspier. But it's not obnoxious.

[ChargerX3]

Awesome. That is all that matters then.

[Jeff V.]

[vr4]

Somebody got a catback for xmas

[Jeff V.]

I'm curious to know if the image link works better now. I set up an SSL certificate for my site.

[Chris GTO TT]

I didn't have to copy and paste the link like I had to for a while

[Jeff V.]

Picked this up used, and slightly damaged. Some knob had welded the AFM valves open. This is dumb, because there's a spring that holds them open until the motor closes it. The carbon fiber tips were also chipped up pretty bad. I got that all cleaned up pretty nicely. It sounds really good on cold start and revving off idle. I'll get it out for an actual drive tonight.










Startup and rev clip

This is the guy I bought it from. He has a different x-pipe than I do, but the sound should be pretty much the same.

[mjannusch]

Very nice!

[ChargerX3]

That post is full of NICE!

[Jeff V.]

Kinda wish I had weighed one of them before I put it on. Akrapovic claims it's an 11 lb savings overall, but it feels like 11 lbs per side. The stock mufflers are noticeably heavier. Titanium is no joke.

[vr4]

Ohhhh very nice.

It's possible the valves were rattling. I've had a few come in with a rattle coming from the valve.

[Jeff V.]

Maybe? I don't know. The valves on this are built way better than the ones on the stock exhaust though. On the one hand, I'm glad whoever welded it did such a poor job, because it was fairly easy for me to free them up. I think they used steel of some sort. It was magnetic. But it left big divots in the titanium valve body. I hope I don't end up having problems with them. They're way up over the axles, so they're fairly protected from road muck.

This is what I started from and ended with on one of the AFM valves. The other one wasn't as bad, but it was still chewed up.





All 4 tips had quite a bit of clearcoat damage and one was into the weave. I don't even know how this could have happened. The only thing I can figure is they put the tips on before anything went on the car, and then they just did a shit job of protecting them during the install.

[vr4]

Wow. They tried to weld ti with a mig. Fucking idiot.

Good you got them working.

[Chris GTO TT]

Wow glad you saved it!

[Jeff V.]

So...I think it's time. But I just can't make up my mind. I'm on the clock though. My hold on the car runs out tonight.

All along my plan was to keep the Stingray for a couple of years, and then trade it in on a Grand Sport. Specifically a Grand Sport Collector's Edition. It's purely about aesthetics. I've loved this car ever since I saw the press photos. I don't believe it'll be worth any more than any other similarly equipped Grand Sport. I don't think it'll actually be 'collectible'.

GM made 935 of these cars. But there are only 53 cars equipped like I want. Coupe, manual trans, competition seats. So even finding one of these at all is pretty hard. There's even fewer that have the ceramic brakes. That drops the count to 26 out of 935.

This one popped up in California. It's an online retailer like Carvana or Vroom. They don't have a presence in MO, but they'll ship it here.







So here's my dilemma. The price is right, even accounting for the shipping. I can sell the Stingray for more than I paid for it. I'm making the last payment on it this month.

I can trade up, add another ~2 years of payments, and have the car I've wanted since the day I saw it. I absolutely love how it looks, and it'd be cool to have a rare, numbered car. Even if it doesn't add much (if any) value.

Or I can keep my Stingray. I won't have exactly what I want, but maybe this is good enough. Maybe I shouldn't get greedy. I won't have any debt other than the house. I can just put money in the bank.

But for what? I feel like either way, this is the end. This is my summit. There's no car after this. I've climbed the highest mountain. There are higher mountains, but they're on other planets where I can't ever even get close to them. I already feel like I found some kind of cheat code to even be able to have this discussion at all.

What am I even working towards?