The Chronicles of SneakySnake Vol III

[slowhatch]

Black wheel weights showed up as well, so all the wheels were pulled for the swap;









Before



After



Now on to the good stuff. 2 step color correction begun on the entire vehicle. Watching this process unfold makes me think that detailers who do it properly don't charge enough. So tedious.

[slowhatch]

[slowhatch]

Car is completely corrected, ready for a rinse.




Rinsed, and every panel gone over with Carpro Eraser to remove any oils or surface contaminants. Ready for ceramic coating;



Arguably the best coating in the business;




Coating was applied to every surface, twice, and every panel is cured with a shortwave IR lamp;



Lets go to Mars;

[swexlin]

Do you follow Matt Moreman on Obsessed Garage? You two should get together! I like the black wheel weights.

[repiV]

Beautiful car...and serious props to all you've been doing to it!! This is a fun thread to watch. It's going to be hard to drive it and get it dirty now isn't it?? LOL

But seriously....black wheel weights and then those shiney silver lug nuts?? Get some black lug nuts on that thing! Mark J at Woodhouse pointed out my shiney silver ones on my black powder coated wheels and ordered me some black ones. I hadn't even thought about it until he pointed it out but it really does look better with the black ones.

[TrackAire]

Wheel weights have been overlooked long enough!!

"Black Wheel Weights Matter".......bumper stickers and T-shirts coming soon


Car is looking good....I love the attention to detail.

[Stealth78]

Beautiful car...and serious props to all you've been doing to it!! This is a fun thread to watch. It's going to be hard to drive it and get it dirty now isn't it?? LOL

But seriously....black wheel weights and then those shiney silver lug nuts?? Get some black lug nuts on that thing! Mark J at Woodhouse pointed out my shiney silver ones on my black powder coated wheels and ordered me some black ones. I hadn't even thought about it until he pointed it out but it really does look better with the black ones.

Can you get the black ones as ET nuts?

[slowhatch]

Do you follow Matt Moreman on Obsessed Garage? You two should get together! I like the black wheel weights.

Never heard of him, but he has been mentioned to me a few times by others. I guess I need to check him out.

But seriously....black wheel weights and then those shiney silver lug nuts?? Get some black lug nuts on that thing!

It's not by accident. I don't like when everything is black, it all seems to blend together and look bland.

Can you get the black ones as ET nuts?

Not that I'm aware of, however it would be easy as pie to have the existing ones powder coated black if I had wanted.

[slowhatch]

A few shots;

[viperBase1]

Off the scale insane.
Congrats Alex, You've created a new beauty in record time.

[swexlin]

Search Obsessed Garage on YouTube. Matt will make you seem like a weekend driveway detailer, LOL.

Seriously, you have perhaps the nicest, well-cared for Viper I have ever seen. Props to you.

[Vipes]

It looks better way better than when it was new, great work.

[slowhatch]

Been enjoying the CRAP out of this car since its return to the lair 2 weeks ago. I have pretty much spent the entirety of every weekend in it .

Also got a chance to throw on some more goodies, it never ends. Received the custom plaque from DSE that was stamped out of aluminum, powdered, and laser engraved. It will replace the oem "GTS" badge on the dash. I always wanted a custom plaque like the newer ACRs, now I have one.



Then we shed some weight with a li-ion battery kit from Doug Shelby Engineering. With this add-on the car's weight should be ~3275lbs.

Details on the battery from DSE;

This is an 8 lb lithium ion battery, charger, and bracket kit which is a completely bolt-in kit for the Gen V Viper. This kit saves about 25 lbs from my OEM 56029646AA battery, which weighs in at 32.7 lbs.

There are a lot of batteries on the market. Why this one? This is a built-to-order battery that is reasonably priced, safe, and built to last. Instead of just welded tabs, the cells are secured by nuts with copper bus bar and insulating layers between. There are several other internal features that make these mechanically robust.
• Designed for Starting Vehicles = Longer Life
• Wide Operating Temperature Range
• Robust Internal Construction
• Vibration and Shock Resistant

In addition, these are very electrically safe. I’ve not seen any other Lithium battery on the market with the all protection in these have. Many times there is very little or no internal protection. The protection is both at an individual cell level but also an overall battery level. Safety Protection Internal To Battery:
• Cells Individually Protected
• Over Charging
• Over Discharge
• Short Circuit
• Penetration
• Thermal Shock
• Protection from fires
• Protection from explosions

Charger: I have included a charger with the kit with an algorithm specifically designed for this battery. A compatible charger is very important for battery safety and long life. For convenience the battery has a push-button voltage display on top. An aluminum bracket compatible with the OEM holes completes the kit. I do recommend to taking the extra step to keep this battery on the included charger when the car is sitting in storage for a long period as a precaution against parasitic current draw. (DSE offers a nice connector-mount kit to make that convenient, too.) While it would be protected from a complete drain it isn't ideal or convenient to have a low battery when you go to start your Viper.


Who is this battery kit for? Almost any Gen V Viper owner that wants to save significant weight (Other gens or vehicles OK too just no bracket kit for those as of yet, contact me directly).

Who is this battery not for? People with huge stereo systems or devices that cause abnormally high amounts of electrical draw, people who want to sit in the car and listen to the radio for long periods of time without the engine running. People who drive in freezing temps a lot (all Lithium Ion batteries of this type do not charge well under freezing temperatures or discharge well under -20C, while not common on a Viper the reduced battery capacity at these temperatures should be taken into consideration.)

What does DSE know about lithium ion batteries? I have been the provider of lithium ion battery pit and garage support equipment for IndyCar since 2012 (amongst other products and projects.)

Is it safe? The chemistry in these and other automotive type lithium ion batteries are lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo 4) which is inherently safer than the chemistries used in such products as Samsung cell phones and 787 Dreamliners. There are always risks but all of the items listed above greatly reduce them. What makes a LiOn battery unsafe? Poor design, poor/cheap manufacturing, mismatched application, incorrect charger, no protection circuitry.... There are lighter batteries on the market but the ruggedness of this one and a bit more capacity I feel is a good compromise for the application.

I received the battery kit over a month ago, and it spent the beginning part of its life on the charger, waiting for the sneaky one's return.



When I got the car back, I swapped the oem battery out (which was heavy as all hell), and dropped the DSE unit in. The battery is extremely light, yet feels very solid, and the included brackets make the install a breeze.





It's nice to be able to check the battery level with a press of a button;



After using the battery for 2 weeks the best compliment I can give it is that I don't know its there. Car fires up as quickly as it did on the oem battery, and with the weight savings, I don't have to feel guilty about eating entire dominos deep dish pizzas during my house of cards binge sessions.

[slowhatch]

Also had an opportunity to wash the car for the first time. 2 weeks worth of road grime, brake dust, water spots, etc, all gone in a 10 minute "wash". High pressure rinse, foam canon, rinse again, and air dry. Never even touched the car. I love ceramic coatings.

Video below of washing;

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVLOePql...y=sneakysnakes

Results of wash;

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVLcXBIl...y=sneakysnakes

[slowhatch]

Some recent shots from a close friend;

[JG_1212]

I love ceramic coatings.

This. I love my ceramic pro coating.

It makes cleaning my DD sti which sees rain/snow/salt sooooo much easier. BTW gotta thank you for the leaf blower trick.

[slowhatch]

[One Viper Bite]

The content in this thread is inappropriate for children and NSFW

[txA&M08]

Lawd almighty

[slowhatch]

[slowhatch]

Around a month and a half ago, I was driving the car quite spiritedly and realized that when I would get on the power hard from a roll-on, there was a tiny stumble before the car took off. I definitely thought it was strange, but it was intermittent, and seemed to clear itself up the following day. I didn't think too much of it, bad gas I thought, as I was very low on fuel when this occurred. The problem seemed to worsen over the coming days and got to the point where the car refused to accelerate at upper rpms. It idled fined, fired up fine, rev'd fine, with no codes, but under load at high rpms it would break up. It behaved as if I had rolling anti-lag, hesitating and backfiring out of both banks. Talked to a few people in the know and gave it some thought, we all concluded that it had to be a spark issue. Maybe coil packs going bad. Did a quick sanity check in the engine bay and started to pull on coil wires, lo and behold, 1 coil wire (boot end) on each bank was somehow loose on the plug, and grounding out. I was the first V8 viper since the VM01 Viper prototype in '89

Had the car taken to Viper Exchange to get this sorted under warranty, and while they replaced all of the coil wires, we decided to throw in some fresh plugs as well. Old plugs had 7,500 miles on em and looked fine;







Since I was already at VE I decided to do something fun while we were at it. I had long disliked the move to the shorter 6th gear in the early Gen 5s (there's no reason a 8.4L V10 should be turning 2000+rpm at 70mph), and always longed for the short ratio ACR 5th like I had installed in my old gen 4. So we decided to do both. The transmission was pulled, and 5th and 6th gears replaced. 5th is 0.80 ratio (actually 0.796) from the 2010 ACR, and 6th is 0.50 from the 2015+ TR6060s.





The results were dramatic. The car now pulls like a freight train coming out of 4th into 5th, and makes quick work of 160+. It will be great for 1/2 mile events. And the tall overdrive is wonderful for freeway cruising, improving mileage and decreasing cabin noise.

[ACRSNK]

This car just keeps getting better and better!

[One Viper Bite]

This car just keeps getting better and better!

It really does.

We need more of this. We have so many beautiful snakes on this forum. Everyone should take more time to post high quality photos and detailed information, no matter how big or how small the mod is.

[Steve M]

Do you have the part numbers for the .8 5th gear cluster?

[slowhatch]

Do you have the part numbers for the .8 5th gear cluster?

Steve I don't, Andy will, but I will tell you locating a vendor for this 5th gear was a monumental pain in the ass. No one had it in stock, tremec refused to sell any direct, and the car ended up sitting with the tranny out for a month waiting on us to locate a set.