1989 Corvette C4 6 Speed Manual
Discussion
Thanks all!
My belt & tensioner arrived andddd.... the smog pump was making the noise. Nevermind, I put the old belt back on and ordered a smog eliminator kit. Couple of weeks later some brackets and an idler pulley arrived from the US of Ebay with no instructions. A bit like a K-Nex kit with only the box, or in this case photo to work from, I got it together. I'd already removed some smog pipework when I fitted the long tube headers but it was amazing how much more stuff was obsolete once the pump and various brackets were removed too. All the belt driven components are hush now and there's a lot more space around the engine too, win win! Come the spring I'm tempted to clean up the engine bay and aluminium suspension parts, it's an interesting looking engine and I think I could keep on top of it looking smart over summer.
I picked up some 1in hub centric spacers from Ebay US too. A mere £35 delivered. Has anyone else had luck with the eBay international postage scheme? I'm sure it miscalculates sometimes but the goods are always delivered! Whilst pottering about with the spacers it was time for fresh oil & filters along with a PCV valve and brake pad clip. I had a feeling that a rattle was due to the pad moving around in the caliper and noticed on the front one of the little c clips was missing. Happily rattle free, for now.
For Christmas my delightful girlfriend bought me another Corvette! This time a 1:18 scale model by AutoArt. A guilty pleasure since I used to collect diecast when I was a lot younger... The detail is fantastic, the targa roof & pop-up lights work even! So I had to take it for a spin before I put it up on my bookshelf with my old turbo. On NYE I did the annual Pistonheads tunnel run, always a good laugh, although I usually scarper after a few runs just incase anyone is too naughty. Parked next to a 3L Z4 coupe, coincidentally I test drove one a few days later. In a moment of weakness, mainly from having a sensible daily, but came to the conclusion I have the best of both worlds in a Corvette and then a diesel Volvo.
Yesterday I headed over to Queens Square breakfast club meet. I realised next month it will be 2 years since I impulsively bought it from there! Always a good selection of cars and a good excuse to go for a blast.
My belt & tensioner arrived andddd.... the smog pump was making the noise. Nevermind, I put the old belt back on and ordered a smog eliminator kit. Couple of weeks later some brackets and an idler pulley arrived from the US of Ebay with no instructions. A bit like a K-Nex kit with only the box, or in this case photo to work from, I got it together. I'd already removed some smog pipework when I fitted the long tube headers but it was amazing how much more stuff was obsolete once the pump and various brackets were removed too. All the belt driven components are hush now and there's a lot more space around the engine too, win win! Come the spring I'm tempted to clean up the engine bay and aluminium suspension parts, it's an interesting looking engine and I think I could keep on top of it looking smart over summer.
I picked up some 1in hub centric spacers from Ebay US too. A mere £35 delivered. Has anyone else had luck with the eBay international postage scheme? I'm sure it miscalculates sometimes but the goods are always delivered! Whilst pottering about with the spacers it was time for fresh oil & filters along with a PCV valve and brake pad clip. I had a feeling that a rattle was due to the pad moving around in the caliper and noticed on the front one of the little c clips was missing. Happily rattle free, for now.
For Christmas my delightful girlfriend bought me another Corvette! This time a 1:18 scale model by AutoArt. A guilty pleasure since I used to collect diecast when I was a lot younger... The detail is fantastic, the targa roof & pop-up lights work even! So I had to take it for a spin before I put it up on my bookshelf with my old turbo. On NYE I did the annual Pistonheads tunnel run, always a good laugh, although I usually scarper after a few runs just incase anyone is too naughty. Parked next to a 3L Z4 coupe, coincidentally I test drove one a few days later. In a moment of weakness, mainly from having a sensible daily, but came to the conclusion I have the best of both worlds in a Corvette and then a diesel Volvo.
Yesterday I headed over to Queens Square breakfast club meet. I realised next month it will be 2 years since I impulsively bought it from there! Always a good selection of cars and a good excuse to go for a blast.
Time for a little update.
Last year a mate of the mechanic who works on the car let me his double garage around the corner from my house for a mere £60 a month. To start with, this was great! But people would constantly park in front of it, blocking my car in or out. I put up new signs, left polite notes on windscreens etc but it was an ongoing nightmare. Picking my battles, I started looking for elsewhere to rent and found an ex-council lock-up with mulitple entrances behind big steel gates and I'd save £20 a month. So earlier this month I downsized. I even bought a shelf to put stuff on and some luxury foam mats! Thankfully the C4 is a small car so there's plenty of room for activities even in a single garage.
I was intrigued by the Canadian sticker on my car too and 2 years after buying it I ran a Carfax. This is a bit like an American HPI check. Well, it turns out my car was delivered new to Ontario, Canada! Thus confirming that no American knows what a proper gearbox is...
Earlier in the week I headed over to Yate for an American car meet-up. I went awhile ago and the standard & variety of cars makes it worth the trip. There were a couple of Dodge Vipers there, a GTS and an RT10. I lusted after these as a boy, playing "Viper Racing" on the PC and even getting a dealer brochure from my parents' friend in Ohio. I've still got it stashed somewhere. I'd love a Viper and imagine the experience would be similar to my manual C4. They share the same diff, atrocious interior quality, big torque and no traction control. A couple of other localish C4's went to Yate and I was chuffed to see how clean mine looked for 30 years & 107k miles. Had great fun driving home in the sunset too, what a summer 2018 was!
Last year a mate of the mechanic who works on the car let me his double garage around the corner from my house for a mere £60 a month. To start with, this was great! But people would constantly park in front of it, blocking my car in or out. I put up new signs, left polite notes on windscreens etc but it was an ongoing nightmare. Picking my battles, I started looking for elsewhere to rent and found an ex-council lock-up with mulitple entrances behind big steel gates and I'd save £20 a month. So earlier this month I downsized. I even bought a shelf to put stuff on and some luxury foam mats! Thankfully the C4 is a small car so there's plenty of room for activities even in a single garage.
I was intrigued by the Canadian sticker on my car too and 2 years after buying it I ran a Carfax. This is a bit like an American HPI check. Well, it turns out my car was delivered new to Ontario, Canada! Thus confirming that no American knows what a proper gearbox is...
Earlier in the week I headed over to Yate for an American car meet-up. I went awhile ago and the standard & variety of cars makes it worth the trip. There were a couple of Dodge Vipers there, a GTS and an RT10. I lusted after these as a boy, playing "Viper Racing" on the PC and even getting a dealer brochure from my parents' friend in Ohio. I've still got it stashed somewhere. I'd love a Viper and imagine the experience would be similar to my manual C4. They share the same diff, atrocious interior quality, big torque and no traction control. A couple of other localish C4's went to Yate and I was chuffed to see how clean mine looked for 30 years & 107k miles. Had great fun driving home in the sunset too, what a summer 2018 was!
Cheers!
Had a fun weekend in West Wales just gone. Couldn't believe how lucky we were with the weather! Car ran top and returned 26.4MPG Not bad for 80ish on the M4 and cruising A-roads. Looking forward to Donington historics this weekend and then Retro Rides at Goodwood come the end of May.
Had a fun weekend in West Wales just gone. Couldn't believe how lucky we were with the weather! Car ran top and returned 26.4MPG Not bad for 80ish on the M4 and cruising A-roads. Looking forward to Donington historics this weekend and then Retro Rides at Goodwood come the end of May.
I've done plenty of driving and very little work on the car so far this summer, which is lovely!
First up is a trip to Donington for the historics. A friend from Uni lives pretty much next door to the track, so we drove up on the Saturday and had a great evening before driving a few minutes to the track. I imagine on busy events it's probably quicker to walk than drive! It was weird seeing the super tourers on track as a historic draw. I think this is the first time I've experienced some kind of collective motorsport nostalgia. I wonder if other spectators put in the same hours on Toca on their PCs? I left with funny ideas about Nissan Primeras and Renault Lagunas...
Next up is the Retro Rides Weekender at Goodwood. It was the first year of the event and my first time at Goodwood and it's up there with one of the best shows I've ever been to. Relaxed and friendly, full of cool old cars and a fantastic venue! Really want to see the revival now.
Two very different engines:
Also V8 powered:
Also orange:
Then there was a classic car show at the football stadium in Cardiff. I'm not one to sit on a chair next to my car or hide in a gazebo of anoraks but that was no problem since it's only a few minutes walk from my house. They wouldn't let us take the cars out until 4pm so I just walked into town and picked it up later. I managed to park next to a contemporary Trans-Am with some interesting mods. Namely the same brakes as my car and a freer flowing intake than the Tuned Port Injection that our cars have. But more on that later.
There was some neat stuff there
And this winner. 4 speed 930, tatty fuchs, knackered guards red, rollcage and a kids seat.
Then it was time for an American car show in Yate. Some of the South Wales contingent met up beforehand and we all cruised over the Severn bridge together.
I painted my brake disc hats silver instead of rust like a tart
This was my favourite thing there. An early 60's pick-up with a camper conversion from new. The top half is jacked up with hydraulics and there's all the creature comforts and lashings of mid century modern style inside. Because it has always been a camper, the pick-up was exceptionally straight too.
And over in the PT Cruiser corner someones girlfriend is a car seat cover. But it may be a genius ploy to travel in those 2+ lanes?
There was a European spec C5 there too. By comparison, I love the clean rear end of mine. That said, I am taking more notice of the C5 Z06 as a future car.
I'm stuck on shift work most of the summer now but it's been a blast commuting in the car. 15 miles of country roads with not another car in sight at stupid o'clock in the morning.
I also bought this little black box for $100
It plugs into the OBD1 port and has bluetooth & USB connectivity. It's very smart and I can view & reset fault codes (only had MAF ones a couple of years back when the relay failed) and more importantly view live data and datalog. Using an app I can see a swathe of information live on my phone and customise the gauges etc. Very neat for a car that's 30 years old. I was interested in how it was running now that I have Bosch injectors rather than the original ones and long tube headers with a true dual exhaust compared to the stock design. It looks decent but there's scope for a little more fine tuning. I can go down the rabbit hole of burning chips or there's a chap in the states who's a whiz and will burn me one for $80. The box is compatible with a few cars from the era including the Lotus Esprit. The main reason for buying it is because I also bought this:
It's a TPIS Miniram intake. I got it from Facebook marketplace! I have picked up some bargains over the years by trawling ebay.de and other left field classifieds but this tops them all. Someone was putting a small block Chevy in an Opel Manta and I guess this must have been on the top. With the throttle body, fuel rails, injectors and so on it's circa $2250 to purchase from the US. It was advertised for £900 but after a couple of weeks of brinkmanship my cheeky offer was accepted. Luckily I had a mutual facebook friend and was reassured if I sent hundreds of pounds to a stranger my intake would turn up in the post.
A little spiel on the Miniram then. Tuned Port Injection Specialities designed it to replace the long runner setup my car has. The intact tracts are some 25in from plenum to valve. This allows for great low down grunt but it just runs out of air much over 4500rpm and falls on its face. By comparison the Miniram has around 3in so you lose out on the bottom end of your power curve but make a lot more up the top. It's such an effective design that GM copied it for the LT1 engines, which came after mine.
Here's an LT1 intake:
And the Tuned Port Injection (TPI)
The other great advantage is that it's a one piece design. The TPI has a base, a pair of runners and a top plenum. They're held together with a myriad of Torx bolts and paper gaskets. It's a nightmare to remove them to access injectors/EGR etc and if you don't torque them in sequence you can easily get vacuum leaks. I've had the intake apart a couple of times in my ownership. With the Miniram the fuel rails are right there and it's only a few bolts to take the whole thing off.
This engine has a heavily ported long runner style intake and made 260bhp/280ft to the wheels. My car makes 250hp/350tq from the factory although I'd imagine a gain of 25ish for the long tube headers and dual exhaust.
This is the curve from the Miniram
So at 5800rpm it's making 36 more torque and 41 more bhp. Consider that is from a long tube setup with 260 at the wheels compared to my 270ish at the crank.
I don't have a plan yet on what to do with the intake but I just couldn't pass it up. With the 6 speed gearbox you're forever rowing through the gears since it makes peak power at 4400rpm. The miniram will keep going well over 6k rpm. Obviously this brings problems. My engine has over 100k on the clock now and I'm not sure it would appreciate me spinning it that fast! I could put the intake on and set a sensible rev limit of 5800rpm and aside from replacing the valve springs, it should be good to go. I'd expect a tad over 300bhp this way. However the heads & cam wouldn't be matched to the intake and I could go down the route of changing these also. Once the intake is off, it's not much more work to remove the heads. If I splurged £1k on some very nice ones and another few hundred on a cam and it will make an easy 400bhp. But I'm still on the old bottom end, so would pay for a rebuild. At that point you can fit 400ci rods & crank to make a 383ci rather than 350ci. This would give even more power and regain some of that low end grunt too. But now my cheap intake has cost me an engine rebuild. Or a crate engine. I'm currently saving to buy my first house so that won't happen anytime soon. I'm not sure then if I'd rather spend that money buying a C5Z06 which would offer similar performance but in a complete package. Likewise, the car is immense fun to drive as it is and will do solid mid 5 seconds to 60 thanks to all that torque.
First up is a trip to Donington for the historics. A friend from Uni lives pretty much next door to the track, so we drove up on the Saturday and had a great evening before driving a few minutes to the track. I imagine on busy events it's probably quicker to walk than drive! It was weird seeing the super tourers on track as a historic draw. I think this is the first time I've experienced some kind of collective motorsport nostalgia. I wonder if other spectators put in the same hours on Toca on their PCs? I left with funny ideas about Nissan Primeras and Renault Lagunas...
Next up is the Retro Rides Weekender at Goodwood. It was the first year of the event and my first time at Goodwood and it's up there with one of the best shows I've ever been to. Relaxed and friendly, full of cool old cars and a fantastic venue! Really want to see the revival now.
Two very different engines:
Also V8 powered:
Also orange:
Then there was a classic car show at the football stadium in Cardiff. I'm not one to sit on a chair next to my car or hide in a gazebo of anoraks but that was no problem since it's only a few minutes walk from my house. They wouldn't let us take the cars out until 4pm so I just walked into town and picked it up later. I managed to park next to a contemporary Trans-Am with some interesting mods. Namely the same brakes as my car and a freer flowing intake than the Tuned Port Injection that our cars have. But more on that later.
There was some neat stuff there
And this winner. 4 speed 930, tatty fuchs, knackered guards red, rollcage and a kids seat.
Then it was time for an American car show in Yate. Some of the South Wales contingent met up beforehand and we all cruised over the Severn bridge together.
I painted my brake disc hats silver instead of rust like a tart
This was my favourite thing there. An early 60's pick-up with a camper conversion from new. The top half is jacked up with hydraulics and there's all the creature comforts and lashings of mid century modern style inside. Because it has always been a camper, the pick-up was exceptionally straight too.
And over in the PT Cruiser corner someones girlfriend is a car seat cover. But it may be a genius ploy to travel in those 2+ lanes?
There was a European spec C5 there too. By comparison, I love the clean rear end of mine. That said, I am taking more notice of the C5 Z06 as a future car.
I'm stuck on shift work most of the summer now but it's been a blast commuting in the car. 15 miles of country roads with not another car in sight at stupid o'clock in the morning.
I also bought this little black box for $100
It plugs into the OBD1 port and has bluetooth & USB connectivity. It's very smart and I can view & reset fault codes (only had MAF ones a couple of years back when the relay failed) and more importantly view live data and datalog. Using an app I can see a swathe of information live on my phone and customise the gauges etc. Very neat for a car that's 30 years old. I was interested in how it was running now that I have Bosch injectors rather than the original ones and long tube headers with a true dual exhaust compared to the stock design. It looks decent but there's scope for a little more fine tuning. I can go down the rabbit hole of burning chips or there's a chap in the states who's a whiz and will burn me one for $80. The box is compatible with a few cars from the era including the Lotus Esprit. The main reason for buying it is because I also bought this:
It's a TPIS Miniram intake. I got it from Facebook marketplace! I have picked up some bargains over the years by trawling ebay.de and other left field classifieds but this tops them all. Someone was putting a small block Chevy in an Opel Manta and I guess this must have been on the top. With the throttle body, fuel rails, injectors and so on it's circa $2250 to purchase from the US. It was advertised for £900 but after a couple of weeks of brinkmanship my cheeky offer was accepted. Luckily I had a mutual facebook friend and was reassured if I sent hundreds of pounds to a stranger my intake would turn up in the post.
A little spiel on the Miniram then. Tuned Port Injection Specialities designed it to replace the long runner setup my car has. The intact tracts are some 25in from plenum to valve. This allows for great low down grunt but it just runs out of air much over 4500rpm and falls on its face. By comparison the Miniram has around 3in so you lose out on the bottom end of your power curve but make a lot more up the top. It's such an effective design that GM copied it for the LT1 engines, which came after mine.
Here's an LT1 intake:
And the Tuned Port Injection (TPI)
The other great advantage is that it's a one piece design. The TPI has a base, a pair of runners and a top plenum. They're held together with a myriad of Torx bolts and paper gaskets. It's a nightmare to remove them to access injectors/EGR etc and if you don't torque them in sequence you can easily get vacuum leaks. I've had the intake apart a couple of times in my ownership. With the Miniram the fuel rails are right there and it's only a few bolts to take the whole thing off.
This engine has a heavily ported long runner style intake and made 260bhp/280ft to the wheels. My car makes 250hp/350tq from the factory although I'd imagine a gain of 25ish for the long tube headers and dual exhaust.
This is the curve from the Miniram
So at 5800rpm it's making 36 more torque and 41 more bhp. Consider that is from a long tube setup with 260 at the wheels compared to my 270ish at the crank.
I don't have a plan yet on what to do with the intake but I just couldn't pass it up. With the 6 speed gearbox you're forever rowing through the gears since it makes peak power at 4400rpm. The miniram will keep going well over 6k rpm. Obviously this brings problems. My engine has over 100k on the clock now and I'm not sure it would appreciate me spinning it that fast! I could put the intake on and set a sensible rev limit of 5800rpm and aside from replacing the valve springs, it should be good to go. I'd expect a tad over 300bhp this way. However the heads & cam wouldn't be matched to the intake and I could go down the route of changing these also. Once the intake is off, it's not much more work to remove the heads. If I splurged £1k on some very nice ones and another few hundred on a cam and it will make an easy 400bhp. But I'm still on the old bottom end, so would pay for a rebuild. At that point you can fit 400ci rods & crank to make a 383ci rather than 350ci. This would give even more power and regain some of that low end grunt too. But now my cheap intake has cost me an engine rebuild. Or a crate engine. I'm currently saving to buy my first house so that won't happen anytime soon. I'm not sure then if I'd rather spend that money buying a C5Z06 which would offer similar performance but in a complete package. Likewise, the car is immense fun to drive as it is and will do solid mid 5 seconds to 60 thanks to all that torque.
My alternator was grumbling and voltage was getting pretty poor at idle so I ordered a new one and some other items. The standard alternator is a dated design from much earlier than the 89 model year but people have fitted a later style with no problems. So I ordered one for a 1996 Corvette, which puts out decent amps at low revs, doesn't get super hot and won't break if it spins too fast. A nice bit of future proofing for the new intake and I get a solid 14.1v at 600rpm with lights and AC on. Result!
With my MOT coming up I replaced the cremated rear tyres for some Khumo's. I bought these from eBay Germany for £75 a piece, great value for a decent tyre. A similar mid range tyre is £150 here. My rear bushes are original and the new Khumo's really highlighted this.
I ordered a set of polybushes by Energy Suspension. I have these on the front and they have been great, and being black don't stand out either. There's a rent-a-ramp business in Newport so I thought great, I'll pay hire it for a day and get it done. I couldn't get the rear camber strut free since the bolt was welded to the aluminium spindle. Fine, I'll do the tie rod ends. Nope, I needed male ends. I'll do the control arms then. Oh, the metal sleeves in the kit are .5mm too small. And to top it all off, I broke a shock bolt. These snug into captive bolts inside the frame rails. So after a day I put it back together having done 2 of 4 control arms and now needing an alignment. Fabulous. A quick setup and a week later I headed to Brands for DTM. Fed up with it then I put it away in the garage.
With my MOT due end of September and my confidence modest, I decided to prepare by going to Singapore for a couple of weeks and pay $20 for a pint. My thinking was I'd just leave it until February or something but I returned impatient with my savings decimated. A quick chat with my friendly mechanic and he agreed to take it to the MOT station for me. I screwed on my proper numberplate and hoped for the best!
Fail! Ah but just a side light, number plate light and handbrake efficiency. That's basically a pass for a 30 year old car in my books. The handbrake did something but not enough, so we figured a new set of cables would help. Duly ordered from the USA, they arrived in a few days. My mechanic had a workshop teeming with big jobs, so no worries, just change the cables and go. But of course, OEM AC Delco ones were different to whatever was originally fitted on my car. The eyelets were too long and the fitting on the other end was a different shape. The handbrake design changed in 1988 from the more typical shoes affair to a weird lever pushing on the pad design with no adjustment. I think Citroen had a similar misadventure? Anyway, 6 hours of playing with cables and brackets I had an MOT, very apologetic mechanic and the most expensive handbrake in town.
At least I'm on the road until next year and can go for a little drive out this autumn when the weather is nice like it was yesterday:
2019 will see another trip to Spa in May, this time with about 15 other cars and enough 80's shonkiness to recreate this image.
I've got a to-do list to make sure the trip is a good one. Finish off the rear end, bring new shocks back with me from NYC in January and get some kind of stereo working. I've seen some good double din android setups and think that would be in-keeping with the rest of the dash whilst giving me music, satnav etc in one place. I purchased a new fuel pump but noticed the rubber hoses have badly aged so that's something else to take care of now I'm aware. The pump is easy to change but the rear body clip has to come off to do the hoses in the factory route. Of course I'm tempted to fit that intake manifold too!
With my MOT coming up I replaced the cremated rear tyres for some Khumo's. I bought these from eBay Germany for £75 a piece, great value for a decent tyre. A similar mid range tyre is £150 here. My rear bushes are original and the new Khumo's really highlighted this.
I ordered a set of polybushes by Energy Suspension. I have these on the front and they have been great, and being black don't stand out either. There's a rent-a-ramp business in Newport so I thought great, I'll pay hire it for a day and get it done. I couldn't get the rear camber strut free since the bolt was welded to the aluminium spindle. Fine, I'll do the tie rod ends. Nope, I needed male ends. I'll do the control arms then. Oh, the metal sleeves in the kit are .5mm too small. And to top it all off, I broke a shock bolt. These snug into captive bolts inside the frame rails. So after a day I put it back together having done 2 of 4 control arms and now needing an alignment. Fabulous. A quick setup and a week later I headed to Brands for DTM. Fed up with it then I put it away in the garage.
With my MOT due end of September and my confidence modest, I decided to prepare by going to Singapore for a couple of weeks and pay $20 for a pint. My thinking was I'd just leave it until February or something but I returned impatient with my savings decimated. A quick chat with my friendly mechanic and he agreed to take it to the MOT station for me. I screwed on my proper numberplate and hoped for the best!
Fail! Ah but just a side light, number plate light and handbrake efficiency. That's basically a pass for a 30 year old car in my books. The handbrake did something but not enough, so we figured a new set of cables would help. Duly ordered from the USA, they arrived in a few days. My mechanic had a workshop teeming with big jobs, so no worries, just change the cables and go. But of course, OEM AC Delco ones were different to whatever was originally fitted on my car. The eyelets were too long and the fitting on the other end was a different shape. The handbrake design changed in 1988 from the more typical shoes affair to a weird lever pushing on the pad design with no adjustment. I think Citroen had a similar misadventure? Anyway, 6 hours of playing with cables and brackets I had an MOT, very apologetic mechanic and the most expensive handbrake in town.
At least I'm on the road until next year and can go for a little drive out this autumn when the weather is nice like it was yesterday:
2019 will see another trip to Spa in May, this time with about 15 other cars and enough 80's shonkiness to recreate this image.
I've got a to-do list to make sure the trip is a good one. Finish off the rear end, bring new shocks back with me from NYC in January and get some kind of stereo working. I've seen some good double din android setups and think that would be in-keeping with the rest of the dash whilst giving me music, satnav etc in one place. I purchased a new fuel pump but noticed the rubber hoses have badly aged so that's something else to take care of now I'm aware. The pump is easy to change but the rear body clip has to come off to do the hoses in the factory route. Of course I'm tempted to fit that intake manifold too!
Massive update incoming, luckily no-one is on 56k dial up now! I'll split it up into a couple of posts anyway.
On a rainy day in October I went to the Malvern show with my friend Vesa. His friend was visiting from Finland and is a classic Mini buff, so there was plenty for him to see. Shame the rest of the day was so wet.
Back in November I went to the NEC show, lots of nice stuff. Porsche GB stole the show in my opinion with a set of cars all refinished in gunmetal grey, logo seat fabric and black wheels. I had a catch up with my 924 mates from back in the day and fawned over a mint 937
Next up was the traditional NYE tunnel run with South Wales PH. Always a good laugh, last year I scarpered before it got too naughty. This entering the tunnel (it's a dual carriageway with roundabouts both ends, two seperate tunnels) the traffic Police closed the tunnel on the other side. So I went the other side of town as innocently as possible in a Corvette with long tube headers and a proper dual exhaust. We met up at a nearby estate, hosted by a local alloy wheel refurb businness. I had my friend Vesa along as a passenger. He has the LT1 auto but managed to snap his achilles tendon a few weeks before, so was on photo duty from the passenger seat.
The morning after it was up to the Classic Motor Hub for the New Year's day meet. This is a fantastic venue and fairly close too. Eclectic mix of cars and toffs in colourful trousers.
There was a car meet in Bristol then, it was great to see a lot of younger people passionate about their cars but not really my scene. Still a chance for a geek out with Mark who bought his 4 speed big block Camaro along. This has the most optimistic displacement to tyre ratio, I'd love a go one day!
January saw a trip to NY. I had some work interviewing a Roma gypsy in the city as part of a project I'm working on and this helped cover my costs. Meanwhile, my girlfriend was visiting her family and it was great to get the chance to meet her brother, who has a tastefully modified S4. It makes circa 440bhp. We had a great evening not talking about family or Christmas but just blasting around. I'm lucky enough that this was my third time in NY so it was neat to see a bit more upstate than before. After seeing DTM at Brands Hatch the summer previously, I bought an Audi Sport cap and had it signed by all the factory drivers. It made for a nice Christmas present for him and a thank you for keeping some parts I'd got delivered to him. Sadly, I broke up with my girlfriend not long after, so that connection has also come to an end.
I couldn't believe how cheap it was to put half a tank of fuel in!
Apparently these are McMansions in the background. A weird pastiche of style, or lack of.
Coming up to the end of January I went to a great new meet-up in Newport. The parents of the organiser own a garden centre, which is the perfect space for an early morning meet, with the coffee shop open too! Most of us then went on a convoy drive through Monmouthshire, with the American Police cars leading the way. It was a bit surreal following them through the countryside, I felt like I could've been on set in True Detective. Having an American car I thought it would be a laugh to setup a photo getting pulled over. Well, they were too happy to oblige and the next thing I know, my head is slammed down on the bonnet and there's a clip of dollar bills and bag of aspirin next to me for effect!!
February I had a day free and took my trusty Volvo D5 up to Stoneleigh Park for Race Retro. I've never been to this event before and it was great to see some special cars up close with enthusiastic owners. There were some great trade stands too, in particular a book one. I love to pore over books and bought a couple of very nice photo books for my burgeoning collection. (Perhaps a future thread?)
On a rainy day in October I went to the Malvern show with my friend Vesa. His friend was visiting from Finland and is a classic Mini buff, so there was plenty for him to see. Shame the rest of the day was so wet.
Back in November I went to the NEC show, lots of nice stuff. Porsche GB stole the show in my opinion with a set of cars all refinished in gunmetal grey, logo seat fabric and black wheels. I had a catch up with my 924 mates from back in the day and fawned over a mint 937
Next up was the traditional NYE tunnel run with South Wales PH. Always a good laugh, last year I scarpered before it got too naughty. This entering the tunnel (it's a dual carriageway with roundabouts both ends, two seperate tunnels) the traffic Police closed the tunnel on the other side. So I went the other side of town as innocently as possible in a Corvette with long tube headers and a proper dual exhaust. We met up at a nearby estate, hosted by a local alloy wheel refurb businness. I had my friend Vesa along as a passenger. He has the LT1 auto but managed to snap his achilles tendon a few weeks before, so was on photo duty from the passenger seat.
The morning after it was up to the Classic Motor Hub for the New Year's day meet. This is a fantastic venue and fairly close too. Eclectic mix of cars and toffs in colourful trousers.
There was a car meet in Bristol then, it was great to see a lot of younger people passionate about their cars but not really my scene. Still a chance for a geek out with Mark who bought his 4 speed big block Camaro along. This has the most optimistic displacement to tyre ratio, I'd love a go one day!
January saw a trip to NY. I had some work interviewing a Roma gypsy in the city as part of a project I'm working on and this helped cover my costs. Meanwhile, my girlfriend was visiting her family and it was great to get the chance to meet her brother, who has a tastefully modified S4. It makes circa 440bhp. We had a great evening not talking about family or Christmas but just blasting around. I'm lucky enough that this was my third time in NY so it was neat to see a bit more upstate than before. After seeing DTM at Brands Hatch the summer previously, I bought an Audi Sport cap and had it signed by all the factory drivers. It made for a nice Christmas present for him and a thank you for keeping some parts I'd got delivered to him. Sadly, I broke up with my girlfriend not long after, so that connection has also come to an end.
I couldn't believe how cheap it was to put half a tank of fuel in!
Apparently these are McMansions in the background. A weird pastiche of style, or lack of.
Coming up to the end of January I went to a great new meet-up in Newport. The parents of the organiser own a garden centre, which is the perfect space for an early morning meet, with the coffee shop open too! Most of us then went on a convoy drive through Monmouthshire, with the American Police cars leading the way. It was a bit surreal following them through the countryside, I felt like I could've been on set in True Detective. Having an American car I thought it would be a laugh to setup a photo getting pulled over. Well, they were too happy to oblige and the next thing I know, my head is slammed down on the bonnet and there's a clip of dollar bills and bag of aspirin next to me for effect!!
February I had a day free and took my trusty Volvo D5 up to Stoneleigh Park for Race Retro. I've never been to this event before and it was great to see some special cars up close with enthusiastic owners. There were some great trade stands too, in particular a book one. I love to pore over books and bought a couple of very nice photo books for my burgeoning collection. (Perhaps a future thread?)
In preparation for my trip to Spa in May I'd collected all the parts to finish off the suspension rebuild. A couple of years ago the car was lowered with polybushes on the front and new front balljoints. Now I had to replace the shocks and fit polybushes to the rear. I also picked up adjustable camber strut rods to get rid of the eccentric bolt setup. My car has a rare factory option called FX3. These are 3 way electronically adjustable Bilsetin shocks. They could only be ordered with a manual gearbox and Z51 package (the handling pack, which has 13” brakes, PAS cooler, big ARB etc) However Bilstein UK wanted £200 per shock to rebuild them, plus the actuators on the top are a similar price. So I decided to ditch that system and get a set of Bilstein B8. Strangely, they're cheaper from the USA, just £360 for the set including postage, VAT & duties. I've kept onto all the FX3 parts should someone want to rebuild them in the future. I gave the car to a local specialist who finished off the rear polybushes for me after I battled with half of them. My brake master cylinder (new in autumn 2016) failed and leaked into the booster, killing that too. Perhaps hastily installed by the MOT station at the time, it was replaced by him, along with a new metal brake booster. Apparently the plastic factory ones can crack from the heat of long tube headers like I have. Frustrating to replace these parts but hopefully they'll last this time. He also did a wonderful job of replacing all the brake lines. They were spliced into about 6 sections. Now it's 1 line from ABS unit (behind the rear seat) to caliper. Braided brake hoses were added. My fuel lines were also in a sorry state, the rubber hoses coming off the tank (just behind the rear bumper) were dry rotted and this played on my mind as soon as I had seen them. So the car has all new fuel lines too. It stops better than ever and I've got peace of mind now. A fairly big bill to start the year but totally worth it in my opinion. Collecting the suspension parts over time also helped spread the cost.
When I got the car back and had a fast road alignment done, I couldn't believe the difference! What a shame I hadn't done it sooner! Almost all the rattles have gone, and it's very taught & responsive! Before the back end would feel nervous over bumps and it wouldn't like poor road surfaces. Now it's much more confidence inspiring and easy to make the most of that 5.7L and LSD. I ended up driving around mid Wales such was the fun I was having.
Another excuse to go for a roadtrip and my first visit to Caffiene & Machine, what a lovely venue! Plenty of interesting cars coming & going all day and a decent soya latte for me.
Now my friend Vesa is recovering well from his tendon trauma and asked if I wanted to come to Oulton Park for a drifting day. I checked my calendar and it was at the end of a rest week, so my ticket was purchased! We decided to drive up the day before, and since we had all day, we took the A470 from the bottom of Wales to the top. This is a stunning drive I can recommend to anyone, Wales is a wonderful country with such diverse environments.
We stayed at the Royal Oak hotel close to Oulton Park. This comes highly recommended, secure parking, a decent bar and the chef got up early especially so we didn't miss breakfast on Friday morning. It was organised by Dave, of £7700 Corvette C6 fame. I rejoined the Classic Corvette Club having been previously disappointed by the OAP Sunday dinners with nothing car related happening. It was great fun to thrash about with like minded owners for the first time. To begin with I didn't give it enough throttle and under steered a bit. When the track was wet, the short wheel base of the C4 and heaps of torque let me turn it into a spinning top. Once the track dried a bit, it was more manageable and I had some good slides going on. I thought I was getting good at the last corner, then promptly took out 4 cones and got told off by the marshals. Oops! The car was very well behaved all day, my power steering fluid got a bit hot so that's on my list to change now. I felt like I really bonded with the car on the day, I've loved owning it so far, through the typical highs & lows of owning a 30 year old car. However after this trip it really impressed me and I feel like it's got to be my car for a long time now. The following day we drove home through Shropshire and avoided any motorways from Oulton Park down to Cardiff again. Two filthy Corvettes got plenty of stares as we made progress!
Didn't save this one!
This weekend I cleaned the muck off the car and took some photos. It's 5 years ago that I bought the Porsche 924 Turbo and made images in the same spot. A fantastic car to own at 24, I bought the C4 at 26 and now in the final year of my 20's they've taught me a huge amount. Two very different cars, 80's turbo lag and a fussy dogleg gearbox versus the instant torque of a 5.7L V8 and a stout ZF 6 speed. Years after I sold the turbo I pined for it, but now I've got to say the C4 is a more spectacular & rewarding car!
Oh and I bought these.
Speedline Alessio 3 piece wheels. Originally from an Aston DB7, they're the proper 5x120.65 PCD but the offset is a bit out and they're only 8” wide. I paid a good price so in the future I'll pick up some wider barrels to make them up to 18x10/12 ish. They're 18” compared to my 17” so there's more tyres available. And they're a nice homage to my Porsche passions. For the rear I bought some arch flares from eBay.de for under £200. It's $495 for a set in the USA. As my luck would have it, they're genuine NOS items. These were fitted to the Grand Sport model, who remembers that from Gran Turismo?
When I got the car back and had a fast road alignment done, I couldn't believe the difference! What a shame I hadn't done it sooner! Almost all the rattles have gone, and it's very taught & responsive! Before the back end would feel nervous over bumps and it wouldn't like poor road surfaces. Now it's much more confidence inspiring and easy to make the most of that 5.7L and LSD. I ended up driving around mid Wales such was the fun I was having.
Another excuse to go for a roadtrip and my first visit to Caffiene & Machine, what a lovely venue! Plenty of interesting cars coming & going all day and a decent soya latte for me.
Now my friend Vesa is recovering well from his tendon trauma and asked if I wanted to come to Oulton Park for a drifting day. I checked my calendar and it was at the end of a rest week, so my ticket was purchased! We decided to drive up the day before, and since we had all day, we took the A470 from the bottom of Wales to the top. This is a stunning drive I can recommend to anyone, Wales is a wonderful country with such diverse environments.
We stayed at the Royal Oak hotel close to Oulton Park. This comes highly recommended, secure parking, a decent bar and the chef got up early especially so we didn't miss breakfast on Friday morning. It was organised by Dave, of £7700 Corvette C6 fame. I rejoined the Classic Corvette Club having been previously disappointed by the OAP Sunday dinners with nothing car related happening. It was great fun to thrash about with like minded owners for the first time. To begin with I didn't give it enough throttle and under steered a bit. When the track was wet, the short wheel base of the C4 and heaps of torque let me turn it into a spinning top. Once the track dried a bit, it was more manageable and I had some good slides going on. I thought I was getting good at the last corner, then promptly took out 4 cones and got told off by the marshals. Oops! The car was very well behaved all day, my power steering fluid got a bit hot so that's on my list to change now. I felt like I really bonded with the car on the day, I've loved owning it so far, through the typical highs & lows of owning a 30 year old car. However after this trip it really impressed me and I feel like it's got to be my car for a long time now. The following day we drove home through Shropshire and avoided any motorways from Oulton Park down to Cardiff again. Two filthy Corvettes got plenty of stares as we made progress!
Didn't save this one!
This weekend I cleaned the muck off the car and took some photos. It's 5 years ago that I bought the Porsche 924 Turbo and made images in the same spot. A fantastic car to own at 24, I bought the C4 at 26 and now in the final year of my 20's they've taught me a huge amount. Two very different cars, 80's turbo lag and a fussy dogleg gearbox versus the instant torque of a 5.7L V8 and a stout ZF 6 speed. Years after I sold the turbo I pined for it, but now I've got to say the C4 is a more spectacular & rewarding car!
Oh and I bought these.
Speedline Alessio 3 piece wheels. Originally from an Aston DB7, they're the proper 5x120.65 PCD but the offset is a bit out and they're only 8” wide. I paid a good price so in the future I'll pick up some wider barrels to make them up to 18x10/12 ish. They're 18” compared to my 17” so there's more tyres available. And they're a nice homage to my Porsche passions. For the rear I bought some arch flares from eBay.de for under £200. It's $495 for a set in the USA. As my luck would have it, they're genuine NOS items. These were fitted to the Grand Sport model, who remembers that from Gran Turismo?
Edited by FelixP on Sunday 21st April 22:13
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