Yes it fixes the seat, unfortunately. But it shouldn't matter as if you need the lowering kit, you're probably tall enough that your position is all the way back anyway. You can still adjust the pedals fore and aft though.
Chronicles of SneakySnakes | Vol III
- Thread starter paintless302
- Start date
Yes it fixes the seat, unfortunately. But it shouldn't matter as if you need the lowering kit, you're probably tall enough that your position is all the way back anyway. You can still adjust the pedals fore and aft though.
I guess I was thinking in the rare event that you'd have someone else drive your car.
I shot you a pm.
Threw in some Phillips LED reverse bulbs over the weekend. The only bulbs on the car that weren't LED from the factory--now its been rectified. Sorry for the crappy pics, I blame the gf 
A few snaps from Viper Nationals this past weekend;
It looks like the leather is already billowing out on the driver's seat, is that true or just the camera? Seems a little early for that to happen. Sweet color and I like that in the one pic you can see your girl putting in some work too with the air filter, not just making sammiches
It looks like the leather is already billowing out on the driver's seat, is that true or just the camera? Seems a little early for that to happen. Sweet color and I like that in the one pic you can see your girl putting in some work too with the air filter, not just making sammiches
Good eye. The early Laguna interior packaged cars had an issue with the seat cushions bunching up and creasing like what you see in mine (very uncharacteristic for leather of its age). The good thing is that both of my seats were warrantied by SRT so I'm just waiting for the replacements to come in. Also they changed the stitching process and made revisions to the bolstering to prevent this from happening again.
We all have our good days and our bad days, cars are no different. Sneaky One had a bad day the late afternoon of Viper Nationals. Went to start the car to head home after the event (was all pumped up and ready to tear it up on the way home), she fires up and I swear I hear a faint knock. Oil pressure looks good, idling fine, am I just hearing things? I give it a few seconds to settle in and I can now make out a distinct metallic knocking sound. Well. F*ck. Oil pressure still steady as a rock as I climb out of the car. "Its a good thing I'm still under warranty" I mutter as I pop the hood. Hoods open, and something's most definitely clankin away. It was coming from the top end of the drivers valve cover so no main or rod bearing, whew! I shut the car down and go to hunt out Dick Winkles and Morgan who are still hanging out in the pits. Nothing like having the powertrain engineer who designed the motor and the most experienced viper tech in the world available within arm's reach. Lucky me. We all huddle around the car for a few minutes, ear to the motor like we're diagnosing a heart murmur. The consensus? I have a failed lifter. Shift happens as they say.
Car went to Viper Exchange the following day for the tear down. VE always took care of me and I cant say enough good things about Morgan; his work ethic, attention to detail, and overall knowledge are second to none. As far as I'm concerned, if you're getting work done on these cars, he's unrivaled. Only guy that I trust to take care of my car, like I take care of my car.
Oil pan is off, bores are inspected, oil is drained, and both it and the filter are looked over for debris. Nothing is found.
Look at that swinging pick up!
And that cross hatching on the throws, pure porn!
Morgan pulled the baffles off of the oil pan to clean up some of the rough casting, and I know this is pretty much the story with all automotive castings but damn, after looking over the oil pan, I can see how they've had so much debris in the blocks. These as-cast products have areas that are rough. At least with the pans you can extract most of the debris through shakers/washers and follow with a visual inspection. In the block, with the water jackets and crevices that are out of line-of-sight, good luck.
Car went to Viper Exchange the following day for the tear down. VE always took care of me and I cant say enough good things about Morgan; his work ethic, attention to detail, and overall knowledge are second to none. As far as I'm concerned, if you're getting work done on these cars, he's unrivaled. Only guy that I trust to take care of my car, like I take care of my car.
Oil pan is off, bores are inspected, oil is drained, and both it and the filter are looked over for debris. Nothing is found.
Look at that swinging pick up!
And that cross hatching on the throws, pure porn!
Morgan pulled the baffles off of the oil pan to clean up some of the rough casting, and I know this is pretty much the story with all automotive castings but damn, after looking over the oil pan, I can see how they've had so much debris in the blocks. These as-cast products have areas that are rough. At least with the pans you can extract most of the debris through shakers/washers and follow with a visual inspection. In the block, with the water jackets and crevices that are out of line-of-sight, good luck.
Morgan got the ol girl naked down to the shortblock;
Drivers side
Passenger side
And here is the location of our culprit noisemaker;
You can see one of the rollers is actually damaged from bouncing around on the cam lobe.
One of the lifters got debris either in the main body oil passage or the check valve and was not pumping up and/or holding oil pressure. When that happens, you lose line-to-line contact with the pushrod/cam and you get that familiar clickity racket.
If you need some refresher on hydraulic lifters I found these to be particular helpful. The chrysler video especially, why they don't make handy instructional videos like that anymore I'll never know!
On top of losing contact with the rest of the valvetrain, with a bad lifter you stop the pushrod from loading the rocker arm squarely and can give it some nasty side loads. I think this was the reason for damage on the rocker which sat atop the failed lifter. The additional vibration may have caused the trunnion to move laterally inside the rocker (or the rocker to move laterally on the trunnion). Either way, it was trying to push out that stamped cap which keeps the bearings in place, and ended up chipping it. If that cap had come off all the way and released all those needle bearings into the oiling system, I would have had a worse day.
The lifters were replaced, along with the rocker, and the heads inspected. Everything looked ship shape with no other visible damage, so the re-assembly process began.
This was also a good opportunity to replace those crappy Belanger paper gaskets with some oem steel crush ones. Don't know why the PO had those installed.
She should be back better than new soon. At least I had an opportunity to poke around inside the motor and check things over on someone else's dime. Could of been worse!
Drivers side
Passenger side
And here is the location of our culprit noisemaker;
You can see one of the rollers is actually damaged from bouncing around on the cam lobe.
One of the lifters got debris either in the main body oil passage or the check valve and was not pumping up and/or holding oil pressure. When that happens, you lose line-to-line contact with the pushrod/cam and you get that familiar clickity racket.
If you need some refresher on hydraulic lifters I found these to be particular helpful. The chrysler video especially, why they don't make handy instructional videos like that anymore I'll never know!
On top of losing contact with the rest of the valvetrain, with a bad lifter you stop the pushrod from loading the rocker arm squarely and can give it some nasty side loads. I think this was the reason for damage on the rocker which sat atop the failed lifter. The additional vibration may have caused the trunnion to move laterally inside the rocker (or the rocker to move laterally on the trunnion). Either way, it was trying to push out that stamped cap which keeps the bearings in place, and ended up chipping it. If that cap had come off all the way and released all those needle bearings into the oiling system, I would have had a worse day.
The lifters were replaced, along with the rocker, and the heads inspected. Everything looked ship shape with no other visible damage, so the re-assembly process began.
This was also a good opportunity to replace those crappy Belanger paper gaskets with some oem steel crush ones. Don't know why the PO had those installed.
She should be back better than new soon. At least I had an opportunity to poke around inside the motor and check things over on someone else's dime. Could of been worse!
Close call there. Glad to see it seems to be a simple replace and reassemble from this point on.
I was looking at the Gen IV's, but I'm thinking about hanging onto the GT500 a bit longer to see if Gen V pricing comes down anymore. Afraid that with this being the last year there may be a price hike. What are your thoughts?
I was looking at the Gen IV's, but I'm thinking about hanging onto the GT500 a bit longer to see if Gen V pricing comes down anymore. Afraid that with this being the last year there may be a price hike. What are your thoughts?
No different than any other high end performance vehicle, yours included. At the end of the day, none of this would ever deter me from owning this car, period. After driving this car the first month (1000+ miles) I would do it over again 11 times out of 10. Yes there are issues, and people tend to catastrophize them but SRT stepped up, gave us a 10 year extended warranty and peace of mind. I will continue to enjoy this beast day in day out.
Its a fact that the used Viper market has dried up over the past few months and the prices on Gen Vs have gone up by at least 10k. Whether this is an artifical knee-jerk reaction to the end of production or whether this is the beginnning of an overall increase in values remains to be seen. I will say collector grade Gen 1 prices have doubled in the last 24 months, and desirable gen 2's have seen 10-20k upswing as well.
Its simple supply and demand, any new entries to the Viper market will have no new vehicles to choose from, they will be at the mercy of the used market. More competition, fewer cars, higher prices.
I agree with all of that.
It was great that SRT gave the warranty, unfortunately I'm not down the street from Viper Exchange lol
Could of been a lot worse. That's cool you got to poke around and see all that.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2017
- Messages
- 56
slick car and glad you caught that in time! She'll be back better than before
Stopped by to check on the sneaky beast. Motor is back in completely assembled, car was test driven, and all is well. No more valvetrain noise.
While the car was at VE I figured they could address a few more things, one of which being another warranty repair. I had noticed that there was an audible whine from the rear between 68-80mph. I figured it was worth tearing into to check the bearings, so out it went;
Taking a look on the bench it was obvious the PO had never changed the diff fluid in his ownership. Being as he is the owner of a Dodge dealership, with easier access to service than pretty much anyone, this was quite surprising. The fluid was cooked, milky, and full of shavings. Good thing we took a peek. There isn't a lot of fluid in there so it cooks quickly, plus you're going to have metal shavings over time from ring/pinion contact. I think its recommended to be changed every other track day or so? Even without tracking, I'd change it at least once a year, its just cheap insurance.
Fluid was vacuumed out, pinion bearings were changed, everything cleaned up, and she was refilled and re-installed.
Took some time to admire that full carbon diffuser
While the car was at VE I figured they could address a few more things, one of which being another warranty repair. I had noticed that there was an audible whine from the rear between 68-80mph. I figured it was worth tearing into to check the bearings, so out it went;
Taking a look on the bench it was obvious the PO had never changed the diff fluid in his ownership. Being as he is the owner of a Dodge dealership, with easier access to service than pretty much anyone, this was quite surprising. The fluid was cooked, milky, and full of shavings. Good thing we took a peek. There isn't a lot of fluid in there so it cooks quickly, plus you're going to have metal shavings over time from ring/pinion contact. I think its recommended to be changed every other track day or so? Even without tracking, I'd change it at least once a year, its just cheap insurance.
Fluid was vacuumed out, pinion bearings were changed, everything cleaned up, and she was refilled and re-installed.
Took some time to admire that full carbon diffuser
Also greased the upper/lower balljoints while we were in there as well. Morgan taught me how to check their fluid level by looking at the boots, apparently they should look slightly puffy if they're full.
Next it was time to eliminate that 4x4 wheel gap by throwing on the lowering caps;
Steamrollers removed...
Front/Rear coilovers removed;
Here you can see how the lowering caps actually accomplish the feat, purely by virtue of a thinner upper perch. Lowering 0.6" up front, 0.5" in the rear. Spring pre-load changes ever so slightly but I doubt it will do anything noticeable to ride quality.
Last but not least I removed the sidemarkers front and rear and had them color matched GTS Blue. I don't like how they break up the profile of the car so this will be a welcome change.
Picked them up from my friends at CMS collision today, they turned out great;
Next it was time to eliminate that 4x4 wheel gap by throwing on the lowering caps;
Steamrollers removed...
Front/Rear coilovers removed;
Here you can see how the lowering caps actually accomplish the feat, purely by virtue of a thinner upper perch. Lowering 0.6" up front, 0.5" in the rear. Spring pre-load changes ever so slightly but I doubt it will do anything noticeable to ride quality.
Last but not least I removed the sidemarkers front and rear and had them color matched GTS Blue. I don't like how they break up the profile of the car so this will be a welcome change.
Picked them up from my friends at CMS collision today, they turned out great;
Damn nice work.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Almost down on solid ground.
Suspension is back together and on the car, fender liners are in, wheels/tires back on, and the side-markers installed. Markers came out really well, the color match was spot on. Just waiting on some rear end parts to be delivered and hopefully she'll be buttoned up tomorrow.
Suspension is back together and on the car, fender liners are in, wheels/tires back on, and the side-markers installed. Markers came out really well, the color match was spot on. Just waiting on some rear end parts to be delivered and hopefully she'll be buttoned up tomorrow.
Damn, looks OEM! bery noice!
Car is back down on solid ground and finally got to go for a spin today. Everything is running perfectly, no more rear whine or valvetrain noise.
I'm particularly pleased with 2 things, the way the car is sitting after the lowering cap install, and how the side-markers turned out. The lowering caps, while not an immense drop (0.6" Front & 0.5" Rear), bring the car out of the 4x4 stance, and strike a reasonable balance between aesthetics and usability. I would love to go another 0.5" lower all around, but I'm not going to ditch the factory bi-mode Bilsteins to do it.
The side-markers came out spot on, just disappear into the paint from a distance. If you didn't know where they were you wouldn't even see them, exactly the look I was going for. Looking back at the initial pics of the car, the amber and red markers stick out like sore thumb. This is so much cleaner.
The lower seat covers were also replaced under warranty and look much better. I was told they would wear in and tighten up on the cushion as you sit in them over time. In any case, the replacements look miles better than what they replaced.
Before;
After;
I'm particularly pleased with 2 things, the way the car is sitting after the lowering cap install, and how the side-markers turned out. The lowering caps, while not an immense drop (0.6" Front & 0.5" Rear), bring the car out of the 4x4 stance, and strike a reasonable balance between aesthetics and usability. I would love to go another 0.5" lower all around, but I'm not going to ditch the factory bi-mode Bilsteins to do it.
The side-markers came out spot on, just disappear into the paint from a distance. If you didn't know where they were you wouldn't even see them, exactly the look I was going for. Looking back at the initial pics of the car, the amber and red markers stick out like sore thumb. This is so much cleaner.
The lower seat covers were also replaced under warranty and look much better. I was told they would wear in and tighten up on the cushion as you sit in them over time. In any case, the replacements look miles better than what they replaced.
Before;
After;
Users who are viewing this thread
