This is my summer fun car... or as I like to call it... the reason I can’t afford better gear for my SQ car.
I really have a bad habit of buying decent fixer-upper cars, fixing them, getting bored with them, then selling them only to repeat the process. I’m still working on the fixing with this car but this is the first one I think I can say I’ll probably keep for a long time. This car puts a smile on my face like no other has before. I just started a build log for the stereo, which will be pretty basic, but I’ll keep this one for all the other fixins & upgrades.
The car:
It’s got 95 ZR1 wheels on it which are 17x9 & 17x11 & LT4 Grand Sport motor. 330hp/340tq
To start, when I bought the car it had a nasty habit of marking its territory with oil everywhere it went and the additional plus was the occasional white smoke and burning oil smell in the car. Then shortly after came the slipping clutch. Upon inspection someone slathered the intake manifold gasket area with RTV. It calls for a THIN BEAD of silicone between the heads along the valley. I guess someone thought slathering it all over would be better. So, $1800 later I had a new clutch, solid flywheel conversion (rather that OEM dual-mass), new valve cover gaskets, intake manifold gasket, new rear main seal and clutch slave cylinder.
While the exhaust was off to do the clutch, I decided to do a muffler delete. I picked up the pipes with OEM tips for $180 and it was the best decision I made so far. It sounds so bad ass and it’s not as obnoxious as you’d think. Wide open throttle will make you grin ear to ear though.
This was now the time I discovered that with hard/quick shifts the shift pattern cap would fly out of the top of the shifter so... time for a new shift knob.
I’m now in the process of replacing or repairing interior trim pieces. I also have a decent sized order coming as I type with some new goodies including some new intake pieces (more HPs... yay) as well as other assorted parts to fix a wobbly passenger mirror and a screw kit to replace a LOT of missing fasteners throughout the interior.
The car itself is a really nice 5-footer. The stripes are not factory and were poorly done.
These are just 3 examples of what the stripes over the whole car look like. There’s also overspray ALL over the entire car from the stripe painting. The last owner tried to take good care of it but didn’t do a great job so there’s scratches all over the entire car. Being a professional detailer I still couldn’t get it to where I’m happy so a repaint is in order. I’ve really been contemplating Plasti-Dip and dipping the whole car in Shadow Black from DipYourCar.com. While I do like the stripes, and get compliments on them all the time I’m not sure if I’ll re-stripe it or not.