SONKIST

Well, it's been a long winter. I picked up an '08 Wil Cooksey last fall / early winter and have spent some time making it my own.

Interior came out first and wrapped the whole inside with two layers of sound deadening. Then installed a new Panasonic AVH-5600 head unit, a Kenwood amp to drive new Boston speakers (Pro Series in the doors with the 6 1/2's where the Bose subs were and tweeters up top) and an Alpine amp to drive two dual voice coil subs and two more Bostons that I installed in a custom box I made that doubles as a "divider". Couple quick iPhone pics:





Really like the new system. I now have XM, backup camera, HD radio, Bluetooth, Pandora - the works. Unit "mirrors" my iPhone 5s so I also have Nav, Netflix and anything else that I can run on my phone, I have on the screen. Pretty sweet setup and it'll thump your heart back to beating if you have a stroke or something.

So having completed the inside, I set about transforming the "go" side of things. Previously, I have gone the FI route (one C5, a C6 and a ZR1) but with this Wil Cooksey car somehow it seemed sacrilage to go with FI on a car that is a tribute to the N/A 427. So I couldn't do it.

Figured I wanted the heads done anyway for peace of mind so might as well go the H/C route (good thing too - most all the guides were out of spec - some WAY out of spec - so I caught it just in time - car has 10k "car show" miles on it from previous owner.)

So after a couple months of planning, buying parts, wrenching, waiting, more wrenching… she's finally done. Here's a video of the tuning runs.



I stated the hp just for grins and giggles. Since I didn't do a base run before the mods, the number to me is meaningless because some dyno's are "happier" than others. This was a dynojet and the tuner is pretty conservative. I also put a new clutch in it - went with the new C7 clutch that Monster is selling. It's working great and I really like it (now that I removed the helper spring.)

That's it. I know I left some power on the table and that was by design. Cam could have been bigger for a bigger top end number but I wanted the mid range torque - which it has in abundance! Could have put a bigger throttle body too, but was talked out of it by some very knowledgable, very helpful folks (Jason at Katech was lots of help in the planning stages - thanks Jason!)

Last thing is to get these hard as stone old Goodyears off here. Wow, they suck… Michelin Super Sports are ordered and should be here next week, cuz now that it's spring - it's time to drive the dang thing!! Woohoo!!

sublime1996525

Very nice man!

wldZ06

Those are nice numbers!

'06 Quicksilver Z06

What did you have done to the heads?

Thanks

SONKIST

Stage 2 at WCCH.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Nice. What valves did Richard use in your heads?

SONKIST

Thanks!

I wish I had done a baseline first, but regardless of the numbers, I'm very pleased with how it's running.

He polished the intakes and as for the exhaust, I went with the solid ones that he recommends. He's done a zillion of them and had zero come back so I was not going to second guess him. I just let him do his normal thing.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Yeah, they have done a lot of them.

Congrats on the upgrades and best of luck with it.

SONKIST

Thanks. Will be going out tomorrow for a video shoot to roast the rest of the rubber off the rear to make way for the new Michelin shoes. Will post.

And by the way, I got some ribbing (pm) about the comments on my video above. It was not made with the forum in mind. I did that for several friends and family members out of town that don't know beans about cars.