1989 Corvette C4 6 Speed Manual
Discussion
I've been having more fun with the car the last week. I met up with a Facebook group for American car owners in the South Wales area last Sunday for a little drive out. It was great to have a proper geek out about marque/model specific issues.
Loved this Buick
And the factory decals on this Camaro. Just like a vintage advert!
This Camaro was in great condition and we'd been through similar Tuned Port Injection woes.
Had a passenger ride in the yellow Mustang. Supercharged, heads, cam etc. Allegedly 800bhp. Felt very big compared to my car and nothing has touched the >400bhp 944 Turbo I went in once when it comes to performance.
Earlier that morning we were at the Queen's Square breakfast meet in Bristol, always worth the trip over for an eclectic mix of cars.
The past weekend both me & my girlfriend were off work so a little trip was in order with the forecast looking good and the car running sweetly. We went down to Cornwall, no squeaks or rattles, air con blowing (okay, wheezing) cold, returning 25mpg and making progress.
Looks tiny in St Ives car park:
On the road to Lands End. The new balljoints, polybushes and a proper alignment have made the car a pleasure to weave through B roads. We managed the trip seeing only a couple of caravans and one tractor! When the Corvette C4 was launched, it could pull 1G driving around a skidpan. It hasn't lost any of that mechanical grip now it's lowered and with the quick steering rack, it's great on twisty roads. You don't have to put lots of big inputs in and it goes where you point it.
At Lands End we saw a group of Germans doing an aircooled UK tour. They had 3 mint (mint, mint) Karmann Ghias and a late Beetle on Fuchs.
This is the closest my girlfriend has come to being home in New York for awhile, just 3147 miles if the sign is to be believed.
Saw this awesome over-land-cruiser in the car park too!
Meanwhile it looks much sleeker with the Corvette panel in place, I'm sure it helps economy too...
Found the ulitmate parking spot in Mousehole, no door dings here!
On the way home we were making good time when we came up to a new C63 AMG and played for a few miles. I hope the kid in the back goes on to buy some shonky old thing later. I still remember when a Detomaso Pantera overtook us when I was 6...
Loved this Buick
And the factory decals on this Camaro. Just like a vintage advert!
This Camaro was in great condition and we'd been through similar Tuned Port Injection woes.
Had a passenger ride in the yellow Mustang. Supercharged, heads, cam etc. Allegedly 800bhp. Felt very big compared to my car and nothing has touched the >400bhp 944 Turbo I went in once when it comes to performance.
Earlier that morning we were at the Queen's Square breakfast meet in Bristol, always worth the trip over for an eclectic mix of cars.
The past weekend both me & my girlfriend were off work so a little trip was in order with the forecast looking good and the car running sweetly. We went down to Cornwall, no squeaks or rattles, air con blowing (okay, wheezing) cold, returning 25mpg and making progress.
Looks tiny in St Ives car park:
On the road to Lands End. The new balljoints, polybushes and a proper alignment have made the car a pleasure to weave through B roads. We managed the trip seeing only a couple of caravans and one tractor! When the Corvette C4 was launched, it could pull 1G driving around a skidpan. It hasn't lost any of that mechanical grip now it's lowered and with the quick steering rack, it's great on twisty roads. You don't have to put lots of big inputs in and it goes where you point it.
At Lands End we saw a group of Germans doing an aircooled UK tour. They had 3 mint (mint, mint) Karmann Ghias and a late Beetle on Fuchs.
This is the closest my girlfriend has come to being home in New York for awhile, just 3147 miles if the sign is to be believed.
Saw this awesome over-land-cruiser in the car park too!
Meanwhile it looks much sleeker with the Corvette panel in place, I'm sure it helps economy too...
Found the ulitmate parking spot in Mousehole, no door dings here!
On the way home we were making good time when we came up to a new C63 AMG and played for a few miles. I hope the kid in the back goes on to buy some shonky old thing later. I still remember when a Detomaso Pantera overtook us when I was 6...
Edited by FelixP on Monday 22 May 11:18
Edited by FelixP on Sunday 14th May 14:03
Changed the blower motor today. The old one was grumbly and feeble. Rockauto (US Eurocarparts basically) had a VDO one for £12. Loosen the inner wheel arch (3 screws) and then there's a few easily accessible bolts on the blower motor, then out it comes. 15 minutes later and I have a blast of cold air, excellent!
It's been awhile! The clutch release bearing bent like a pringle and so it has been out of action. Input shaft bearing just fell out, frustrating as the clutch was new only 18 months ago.
Had a complete new clutch kit fitted, tapped in a new bronze bush on the input shaft and then had some other bits done too. It's got new rear wheel bearings, discs & pads and a new starter. The old one let me down twice when it was really heat soaked so I thought best to change it since I also have long tube headers now! They are snug but fitted fine. Seemed a shame to have the old exhaust adapted, so I raided the piggy bank and got a true dual one made. It's quieter now it has back boxes but pulls a lot stronger, especially up in the higher rev range. Having been without it for 10 weeks I just want to drive it everywhere now!
Had a complete new clutch kit fitted, tapped in a new bronze bush on the input shaft and then had some other bits done too. It's got new rear wheel bearings, discs & pads and a new starter. The old one let me down twice when it was really heat soaked so I thought best to change it since I also have long tube headers now! They are snug but fitted fine. Seemed a shame to have the old exhaust adapted, so I raided the piggy bank and got a true dual one made. It's quieter now it has back boxes but pulls a lot stronger, especially up in the higher rev range. Having been without it for 10 weeks I just want to drive it everywhere now!
After I had the exhaust fitted it was time for MOT. It would've been a clean pass but for a brake pipe splitting! Luckily during the test. They thought the fluid looked a bit rubbish too so we replaced the master cylinder at the same time. I ordered this on a Friday from Rock Auto in the states. There's an option to prepay VAT so it goes straight through customs and you don't get stuck with extra handling charges either. It was shipped from New Jersey on Friday and delivered at the garage in Cardiff on Monday morning!! I doubt if you ordered a part from most places in the UK on a Friday that it would turn up the next working day, never mind from the US!
I made the most of a fading summer catching up with friends and cruising around. Funny to think our trio here cost broadly the same, but are all very different! I also went to Cars & Coffee in Cowbridge, which had a great turn out of all sorts.
So now with a few drives and a clean MOT, I broke it again...
A friend with a later LT1 model kept nagging me to go on the dyno and with the new exhaust, I was interested in what difference it made. The dyno was mainly a BMW specialist but the owner had a couple of Maserati's. I won't name them but this dyno was meant to be the most accurate in Wales “because he knows what power his cars have and it gives a reading that agrees with this”. The lambda equipment wasn't working either, so no way to tell air/fuel ratio. To compound problems, they hadn't put an automatic on the dyno before and there was no easy way to stop the LT1 kicking down. Nevertheless caught up in the excitement, I let them put my car on the rollers...
A short video:
https://streamable.com/aoii8
It made 250bhp/350ft at the wheels, which is the stock figure at the crank, so a decent improvement. Anyway, at the end of the last dyno run there was a misfire... It was ok again for a minute as I headed home but them it was back. I did the simple stuff first, changing all the ignition parts and found a burnt plug wire. New ones made no difference, so went through fuel pressure, compression test, sniffer test, throttle position sensor voltage etc. I couldn't find the problem. I got fed up and returned to it later and finally got to the bottom of it, thanks to daylight savings. I keep the car in a rented double garage between some terrace houses, so try not to be much of a nuisance out of hours. Anyway, with darker evenings, I started it up and noticed one of the leads was shorting against the header! D'oh! I have little heatproof socks to protect the leads but when I put new leads on, I didn't bother fitting them. I had the wires further away than before but fitted standard AC Delco ones rather than the fatter silicone ones I had previously. This was just enough to make the spark jump. Routing them very carefully and I'm back on the road! Phew! A good lesson in checking and rechecking the simple things and I feel a rich man after looking down the barrel of engine work...
The LT1 interior loses all the retro appeal of mine I think:
Whilst it was in a state of disrepair I was trawling the classifieds for another transaxle Porsche or even thinking of a modern one as a daily. Well I forgot how much fun this car was! Trying to get all that torque onto wet tarmac with nothing to help you is tremendous fun. You can hardly get it off the line and have to carefully squeeze the pedal in the lower gears. Likewise in the dry, when it bites there's instant go and it's equally entertaining to leave black lines every time you're at the front of the traffic lights.
My other good news is a wheel purchase. I bought the rare 3 piece split rims from Austria late last year. The anxiety is always that one will get damaged and be difficult to replace. So imagine my thrill when the seller contacted me a couple of weeks ago to say he'd found a NOS spare in his attic and offered to post it to me for 50 euros! It's 17x9 so can replace the front wheel that has some lacquer peeling and kerbing. I'm tempted to see if I can get some 18” barrels and make up some 18x11 rears then. It's hard to get tyres to suit a 17x10.5” rim here. Albeit a ZR1, this is what it could look like!
I was anticipating spending a bit of cash on the misfire and just got a healthy wedge of back pay from work so I've ordered a new aux belt, tensioner and pulleys since it's sounding a bit squeaky. Hopefully I'll have a few fun times over winter and then onto a decent summer, I'm thinking Le Mans classic...
I made the most of a fading summer catching up with friends and cruising around. Funny to think our trio here cost broadly the same, but are all very different! I also went to Cars & Coffee in Cowbridge, which had a great turn out of all sorts.
So now with a few drives and a clean MOT, I broke it again...
A friend with a later LT1 model kept nagging me to go on the dyno and with the new exhaust, I was interested in what difference it made. The dyno was mainly a BMW specialist but the owner had a couple of Maserati's. I won't name them but this dyno was meant to be the most accurate in Wales “because he knows what power his cars have and it gives a reading that agrees with this”. The lambda equipment wasn't working either, so no way to tell air/fuel ratio. To compound problems, they hadn't put an automatic on the dyno before and there was no easy way to stop the LT1 kicking down. Nevertheless caught up in the excitement, I let them put my car on the rollers...
A short video:
https://streamable.com/aoii8
It made 250bhp/350ft at the wheels, which is the stock figure at the crank, so a decent improvement. Anyway, at the end of the last dyno run there was a misfire... It was ok again for a minute as I headed home but them it was back. I did the simple stuff first, changing all the ignition parts and found a burnt plug wire. New ones made no difference, so went through fuel pressure, compression test, sniffer test, throttle position sensor voltage etc. I couldn't find the problem. I got fed up and returned to it later and finally got to the bottom of it, thanks to daylight savings. I keep the car in a rented double garage between some terrace houses, so try not to be much of a nuisance out of hours. Anyway, with darker evenings, I started it up and noticed one of the leads was shorting against the header! D'oh! I have little heatproof socks to protect the leads but when I put new leads on, I didn't bother fitting them. I had the wires further away than before but fitted standard AC Delco ones rather than the fatter silicone ones I had previously. This was just enough to make the spark jump. Routing them very carefully and I'm back on the road! Phew! A good lesson in checking and rechecking the simple things and I feel a rich man after looking down the barrel of engine work...
The LT1 interior loses all the retro appeal of mine I think:
Whilst it was in a state of disrepair I was trawling the classifieds for another transaxle Porsche or even thinking of a modern one as a daily. Well I forgot how much fun this car was! Trying to get all that torque onto wet tarmac with nothing to help you is tremendous fun. You can hardly get it off the line and have to carefully squeeze the pedal in the lower gears. Likewise in the dry, when it bites there's instant go and it's equally entertaining to leave black lines every time you're at the front of the traffic lights.
My other good news is a wheel purchase. I bought the rare 3 piece split rims from Austria late last year. The anxiety is always that one will get damaged and be difficult to replace. So imagine my thrill when the seller contacted me a couple of weeks ago to say he'd found a NOS spare in his attic and offered to post it to me for 50 euros! It's 17x9 so can replace the front wheel that has some lacquer peeling and kerbing. I'm tempted to see if I can get some 18” barrels and make up some 18x11 rears then. It's hard to get tyres to suit a 17x10.5” rim here. Albeit a ZR1, this is what it could look like!
I was anticipating spending a bit of cash on the misfire and just got a healthy wedge of back pay from work so I've ordered a new aux belt, tensioner and pulleys since it's sounding a bit squeaky. Hopefully I'll have a few fun times over winter and then onto a decent summer, I'm thinking Le Mans classic...
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
Cheers guys!
Yes I'd like to refinish the centres to gunmetal, black maybe too much? Always loved the look of this ZR1. Will hopefully build my wheels to the same size
Hopefully going to fit a working radio tomorrow, ready for Spa in 2 weeks! Was a passenger with my friend in his LT1 on a Llandow trackday on Saturday, will have to put some photos up.
Yes I'd like to refinish the centres to gunmetal, black maybe too much? Always loved the look of this ZR1. Will hopefully build my wheels to the same size
Hopefully going to fit a working radio tomorrow, ready for Spa in 2 weeks! Was a passenger with my friend in his LT1 on a Llandow trackday on Saturday, will have to put some photos up.
I've had a busy month in the Corvette again, with another successful trip to Spa completed!
A friend with a supercharged MX5 asked me last year if I wanted to tag along to a larger Spa trip that was being organised and happily it fitted in with my week off shift work. There was a WhatsApp group setup and seeing everyone prep their cars, whether it was new cylinder heads or ceramic coating was a great motivator! I finally sorted out the stereo in my car first of all. The Bose system (called “Blose” Stateside) had never worked in my ownership. Until recently I just stuck a Bluetooth speaker in the cup holder or listened to that throbbing V8. However I'd seen a few people adapt the 1.5DIN opening to fit a 2DIN Android unit and it looked like an excellent way to consolidate music, sat nav, data logging etc. I bought some Pioneer speakers and ran all new wiring. The Bose system was vastly expensive in it's day, with each speaker having it's own amp in a housing. These speakers have a different impedance to standard ones and so I decided it was best to slightly trim the speaker housings to accept 4x4 and 6x4 speakers, leaving all the Bose stuff there should I ever sell the car and someone wants to reinstate it. I had to make a small cut in the centre of the dash to allow the double din unit to fit on top of the climate control but it wasn't anything drastic. I chose an Xtrons unit having seen the one in Geraint's Boxster S (an excellent thread on here) Someone was selling the exact model I wanted on eBay as an unwanted warranty replacement so I picked it up for £80! I was surprised how cheap car audio stuff is, the whole project owes me around £150. The sound quality isn't amazing but it's a 30 year old fibreglass car with a 5.7L V8. With the GPS antenna stuck out the way and using my phone as a hot spot, Google Maps & Waze work perfectly. I've got access to Amazon music too, so can just say “Alex play..” and it starts right up. Happily the power aerial works too! I haven't committed to cutting the centre console yet but I'm just waiting for a suitable double din fascia that will fit with the rest of the console.
My diff has a leak at the half shafts which I will need to address (diff out job ugh) but in the meantime I changed the oil with my friend Vesa, who has the LT1. There's no drain plug on the Dana 44 in my car so we used a Lidl oil pump which worked a treat. It was topped off with the correct fluid for the LSD. We toyed with the idea of taking a full size spare wheel in the carrier, but it looked hysterical! Space saver and tyre shop would be our preferred precaution for the Spa trip.
Checking header collector bolts first
Quick shakedown over the mountain
Lots of people I'd be travelling with had very shiny cars and Geraint kindly loaned me his dual action polisher, so that was the last bit of work to do before I went. When I bought the car the paint was almost perfect and the owner never drove it in the rain. Well I've gone on to park it in the centre of Cardiff, drift it around Oulton Park etc and so it's not what it used to be. I really am not interested in polishing instead of driving but it was satisfying to get it looking good again! I used some Meguairs compound, polish and wax. There's still a few deeper scratches and the scuffs from other people parallel parking against the bumpers. The whole process took me about 4 hours so I imagine it could look even better if you spent a whole day on it.
I forget how purposeful my car looks until I see a stock C4 on stilts with positive rear camber!
The eve of the channel tunnel crossing we all stayed at a Travelodge in Ashford. After meeting everyone and having a few beers I went to get my stuff out of the car. I thought I was done, so slid the lock closed and swung the door shut. At this point Vesa said “wait” and I went to stop the door with my hand. Well it only closed on my finger hard enough the lock caught. Thanks to the beer I was able to use my other hand to reach into my pocket, unlock the door and open it to free my finger. At the reception I was told where A&E was but went for the wrap it in plasters and look after the weekend option. It was a bit dire but somehow didn't cause too much grief and after a week pretty much healed up.
The next morning we got the tunnel to France. It's not since a school trip I'd been on there and I was impressed by the station, it was like a small airport! Still I prefer the ferry, it's nice to walk around for a couple of hours and chill out rather than be stuck in a train carriage for 30mins before driving again. The organiser had done a fantastic job (thanks if you're a reader Dave!) with routes planned and just simple reminders of “set your alarm for tomorrow now” that ensured we mostly stuck together. The group was large enough (about 20) that we could split up and do what we were more interested in. On the road we followed a couple of directions to ensure we stayed on the scenic route. Vesa had experience in his native Finland of navigating a rally car so was the perfect passenger, quite how he could read a map whilst I hammered it through the Ardennes I'm not sure! At one point one of my plug leads fell onto the header and cooked itself, something I was prepared for with a spare set. We changed the lead but had lost the pack, so took another route. It was almost deserted and we peeled back on the main route just behind the Esprit V8 twin turbo. Chasing them was a bit like playing Need For Speed 3 back in the day! There was a great selection of cars on the trip, from the Lotus to supercharged MX5, a stunning Porsche 924 Carrera GT evocation, Merc SL500 and so on. We all had a similar power to weight ratio so everyone was having a blast!
At Spa it was the Summer Classic event, with all the historics I enjoy and a strong Group C contingent. Some of us had track time booked, which was very haphazard. We got a sticker, put on our helmets and were called to pitlane. A marshall roughly divided us into two groups (slow & fast I think?) and then we were off! There were too many cars on track, too close together. We never really went more than 5/10 and before the first lap was up a Corvette C6 had binned it at the top of Eau Rouge behind us and it was red flagged. Subsequent track time was behind the medical car. Nevermind, it was a taster and I'd love to do a proper track day at Spa now!
On the second last day the heavens opened approaching France. The last time I saw rain like that was in Malaysia! Water drained off the adjacent fields and the inside two lanes became a river. It was so bad we pulled into the first services and waited it out for about an hour. Again I was quite impressed the car dealt with it no problems, it was like driving through a ford for a few miles!!
Rain starting to pick up
Last stop was to get some beer and then we made it back to Wales. Again, I feel like I've really got to know the car and it continues to impress. There's not many 30 year old cars you could drift around Oulton Park one month and then head towards Eau Rouge flat out before driving home again having just swapped a spark plug lead!
Quick plug lead check before heading home
Back home I met up with my friend Matt who I hadn't seen for a couple of years. Waaay back when I had my white 924 as a student he had helped me out. At the time he owned a W123 series Mercedes but now he was the proud owner of an American import too, a gorgeous W108.
On the weekend I revisited the Classic Motorhub in Bibury. I think this is one of the best regular events going, so it's great that I'm only 1 ½ hrs away. I was going to drive up with Mark in his big block Camaro but that's a bit lively at the best of times and rain was forecast, so I gave him a lift. It was funny letting him drive the C4, he couldn't believe how sharp it was! The 2 turns lock to lock makes the steering very reponsive and with new polybushes and shocks, it corners very flat. He said it was only when he went over catseyes did he realise how stiff it was, otherwise the car is nicely compliant. At the event I saw couple of ZR1's, the first time I've seen them. A very impressive engine and sometimes I wish I'd bought one. However I feel better putting the miles on my car and the basic nature of the 350 appealed. When I owned the 924 Turbo Carrera GT rep I realised a highly strung car with hard to find parts frustrated me. And besides, I'm just heads & cam away from trouncing a ZR1 when I put my new intake on.
The ZR1 is a 32v twin cam with 16 injectors...
6”2 in a Diablo, it's a nope! And ouch, that gearbox and clutch is horrible!
A friend with a supercharged MX5 asked me last year if I wanted to tag along to a larger Spa trip that was being organised and happily it fitted in with my week off shift work. There was a WhatsApp group setup and seeing everyone prep their cars, whether it was new cylinder heads or ceramic coating was a great motivator! I finally sorted out the stereo in my car first of all. The Bose system (called “Blose” Stateside) had never worked in my ownership. Until recently I just stuck a Bluetooth speaker in the cup holder or listened to that throbbing V8. However I'd seen a few people adapt the 1.5DIN opening to fit a 2DIN Android unit and it looked like an excellent way to consolidate music, sat nav, data logging etc. I bought some Pioneer speakers and ran all new wiring. The Bose system was vastly expensive in it's day, with each speaker having it's own amp in a housing. These speakers have a different impedance to standard ones and so I decided it was best to slightly trim the speaker housings to accept 4x4 and 6x4 speakers, leaving all the Bose stuff there should I ever sell the car and someone wants to reinstate it. I had to make a small cut in the centre of the dash to allow the double din unit to fit on top of the climate control but it wasn't anything drastic. I chose an Xtrons unit having seen the one in Geraint's Boxster S (an excellent thread on here) Someone was selling the exact model I wanted on eBay as an unwanted warranty replacement so I picked it up for £80! I was surprised how cheap car audio stuff is, the whole project owes me around £150. The sound quality isn't amazing but it's a 30 year old fibreglass car with a 5.7L V8. With the GPS antenna stuck out the way and using my phone as a hot spot, Google Maps & Waze work perfectly. I've got access to Amazon music too, so can just say “Alex play..” and it starts right up. Happily the power aerial works too! I haven't committed to cutting the centre console yet but I'm just waiting for a suitable double din fascia that will fit with the rest of the console.
My diff has a leak at the half shafts which I will need to address (diff out job ugh) but in the meantime I changed the oil with my friend Vesa, who has the LT1. There's no drain plug on the Dana 44 in my car so we used a Lidl oil pump which worked a treat. It was topped off with the correct fluid for the LSD. We toyed with the idea of taking a full size spare wheel in the carrier, but it looked hysterical! Space saver and tyre shop would be our preferred precaution for the Spa trip.
Checking header collector bolts first
Quick shakedown over the mountain
Lots of people I'd be travelling with had very shiny cars and Geraint kindly loaned me his dual action polisher, so that was the last bit of work to do before I went. When I bought the car the paint was almost perfect and the owner never drove it in the rain. Well I've gone on to park it in the centre of Cardiff, drift it around Oulton Park etc and so it's not what it used to be. I really am not interested in polishing instead of driving but it was satisfying to get it looking good again! I used some Meguairs compound, polish and wax. There's still a few deeper scratches and the scuffs from other people parallel parking against the bumpers. The whole process took me about 4 hours so I imagine it could look even better if you spent a whole day on it.
I forget how purposeful my car looks until I see a stock C4 on stilts with positive rear camber!
The eve of the channel tunnel crossing we all stayed at a Travelodge in Ashford. After meeting everyone and having a few beers I went to get my stuff out of the car. I thought I was done, so slid the lock closed and swung the door shut. At this point Vesa said “wait” and I went to stop the door with my hand. Well it only closed on my finger hard enough the lock caught. Thanks to the beer I was able to use my other hand to reach into my pocket, unlock the door and open it to free my finger. At the reception I was told where A&E was but went for the wrap it in plasters and look after the weekend option. It was a bit dire but somehow didn't cause too much grief and after a week pretty much healed up.
The next morning we got the tunnel to France. It's not since a school trip I'd been on there and I was impressed by the station, it was like a small airport! Still I prefer the ferry, it's nice to walk around for a couple of hours and chill out rather than be stuck in a train carriage for 30mins before driving again. The organiser had done a fantastic job (thanks if you're a reader Dave!) with routes planned and just simple reminders of “set your alarm for tomorrow now” that ensured we mostly stuck together. The group was large enough (about 20) that we could split up and do what we were more interested in. On the road we followed a couple of directions to ensure we stayed on the scenic route. Vesa had experience in his native Finland of navigating a rally car so was the perfect passenger, quite how he could read a map whilst I hammered it through the Ardennes I'm not sure! At one point one of my plug leads fell onto the header and cooked itself, something I was prepared for with a spare set. We changed the lead but had lost the pack, so took another route. It was almost deserted and we peeled back on the main route just behind the Esprit V8 twin turbo. Chasing them was a bit like playing Need For Speed 3 back in the day! There was a great selection of cars on the trip, from the Lotus to supercharged MX5, a stunning Porsche 924 Carrera GT evocation, Merc SL500 and so on. We all had a similar power to weight ratio so everyone was having a blast!
At Spa it was the Summer Classic event, with all the historics I enjoy and a strong Group C contingent. Some of us had track time booked, which was very haphazard. We got a sticker, put on our helmets and were called to pitlane. A marshall roughly divided us into two groups (slow & fast I think?) and then we were off! There were too many cars on track, too close together. We never really went more than 5/10 and before the first lap was up a Corvette C6 had binned it at the top of Eau Rouge behind us and it was red flagged. Subsequent track time was behind the medical car. Nevermind, it was a taster and I'd love to do a proper track day at Spa now!
On the second last day the heavens opened approaching France. The last time I saw rain like that was in Malaysia! Water drained off the adjacent fields and the inside two lanes became a river. It was so bad we pulled into the first services and waited it out for about an hour. Again I was quite impressed the car dealt with it no problems, it was like driving through a ford for a few miles!!
Rain starting to pick up
Last stop was to get some beer and then we made it back to Wales. Again, I feel like I've really got to know the car and it continues to impress. There's not many 30 year old cars you could drift around Oulton Park one month and then head towards Eau Rouge flat out before driving home again having just swapped a spark plug lead!
Quick plug lead check before heading home
Back home I met up with my friend Matt who I hadn't seen for a couple of years. Waaay back when I had my white 924 as a student he had helped me out. At the time he owned a W123 series Mercedes but now he was the proud owner of an American import too, a gorgeous W108.
On the weekend I revisited the Classic Motorhub in Bibury. I think this is one of the best regular events going, so it's great that I'm only 1 ½ hrs away. I was going to drive up with Mark in his big block Camaro but that's a bit lively at the best of times and rain was forecast, so I gave him a lift. It was funny letting him drive the C4, he couldn't believe how sharp it was! The 2 turns lock to lock makes the steering very reponsive and with new polybushes and shocks, it corners very flat. He said it was only when he went over catseyes did he realise how stiff it was, otherwise the car is nicely compliant. At the event I saw couple of ZR1's, the first time I've seen them. A very impressive engine and sometimes I wish I'd bought one. However I feel better putting the miles on my car and the basic nature of the 350 appealed. When I owned the 924 Turbo Carrera GT rep I realised a highly strung car with hard to find parts frustrated me. And besides, I'm just heads & cam away from trouncing a ZR1 when I put my new intake on.
The ZR1 is a 32v twin cam with 16 injectors...
6”2 in a Diablo, it's a nope! And ouch, that gearbox and clutch is horrible!
Thanks both!
On the weekend I made a visit to Santa Pod to run the 1/4 mile. I was interested to see how my car would fare against Vesa's LT1, which has 300bhp and a 6k redline. By comparison mine had 250bhp stock and peak power is under 5k rpm. I've got long tube headers and a dual exhaust, plus a K&N filter with a cut air lid. The exhaust on my car was restrictive from the factory as they anticipated it being 5L not 5.7L My car has a 3.54 ratio diff and 6 speed manual, Vesa a 2.59 4 speed auto.
I was able to run consistently .3sec 2mph quicker than him and broke into the 13sec pass, which I was very happy with. My best 60ft was 2.1 with a 9 second dead 1/8th mile. That works out as 0-60 in 5.2 seconds. Not bad at all! I had some time left on the table, if I dropped my rear tyre pressures, had less fuel, less stuff in the boot etc I think I could knock a couple of tenths off. I didn't manage a launch without spinning my tyres which cost me time. Likewise it was 30c the hottest day of the year!
I'll be interested to go next year when I change my intake manifold to a low rise one, this should give me another 1000 safe & useable rpm. But very pleased with my genuine 5.2sec sprint to 60 with no driver aids
On the weekend I made a visit to Santa Pod to run the 1/4 mile. I was interested to see how my car would fare against Vesa's LT1, which has 300bhp and a 6k redline. By comparison mine had 250bhp stock and peak power is under 5k rpm. I've got long tube headers and a dual exhaust, plus a K&N filter with a cut air lid. The exhaust on my car was restrictive from the factory as they anticipated it being 5L not 5.7L My car has a 3.54 ratio diff and 6 speed manual, Vesa a 2.59 4 speed auto.
I was able to run consistently .3sec 2mph quicker than him and broke into the 13sec pass, which I was very happy with. My best 60ft was 2.1 with a 9 second dead 1/8th mile. That works out as 0-60 in 5.2 seconds. Not bad at all! I had some time left on the table, if I dropped my rear tyre pressures, had less fuel, less stuff in the boot etc I think I could knock a couple of tenths off. I didn't manage a launch without spinning my tyres which cost me time. Likewise it was 30c the hottest day of the year!
I'll be interested to go next year when I change my intake manifold to a low rise one, this should give me another 1000 safe & useable rpm. But very pleased with my genuine 5.2sec sprint to 60 with no driver aids
It's been a while! I'll have to fill in the gaps from the summer, but in the meantime here's my new wheel setup. About a year ago I bought some 18” Speedline Alessio from Facebook marketplace with the unusual 5x120.65 PCD. A bit of research and I imagine they were originally from an Aston DB7 GTS. Anyway turned out one of the barrels was cracked and I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with them. Scouring eBay as you do I found some NOS wider barrels in Germany for a fair price. Coupled with some wider lips from a Porsche breaker in the UK I had everything I needed to put together a great set of wheels. I used a local specialist to powder coat the centres gunmetal grey. They also did the lips in chrome powder coat since I like driving more than polishing and the barrels gloss black. They're 18x11 rear on 315/30 and 18x9.5 275/35 fronts. Lots to look forward to this year, mainly a trip to Le Mans 24hr Classic with track time!
Thanks all!
Fishy Dave said:
Looking good!
Did you buy your AC Delco gear oil from the UK?
Dave I pinched it off Vesa, I think he maybe got it from Eurovettes? I was just going to use the equivilant in the UK, you can easily find the right gear oil with the LSD additive. I'll be revisiting it in the next couple of months as my diff is leaking and has to come out to change the yoke seals Did you buy your AC Delco gear oil from the UK?
So after I spent all my money on wheels my head gasket blew!
The bottom of the radiator split and it cooked itself very quickly. Initially I thought I got away with it and fitted a triple row aluminium radiator I bought for a bargain price after someone bought the wrong model. My 1989 car has a radiator fill cap but from 1990 onwards it's on the expansion tank, so someone elses loss and my gain. I also changed the water pump and all the coolant hoses. Unfortunately after a couple of journeys I was still using coolant. I went to do a compression test and when I removed plug #8, the closest to the firewall on the drivers side, the favourite to go and coolant poured out of the hole. That'll be my problem then! With the lock down in place I took my time to figure out which option to take. It would be the biggest job I've done on a car but I decided I'd have a go at stripping it down and putting it back together. There's a great little Instagram group of C4 owners with a group chat and they were a fantastic resource of help and knowledge, along with some Facebook pages.
New radiator squeezed in:
And waterpump. Luckily I'd already removed the smog pump, it's still a bit of a faff to get down to it.
Ruh-oh
The bottom of the radiator split and it cooked itself very quickly. Initially I thought I got away with it and fitted a triple row aluminium radiator I bought for a bargain price after someone bought the wrong model. My 1989 car has a radiator fill cap but from 1990 onwards it's on the expansion tank, so someone elses loss and my gain. I also changed the water pump and all the coolant hoses. Unfortunately after a couple of journeys I was still using coolant. I went to do a compression test and when I removed plug #8, the closest to the firewall on the drivers side, the favourite to go and coolant poured out of the hole. That'll be my problem then! With the lock down in place I took my time to figure out which option to take. It would be the biggest job I've done on a car but I decided I'd have a go at stripping it down and putting it back together. There's a great little Instagram group of C4 owners with a group chat and they were a fantastic resource of help and knowledge, along with some Facebook pages.
New radiator squeezed in:
And waterpump. Luckily I'd already removed the smog pump, it's still a bit of a faff to get down to it.
Ruh-oh
I had the high revving Miniram intake manifold in my shed and some very nice Air Flow Research CNC heads. However these would need to be milled down from 73cc combustion chambers to something more like 58cc and all the machine shops were closed. Likewise I'd like to do a complete engine build with them in the future so that would limit my options down the line. One other item of preventative maintenance I did was to change the fuel pump and sender unit. This is an easy job on the C4, the petrol filler door lifts off after 4 bolts, then it's just a case of the 10mm bolts on the sender and the whole assembly lifts out. I was able to swap in my new one with the new pump in a few minutes. The new pump is much quieter than the old one and the connections aren't rusted so the fuel smell has gone too.
When I removed my heads I was surprised to find the engine had already been rebuilt and bored .030in over, making it a 355/5.8L When this was done I'm not sure, I didn't have any paperwork to show but it's the original numbers matching block and I bought the car on 86k (now 125!)
Stripping down old intake:
Heads off:
When I removed my heads I was surprised to find the engine had already been rebuilt and bored .030in over, making it a 355/5.8L When this was done I'm not sure, I didn't have any paperwork to show but it's the original numbers matching block and I bought the car on 86k (now 125!)
Stripping down old intake:
Heads off:
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff