[R1LEY]

Hello! I've been a member on here for a while but don't really post much so I decided I would start my own thread on the journey my car has been through. Here is my car the day it arrived at the dealership here in Kokomo Indiana, the only options from the factory were the PDR and the war stripe hood decal. It currently has 45,000 miles on it as it is my daily driver. Unfortunately this means the paint is not in the best condition in front of the rear wheels and the front bumper. It was a huge mistake not investing in paint protection film when I picked it up

Some things that I've done to the car that I don't have pictures of or can be seen in other pictures are as follows:
-Skip shift delete
-15% window tint
-Wrapped some interior pieces matte black
-Replaced stock wheel with ZL1 steering wheel for heat function and red stitching to match the dyed stitching in the rest of the car
-ZL1 start button
-GM pedal covers
-ZL1 addons lift pads
-ZL1 addons rock guards
-Custom decals on the winglets of the 1LE wing
-1LE badge and plate frame on the rear bumper
-ikon motorsports SEMA grille
-Amazon dark LED sidemarkers
-Weathertech Floormats
-Gen5diy cooled seat harness
-Added lights underneath the knee pads on the door
-Powerstop Z26 ceramic pads

There may be more but none that I can remember at the moment. Anyways, here's the first pictures!

[R1LEY]

To kick things off, I knew that being a daily I would need winter wheels and tires so I got the cheapest wheels I could from tire rack and some dunlop wintermaxx tires. Specs are 19x8.5 with 245 45 19 tires.

After that, I found someone on here who was nearby that would trade trunk lids as I had plans to get a 1LE wing which worked out great! This car has been through too many spoilers/wings but I think I'm finally at a place where it won't be changing any time soon. I'll go ahead and get it out of the way now, but this car had the factory blade spoiler, factory SS wing that came with the swapped trunk lid, an EOS ZL1 replica spoiler, EOS ZL1 1LE wing, ikon motorsports blade spoiler, and then finally the GM 1LE wing.

Also pictured are the dark tail lamps with sequential turn signals and GM 3rd brake light.

I got some louvers too, but those didn't last long as I didn't really like the look, and there were complications getting them to stay on.

[R1LEY]

Here's the ZL1 1LE wing from extreme online store before with the test fit, and after it was painted, a ZL1 addons tow hook, and then my good friend at SpeedDetailing put on some Jax Wax Ceramic 9H after paint correction.

Also forgot to mention in the last post that I had American Authority side skirts put on as well.

[R1LEY]

Finally, almost a year after I got the car I managed to take it up to Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, Michigan where I did my first track day. I did the necessary prep just short of a track alignment, and didn't have the stock goodyears on, but Nitto NT555 G2 summer tires on which meant I didn't put down any good lap times, but I had a blast and wanted more!



About a month later I got the opportunity to go to the corvette gold show at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and drive a few pace laps around the brickyard! It was one of the coolest things I've gotten to experience!

[R1LEY]

On to the next cosmetic changes! Up first is I painted the winter wheels to match the stock 1LE wheels.



Then I re wrapped the hood in satin because the matte was starting to lift on the edge near the windshield, and while I was at it, I decided to wrap the roof to match.



After that came the ikon motorsports rear diffuser, unpainted, so I could match the rest of the trim with satin black and put dark reflectors in from Wildhammer motorsports. Take note that the new blade spoiler is on the car after selling the plastic 1Le wing, which means we are almost done changing spoilers lol

[DorsoDuroJohn]

Looking very sweet!

[kropscamaro16]

nice looking mods !

[R1LEY]

Thanks! This past year I was browsing ebay for parts, and came across a wrecked ZL1 and noticed it had a wing on the back that didn't look too damaged. So I contacted the seller to see if he would be willing to sell the wing separately and if he could send me pics of the damage. After getting the pictures I forwarded them to a company in Indianapolis that specializes in Carbon Fiber to see if it was fixable. Long story short, it was fixable and wouldn't be too costly to do it. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the seller would send the damaged wing to me for $250 plus the shipping which totaled out to $400! I confirmed when I received the wing that there was a GM part number, so it was real, and here's the pics of the damage.







The passenger side winglet was completely busted, and the area where the stanchions met the wing was also broken on 2 of the 3 stanchions, but other than that the wing was in decent shape. Off it went to be fixed and once complete came out to about $1200 total for an OEM ZL1 1LE wing! I was so excited to get it on the car at this point and had another track day coming up so I put it on the car as soon as I could. Once it was on the car I noticed that the top of it looked super hazy and confirmed with the person that fixed it that it had been wetsanded but not buffed.





I polished it as best as I could, but the scratches still wouldn't come out! I then came up with the genius idea to see if ppf would hide the scratches, so I put a test piece on and it worked!

Here's the test piece:


Here is the ppf being put on, and the final result:



I am so happy with how it came out!

[R1LEY]

Next up was another track day at Gingerman last June. I went with my brother in his 17 Mustang GT, and a couple of friends who have an 07 cayman. I outran both of them of course


To possibly help compensate for the wing in the rear, I made a front splitter out of 1/8" thick plywood and painted it black as well as changing out hardware underneath the bumper to accommodate a bigger bolt to keep it on. It held up great until it got poured on later on in the year, then the paint started to peel up. Assuming that was from moisture in the wood. So here's a pic of that as well. All in it was about $90 after paint which was a better deal than an APR carbon fiber one that cost $400 or more, and I wasn't as worried about scraping it which happened quite a few times.

[R1LEY]

I'm just going to fast forward a little bit and show that I later got ACS composite canards/dive planes. I got the "primered" version so that I could just paint them myself and this is by no means a review, but if you are going to buy these make sure to get them already painted as I was not impressed how rough the edges were. needed a lot of sanding to get it right. Other than that, they are are alright.

I also redid the hood wrap one last time and put the hash stripe back on, this time with matte vinyl and I put a ghosted 1LE emblem on it which you probably can't see.

[kropscamaro16]

splitter looks pretty good did you chassis mount it? and what did you think about the acs canards? looks better quality than the zl1 addons ones

[R1LEY]

Fast forward even farther ahead to present day and the front end looks quite a bit different with a touch of new on the trunk lid. I got a new ZL1 style splitter to replace the worn out wooden splitter and the rock chipped factory splitter. Plus I liked the more aggressive look.



Then to make it even more aggressive I wanted to play with some styling ideas. I really wanted a stripe on the car, but didn't think it would look right with the all black hood and roof. I decided to incorporate the hood and roof into the stripe itself. I followed the body lines and added to the front of the car, and did the top of the trunk lid.

[R1LEY]

This rounds out to where I am at today, and my goal this year is to put in some more seat time and visit different tracks around my area and just enjoy the car.

One day, when the powertrain warranty is out, I'll get it tuned for flex fuel and headers and maybe an intake mod or two.

[Speak99]

very interesting! You put lots of work into your car and also this thread.

Thanks.

I also read it while i was working, it does make everyone's posts way more interesting.