2009 SS/TC Sedan
Sport Red Tint Coat on Black/White Interior
Gallery
A brief summary about my Cobalt SS/TC
This story actually started with my old Acura Legend. The ability to purchase my Cobalt was directly because of my Legend. I purchased my Cobalt SS/TC in August of 2009 and picked it up September 3rd, 2009. The car came fully loaded, which included the limited slip diff, sunroof, brushed aluminum pedals and USB equipped stereo and 93 miles on the odometer. I found the car on the lot of Flemington Chevrolet, which is also where I purchased the it from. The build date on the car is December 5th, 2008.
Shortly after buying the car I purchased a set of winter rims, Borbet LV5 wrapped in General Tire Altimax Arctic to get through the winter with the car. Not much was done on the car as I was just driving it daily to work each day until October of 2010 when I was hit in a parking lot. The damage was limited to the bumper and fender and was repaired. That Christmas I received a center console as a Christmas gift. For some reason all manual Cobalts, not just the SS, receive no center console -- what a fantastic upgrade.
May 2011
The rear brakes started squeeling nasty so I pulled them apart and found them pretty much completely destroyed. There was only 17k miles on the car and it needed new rear brakes. This is a known problem with these cars; however, instead of fighting with the dealer I tossed on new rotors and pads myself. I went with factory rotors and aftermarket pads. I also cleaned the calipers up nicely and lubricated everything. So far that was 35k miles ago (including 3 track days) and everything has been fine.
August 2011
In August I drove the Cobalt out to Detroit for the Woodward Dream Cruise, which was an absolute blast. On the return trip home I stopped by Lordstown, Ohio and brought my Cobalt back to where it was built. I had a friend with me who managed to shoot a number of pictures of my car infront of the factory. I brought my Cobalt SS home.
Just before the Dreamcruise trip I purchased a Hahn Cat'ed Downpipe used from a member on css.net. So after returning from the trip I installed the downpipe. At this poin I had no tune so gains from the pipe were minimal. I definitely noticed a difference in sound from the exhaust with the pipe and while most likely mental, I swore it felt like the turbo was spooling faster.
May-Oct 2012
May 27th was my very first track day with my Cobalt. My dad and I headed down to NJMP Thunderbolt for a day at the track with NASA. It was a great time and the Cobalt was fantastic on the track.
I did two more track days, both at Pocono Raceway on September 1st and October 9th, both with NASA. Two more great days.
I also decided to do a valve cover swap for a painted one. I purchased a new valve cover that was powder coated red from Modern Performance. My dad and I installed it on Saturday September 30th. It definitely brightens up the engine bay and looks sharp.
December 2012 - Febraury 2013
In December, just before Christmas, while driving home from work a car in the right lane of traffic hit a deer that came running in to the road. After the initial impact from that car it sent the deer hurtling in to the left lane, directly infront of me. I managed to center my car over the corpse and ran it clean over. I ended up doing minor damage to my splitter, but I did destroy my intercooler.
After looking in to possible fixes and what-not I decided to purchase an entirely new, larger aftermarket intercooler, charge piping, and cold air intake from Hahn Racing. The install was fairly simple; however, without a tune at this time, gains were minimal. I opted to not get a tune for my new setup right away since it was winter and I knew I would have self control issues. Without the tune I did notice the turbo would spool faster and the whole engine had a more aggressive sound to it. There were no power gains though since the factory tune limits the car to 260hp and 260tq regardless of my upgrades.
April 1st, 2013 With spring coming in I put my summer tires back on and was eagarly awaiting my tune. I was unable to find anyone who works with HP Tuner in my area so I decided to go with a Trifecta Tune. I did a basic tune, raising boost to 22psi.
September 5th, 2013
The Cobalt's shifter is a cable linkage and each cable is held together with a clamp to connect the actualy shifter to the cables. This clamp is also known to be a weak spot and sure enough, while attempting a 2nd to 3rd no-lift-shift, I busted the clamp. I did manage to do a descent fix to get the car home. I was a short distance to my parents' place, so I limped it there and once there we took the old clamp, drilled a hole through the base and reinforced it with a cable tie. After this I took some time and decided to purchase a Billet Performance Shop aluminum clamp.
Luckily I was able to get that repaired just in time because on September 26th I drove up to Watkins Glen, NY to spend the next two days tracking my car with NASA at Watkins Glen Track. This was an absolutely phenominal experience with my Cobalt. It proved amazing on the track and was able to handle everything I threw out at and raise a number of eyebrows at the same time. A problem did reveal itself during one of the earlier sessions of my second day there. Under extremely hard braking, the car would pull hard to the right. It seemed as if I wasn't getting solid braking on the left side of the car or I had a suspension problem. The solution for the day was to just take it a little easier on the car and all was well. I did address this situation in the future.
October 17th, 2013
Coming home from work I missed a downshift and grabbed second when I meant to grab first. I over revved the engine to almost 9k. In frustration at my mistake I corrected the gear and got back on the gas and the engine died. I pulled over, tried restarting it and it sounded terrible and stalled. I had to call a tow. When I got home I shot this video. After popping off the valve cover it turned out I had managed to float the valves and two of the valve lash adjuster must have gone cocked and then crushed by the cam completely destroying them. Luckily, this was in cylinder 1. To replace them I just loosened the cam caps enough have the cam lift up and I was able to slide them under. I didn't need to remove the timing chain or anything and did this by simply just removing the valve cover. I was also able to source new valve lash adjusters for $10/each.
August 2014
In preparation for next months track weekend at Watkins Glen I wanted to resolve the issue with the brakes pulling to one side. Last I did work on the brakes I noticed the piston boots were starting to melt. So I decided to completely rebuild the front Brembos. This wasn't terrible difficult and all the parts are available. I ran into some issues with the metal pins getting seized in the calipers. I now use a generous helping of anti-seize on the pins. I ran into a bit of a problem with brake flushing and finally took it somewhere to have the ABS pump flushed as well. The brakes feel fantastic and strong at this point.
September 2014
Erin and I decided to make a little 4-day vacation out of this track weekend. We went up on Thursday and enjoyed Lake Seneca. On Saturday I went over to the track for a DE and my parents came later in the day. That Sunday my Dad joined me on the track as well. A great weekend with NASA HPDE and a really fun trip! The brakes held up fantastically as well.
October 2014
Hoes Lane in Pisacataway. It ate two of my aftermarket winter rims. One rim had a chunk taken out of it and obviosuly wouldn't hold air. The other was out of round. I replaced just those two with a set of Rage R20s 17"x8" rims. I was strapped for cash at the time so I held off on ordering the other two and left the Borbets on the rear. I ended up replacing those last two as well not terribly long after this.
November 2nd 2014
I started to notice the faint smell of coolant burning. Over time it was getting worse and I was noticing it missing in the overflow bottle. I had some trouble locating where I was leaking coolant until it got a bit worse. It was coming from the back of the engine. Specifically from a coolant line that runs from the coolant distribution block to the turbo. This is a hard line that is designed to flex a little. The flex portion was fine but what was happening is the line was rubbing against the block in one spot which eventually wore through. It took forever to get this pipe ordered from GM but it was a fairly easy install and solved the issue.
June 2015
For my birthday Erin bought me a TWM Short throw shifter, with the M1 Abrams Stainless Steel knob and a Redline Goods leather shift boot. All of this is absolutely beautiful. She helped me install the short shifter and it's been fantastic in the car! The boot is beautifully made and fits perfectly. Gallery
December 2015
The Hahn Downpipe I purchased back in 2011 has rusted through at the flex joint and broken apart. I swapped the OEM one back in for now.
January 2016
My first wheel bearing decided to go. Luckily it was a rear bearing which is extremely easy to replace on this car and not terribly expensive. What wasn't so good was my battery died. Not bad, almost 7 years old. However, I was in lower Manhattan trying to get back to NJ to start my work day and it was extremely bitter cold. I got a jump start from AAA and made it home no problem. I did manage to slow charge the battery to get just enough more life out of it until I picked one up a couple days later.
April 2016
The factory downpipe rusted through at the flex joint and broke open. Exactly the same as the Hahn. I decided this time to replace it with the ZZP Downpipe, with Angled O2 Bung. However, it seems to throw CELs for the lower O2 sensor with this pipe.
June 2016
In an attempt to reduce engine motion I've installed the ZZP solid front and rear engine mounts (the top mount is original). This greatly reduces engine movement but also allows quite a lot of engine vibration in feel and sound into the car. Which isn't a terrible thing and now that I've gotten used to it I don't even notice it.
June 2017
Walnut blast and manifold painting.
Replacing water pump, timing chains, guides, tensionsers and busted valve lash adjuster.
August - October 2017
Replaced transmission
Rebuilt entire suspension and replaced other rear wheel bearing
March 2018
This is extremely dissapointing. I was visiting my parents when I noticed the smell of gasoline by my car. It appears to be coming from near the rear of the car. When I started it up, sure enough, it was dumping fuel out from near the left wheel well. I carefully got home and inspected further to discover the entire fuel line rusted through. I have a few choice words and a rant in regards to why this is an issue *still* but not here. Anyway, after looking around I contacted Powell Racing who provides everything needed to replace the fuel line with a rubber line and proper fittings. I've cut the old, solid line off where and ran the new line in its place. I also discovered that the return purge line is also quite rotted but not broken yet. I decided to buy some nylon line and fitting and I replaced the majority of that line as well. Everything, fuel-wise is working beautifully now.
April 2019
For the past year now I've been having an issue with the engine surging and bucking when at a steady RPM mostly at highway speeds. Generally downshifting to 4th and running it at a higher RPM for 30 seconds or so resolves it. I've gone through a ton of troubleshooting for the problem. I really thought it had to do with the evap purge system. I replaced the valves at both ends, had a fresh line, etc. to no avail. As it turns out, the issue was the cam sensors. Shortly after moving into the new house I read up that this could be the issue. I found a set of intake and exhaust cam sensors for $40 and went at it. This SOLVED the issue and the engine is runnign beautifully! I've also gained ~2mpg fuel economy increase.
Come March I started having a new problem. I went away for about a week and the Cobalt sat in my driveway during that time. When I returned home I noticed the steering was all off. As if my alighnment was borked or I had a flat. After taking it in for an alighnment, it was a bit off, it felt fine but by the next day it was all wonky again. The steering would turn easily for part of the range, then tighten up as if there was no power steering. Additionally, the wheel would not even attempt to return to center. I took it back to the folks who did the alighnment and they figured it out. One of the two joints in the steering shaft had seized. Luckily, the steering shaft was cheap and I was able to replace the entire thing in a couple of hours.
May-June 2019
With all the minor issues I've had with the car and quite a lot of time getting consumed wiht moving to a new house I haven't had time to get out on the track in a while. So this summer I discovered SCCA Track Nights. They host weekday track afternoon/evenings. They are extremely affordable at $155 a day but are a bit shorter than a normal DE at only 3 20 minute sessions. However, it gets me out on the track. I've already gone twice this summer to Pocono and had a blast. However, during my second outting there I managed to completely boil my brake fluid. While the fluid isn't fresh, it's not terribly old. I have the original rubber brake lines in there as well. I'll have to address this before heading back out.
August 2019
SS Brake lines and Powell Racing Brake Scoops. Exhaust...
To address the brake issues I was having I decided to get stainless steel brake lines, a set of Powell Racing brake scoops and top it all off with some Willwood EXP 600 Plus brake fluid. I may have gone overboard, but this should solve all my problems. I've gotten everything installed and a track day scheduled for August 27th; we'll see how it goes.
It also appears that during my last track day in June I damaged my muffler. It's leaking badly from the top. Enough that it's lifting the entire heat shield up and rattling like crazy. Not to mention the smell of exhaust in the car. I ordered a full cat-back system from Hahn.
I installed the complete Hahn catback system. The installation wasn't too bad. I did have to cut the old exhaust out and indeed it was blown apart at the top. On top of that, the exhaust tip itself was barely being held on. The new exhaust is installed and sounds great. The tip sticks out a hair further than I would have liked as this is designed primarily for the Cobalt SS Coupe, which has a rear lip on the bumper cover.
July 2020
The ZZP Downpipe I had installed has blown apart into two pieces at the very begginning of my second session during a trackday at Pocono Raceway. I ordered a Hahn downpipe to replace it and I have installed it
August/September 2020
This is extremely frustrating. While driving down the highway I downshifted into 4th gear to pass someone. Before I even got on the throttle 4th gear shredded itself. Moments after that, I believe, the gear teeth worked their way into the differential. The transmission case blew a hole as well and I started loosing trans fluid. The transmission is toast. I've since removed the transmission and I am working on pulling 5th gear out of it and tossing it into my other transmission that had a bad 5th gear and hopefully get back on the road.
