Doing my part to help the next guy

[Alain]

I just spent my entire day bringing the car out from under the covers. Nothing is ever easy with these machines !!!

First, dead battery, had to jump it, twice. That process took almost an hour.

Then realized I don’t have the correct size bit (T-60) to do the front brake pad swap! Ordered caliperfexion kit, I now have to wait till the weekend or next week to swap pads.

Swapped OEM carbon fiber wheels for replicas. That went fairly smoothly, I saw a smudge on one of the carbon wheels that won’t come off no matter how hard I rub it with my fingers. I’ll have to look into that some other time, maybe get the wheels detailed before I store them away.

Then, installed my OEM front spoiler. THIS IS WHERE IM HOPING TO HELP THE NEXT GUY. If you’re doing this install yourself be ready, you have to whale on that thing with a rubber mallet really hard to get it to sit properly !!! No gentle hits, or bending the plastic trying to finesse it in there. YOU HAVE TO HIT IT HARD !!!!

That took me 2 hours to realize !!!! talk about patience!!! I was worried about damaging the plastic edge of the spoiler but I used a cheap microfiber towel to protect the spoiler from the rubber hammer I was using (like the Ford video shows) and I had no damage at all.

so if you’re doing this at home, don’t be afraid to hit that thing hard. Make sure all the tabs are lined up with the holes and send it home hard.

I wrapped up the day after installing the blue FP intake. And the ZL1 Addons GT500 style winglets. Those suckers gave me a little bit of a hard time as well. It’s still an easy install, you just have to be patient with one of the bolts. You’re literally sandwiching 4 different pieces so trying to get all the holes to line up was a pain in the ass.

Tomorrow I have the two oil separators to install, mount the front wheels, jump the car back to life AGAIN and hopefully go for my first official drive.

I wish I would have recorded the first time it fired up, talk about a cold start!! I think the windows in my house were rattling !!! That thing was loud as hell !! Haha, I love it !!

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[Cobra Jet]

Nice GT350!

How do you like the Quick Jack? Is it easy to move around?

 

[lightrules]

showing off again your hellcat and zle and R! must be nice to have 2k hp sitting around

hey keep me posted on your caliperfection installation. I'm probably going to have to do that in the near future.

 

[Alain]

Thank you!

I love the Quickjack man!!!! They are some of the best money I’ve ever spent on this hobby.

They have wheels on one end so you can pick up one end and roll them around. They are heavy as shit though, I’d guess around 80 pounds each, if not more.

if you have a smooth surface to work on they are a dream to move around. If you’re stuck with a shitty driveway like me it’s a little bit of a pain in the ass to slide into position. But even then, they are worth their weight in gold !!

 

[Alain]

showing off again your hellcat and zle and R! must be nice to have 2k hp sitting around

hey keep me posted on your caliperfection installation. I'm probably going to have to do that in the near future.

Haha, right on dude!! Thank you for the compliment, unfortunately I can only drive one at a time. Hahaha.

I’m looking to have a buddy swing by and take turns driving them so I can see what they look like going down the road. I still haven’t seen another ZLE around my area, not to mention an R.

I actually thought about you today when I was doing all this work! I used one of your videos to refresh my memory on the lugnut situation with the replica wheels (thank you).

I thought about recording my installation of the front splitter but once I realized the video would be filled with a lot of me cursing i decided not to record it haha.

caliperfexion kit arrives on Saturday so hopefully this weekend it’ll be installed. They ship it with a T-60 bit so if you don’t have one, don’t buy it. You’ll get it from them.

 

[lightrules]

Haha, right on dude!! I actually thought about you today when I was doing all this work! I used one of your videos to refresh my mind on the lugnut situation with the replica wheels (thank you).

I thought about recording my installation of the front splitter but once I realized the video would be filled with a lot of me cursing i decided not to record it haha.

caliperfexion kit arrives on Saturday so hopefully this weekend it’ll be installed. They ship it with a T-60 bit so if you don’t have one, don’t buy it. You’ll get it from them.

cool, glad the vid helped however it did.

my front splitter was not installed correctly by my selling dealer in TX. when i got it here to me in CA, i took it to my local dealer and had them re-do it. i still dont think it's "completely" in, i think it needs to be smashed in more. it is better than when i first got it, but it seems there should be almost NO daylight between the splitter and that front body panel. i have a slight gap, not much, but ever so slight. just havent done anything about it.

for the caliperfection kit, i want to get the sleeves too. anyway thanks for the info about the T60 bit. keep us posted.

 

[Alain]

cool, glad the vid helped however it did.

my front splitter was not installed correctly by my selling dealer in TX. when i got it here to me in CA, i took it to my local dealer and had them re-do it. i still dont think it's "completely" in, i think it needs to be smashed in more. it is better than when i first got it, but it seems there should be almost NO daylight between the splitter and that front body panel. i have a slight gap, not much, but ever so slight. just havent done anything about it.

for the caliperfection kit, i want to get the sleeves too. anyway thanks for the info about the T60 bit. keep us posted.

Yeah, you should have no gap between the front splitter and the bumper. If you want to put your mind at ease, raise the front of the car and look under (in the belly pan area). You should be able to check and see if the bolts that hold the leading/front edge of the spoiler were properly installed. If they are there, then you have nothing To worry about even with a small gap between the splitter and the bumper.

As for the kit, I also got the sleeves!!! Worth the $40 to not have to mess around with bungee chords when taking the caliper off.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

[BluSnake]

Red, White, Blue! Ford, Chevy, Mopar! Beautiful All-American Trio!

 

[Byronj]

You’re right. Nothing on these cars is very easy. But the more you play with them you learn little tricks and it does get easier and you’ll get quicker at it. Wait till you change your oil. That’s a real PITA. I just got the UPR oil plug and can’t wait to install that so my oil change will be cleaner and quicker

 

[JR369]

Nice write up. I too had to put a little love on my spoiler to line it up correctly. Rubber mallet and microfiber and it's good. After one failed start I said F this and bought a Duracell 1.5A battery tender. It kicks on and off as necessary. $59 new.

 

[Alain]

Nice write up. I too had to put a little love on my spoiler to line it up correctly. Rubber mallet and microfiber and it's good. After one failed start I said F this and bought a Duracell 1.5A battery tender. It kicks on and off as necessary. $59 new.

I have an extra battery tender laying around somewhere that I’ll use on the R over this coming winter. I’ll do what I did with my Harley, take the battery out, bring it down to my basement and hook it up to the tender. The Hellcat and the Zl1 1LE have never given me battery problems in the spring after hibernating, and I never plug them into a tender.

Red, White, Blue! Ford, Chevy, Mopar! Beautiful All-American Trio!

thank you sir, I’m brainstorming on how to take a cool picture for 4th of July this year. Red, white and blue American muscle.

You’re right. Nothing on these cars is very easy. But the more you play with them you learn little tricks and it does get easier and you’ll get quicker at it. Wait till you change your oil. That’s a real PITA. I just got the UPR oil plug and can’t wait to install that so my oil change will be cleaner and quicker

I agree with you 100% that the more you fiddle with these things, the more you learn, the more comfortable you get That’s the reason why I didn’t mind spending 2-3 days bringing working on it.

ive heard about the messy oil changes with this car, I’m actually looking forward to changing mine. I got one of those form a funnels, I’m hoping the oil filter removal won’t be a gigantic mess if I use that.

 

[datadatum]

LOL at hitting it hard. Always a high anxiety moment.

I remember installing a Kartboy short shifter on my WRX (nearly 20 years ago now), and not wanting to hit it hard to seat the ball in the compression socket. I kept hitting it harder and harder, and did a perfect hit where the compression socket spat out the short shifter like a missile from a submarine. It hit the headliner! Taught me a lesson that sometimes not hard enough is worse!

 

[FDHog]

I'm biting the bullet on the battery. Car is 1 month old and has a hard time turning over. If I take it off the the battery tender it starts fine, but when I put it back on the tender, it has to charge again. Too weak a battery for this motor. I know I can get a new one from the dealer, but I ordered an AGM battery (D4700) 740 cca, instead of putting another crap one in.

 

[Alain]

I'm biting the bullet on the battery. Car is 1 month old and has a hard time turning over. If I take it off the the battery tender it starts fine, but when I put it back on the tender, it has to charge again. Too weak a battery for this motor. I know I can get a new one from the dealer, but I ordered an AGM battery (D4700) 740 cca, instead of putting another crap one in.

That’s weird that when you put it on the tender it gets weaker. I would just leave it off the tender and see what it does.

I think my battery is going to be fine from now on. I didn’t turn the car on at all yesterday........ just fired it up this afternoon (2 separate times) to shuffle the cars around in the driveway and the R started right up.

 

[Tonymustang302]

I'm biting the bullet on the battery. Car is 1 month old and has a hard time turning over. If I take it off the the battery tender it starts fine, but when I put it back on the tender, it has to charge again. Too weak a battery for this motor. I know I can get a new one from the dealer, but I ordered an AGM battery (D4700) 740 cca, instead of putting another crap one in.

are you guys serious. Mine sat in an un insulated garage for 4 months and fired right up after the oil change

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