Army Navy Fuel Line

One thing that all race cars share is the fuel plumbing system. Army Navy fittings or commonly known as AN Lines are anodized aluminum fittings used with braided stainless rubber hose. There are a few reasons to use this system: 1) They are more durable than standard rubber fuel line and barb fittings. 2) The connections are easily disconnected and reconnected with out damaging the hose, like with the barb fittings and hose clamps. 3) Race tracks only allow a few inches of rubber hose in the entire fuel system. 4) It looks damn good.

 The carb is a Holley 750 cfm street avenger with blue fuel blocks to match the theme in the engine bay. The carb comes with rubber fuel lines as a kit to get you down the road, but it looks a bit ghetto and not too safe in the long run. Pretty much they give you about six pieces of hose, connectors, and simple hose clamps (The non screw on type). The kit used above is Part#641090 from Russell Performance, it comes with a pressure gauge. We also had to purchase a -6AN fuel filter, -6AN 45 degree fittings, and a fuel pump fitting, and about 3 feet of -6 hose. The lines really clean up the fuel system and give the race car look to the top of the engine.

New Gears = Better Burnouts

Changing the gear ratio in a car or truck differential is very common among modifications you can do. Based on the need for quicker acceleration or higher top speed, changing gears will solve most of your problems. In our case the car came stock with a 3.08 ratio, commonly known as highway gears. Having these gears give better MPG when cruising since the engine rpm is lower, but for our case we don't really care about that. We were able to buy a slightly used rebuild complete differential with 3.55 gears. This will give better launches and more importantly better burnouts!

Changing out the differential on the corvette is a bit of a pain, due to the way the drive train in designed. The rear suspension is an independent mono leaf spring design. Meaning, the differential is solidly mounded to the chassis and the rear is supported by one leaf spring.

 The swap took about 8 hours to do, it had been the first time the rear had been pulled apart since installing it all 6 months ago. I was able to see how the new bushings were wearing and noted which stock hardware needs to be replaced before the car sees the open road.

You can see how everything is interconnected, making it a chore to change this out.

Since the differential cover is used to mount the whole unit to the frame, there is no easy way to drain the oil out while still being in the car. So the next best way was on the work bench.

The stock gears have somewhere around 100k miles on them, upon inspection they showed a good wear pattern. All of the bearings were turning free and no strange noises were found, but it was time for a much needed upgrade.

The axles are held in with c clips inside the carrier, they are easily removed with the right tool. Which I found out I didn't have and had to run to the parts store.

The new housing and cover were cleaned and shmeered with rtv, then a new gasket was applied and all bolts tightened down.

The blue rtv also matches the blue theme going on around and in the car.

By 6pm the car was ready for a test drive.