Andy Wheeler of Laurel, Maryland 2001 "Z0SICK" Z06 Corvette With Methanol Injection
Andy Wheeler's 2001 Z06 Corvette
The story of this build started in May of 2006. I was looking for a clean low mileage Z06 corvette to supercharge for the street. I had previously built two late model LS1 based F-Body cars for track and limited street use. I then decided to head in a completely different direction and purchased a pristine 1994 Lotus Esprit S4 turbo. After spending years at the track sweating in fire suites, and squeezing on helmets, I thought the exotic "wine and cheese," crowd would be a nice change of pace for a while. Lets just say the Lotus chapter didn't go the way I hoped it would, and reaffirmed my love for American Muscle and dependability.
My goal was simple build something that would run ten's at the track all day like my older ten second F-Bodies, and then look as good as the Lotus did cruising into the local shows. Needless to say it was going to be a tall task to draw the attention of the Esprit and run the numbers that the big nitrous'd F-Bodies ran. From the outset my plan was to employ the help of a centrifugal style supercharger and methanol injection system. After opening up the exhaust system with a set of "Vette Doctors" series American Racing Headers, X pipe with cats and a B&B Bullet Exhaust the car was ready to take advantage of the new boost. I chose to go with the Industry standard in Vortech Supercharging for the C5 and gave Andy at A&A Corvette a call. I decided to run their proprietary Vortech kit (S Trim V1) with A&A's custom head unit bracket, and ducting. A&A's stock (Vortech) kit was set to make a conservative 7lbs of boost at 6,000rpm, which was perfect for the stock LS6 to take advantage of.
I decided after years of building, and modifying cars that the only way I felt comfortable adding boost to a stock motor was by installing both a methanol injection kit, and the blower myself. Over a one-week period in the garage I had the A&A Vortech up and spinning! The sound was amazing! I finally had a big horsepower car with that exotic whoosh that my little turbo four cylinder Esprit had plus a heel of a lot more attitude! As excited as I was, I didn't feel safe pushing the stock internals of the LS6 this hard without the aid of methanol Injection .
One week after the blower was up and huffing my package arrived from Alcohol Injection Systems . There were two options for methanol injection systems for the C5 Corvette at the time one of which used the windshield washer fluid reservoir as the methanol injection tank and the AIS design which allowed me to mount the tank were I wanted to mount it which was in the trunk space. I was able to mount the tank in the trunk and route all of my lines out of the rear of the car, and then up inside the drivers side rocker panel of the Corvette to the engine compartment. My favorite thing about the AIS water injection system was that it was, and is so customizable. If I wanted to mount the nozzles in a different location I could, and well as having the option to mount the tank were I wanted to mount it. After talking over my specific needs with Andy at A&A Corvette I decided to mount my water injection nozzle into the top of the throttle body. I drilled and tapped a hole in the center of the throttle body, and ran the methanol injection line there. Everything was exactly where "I" wanted it.
The next step was to put the car on the dyno. With my two favorite tuners on hand the car was dialed in on the boost alone first with no methanol injection . With no methanol injection the car made 511rwhp and 462ftlbs of torque on 7 lbs of boost. After adding the methanol injection the car made as much as 542rwhp and 489ftlbs through timing advance and tuning tweaks. Since I choose to do a lot of street driving in the car at my whish's the timing was back out and the methanol injection was turned down to just a tickle's worth above 4 lbs of boost. The result was a zero "Knock" safe street tune of 526rwhp and 482ftlbs of torque. That's around 600hp at the flywheel! This was a stock motor, no headwork, stock cam, stock pistons, crank, and rods!
So I finally had it, my favorite aspects of all of my builds to date. I achieved the big power of the modified LSX cars, and the lightweight, and great looks of the little British exotic.
Performance products, such as water methanol injection systems by AlcoholInjectionSystems.com, by their nature are designed to increase horsepower and performance not originally engineered into the vehicle by OEM manufactures and the increased stress could result in damage to the engine and related systems. Users are responsible to fully understand the horsepower capability and limitations of his/her vehicle’s engine and drive train according to manufacturer specifications.
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