Blownfuel1

Hi guy's, new to the forum, (I think, I've been overseas for a while and don't remember if I registered before or not.), and have been looking at a few C4's for sale to replace the C3 I sold my Dad. I have a budget of $5000.00 give or take a little, and I'm looking for a car to use as a daily driver. While looking, I've come up with a few questions.

1st car is an '86' with high miles (170,000), but has new interior, paint, weatherstripping, tires, etc... runs OK (a little rough during start up, but smooth after that), BUT, it has a 4 + 3 that seems to have a problem. When you drive the car on the highway, it automatically goes into overdrive when shifting into 4th gear, if you get off the gas then get back into it, there is a hesitation like the overdrive is slipping or freewheeling then catching back up. doesn't seem to be slipping otherwise, though as far as I could tell, the button on the shifter does absoultely nothing at freeway speeds, car wouldn't come out of overdrive. Is this normal for a car that is only driven a 1000 or so miles a year, and possibly hasn't had the unit serviced in years? I spoke to a real good family friend who has a very succesful Corvette shop (unfortunately, he specializes in earlier cars, and hasn't done very many of these), and he said he's fixed several of these cars just by throughly flushing the systems (overdrive, cooler, and lines) and putting fresh fluid in them Also, the car had been hit in the left quarter panel and fixed, which was done well except for some sanding scratches that show through the paint. It sounds like it could really use a set of new injectors, as they are pretty noisy when the hood is open (like a lifter tappinp, only faster), and it's definitely got a bearing noise in the front drive that sounds like its coming out of the P/S pump. Asking price on this car was $5000.00 OBO, and I'm pretty sure $4000 would buy it.

2nd car is an '87' with roughly the same miles. It over-heated recently, and the owner said he thinks it has a blown head gasket cause he brought it home after it overheated, flushed the cooling system, and when he started it back up, white smoke came out the exhaust. I went and looked at the car, and no white smoke comes out the exhaust now, the car doesn't smell like it got particularly hot, but it also runs kinda rough cold, like it might have a blown head gasket. What really concerned me about the car was thers a little wisp of steam / smoke coming up from the right side of the motor between and underneath #4 & 6 exhaust ports. I tried to smell this wisp to see if it smelled like oil or coolant, but it didn't really smell like either, and it dissipated pretty fast, like steam. I'm wondering if the head is warped, and if so, do these have enough meat to be machined, and is it recommended? The car had new heads (I questioned weather they were new or just rebuilt, but he says they were new, and they look it, but they could've just been bead blaster) put on it roughly 30,000 miles ago by the previous owner, the kid who owns it now doesn't know why. The automatic transmission was rebuilt at the same time, so thats a plus. this car has decent paint on it but a few chips here and there, mostly the door edge. It needs the seats recovered, the piece across the top of the door panel on the right side, a windshield wiper switch, weatherstripping, and two tires. He also says the digital dash goes out occasionaly, but it worked when I was there. Maybe a ground problem? There's nothing this car needs that I'm not capable of fixing, but it seems like it's going to cost as much as the other car to put right. This car is $2,500, but it's also a good 4 hrs. from my house.

Any comment's would be greatly appreciated!

red_johnny

I think I would go with the 2nd just because you could turn that engine into a 383 stroker when you do the head gasket. It might run you close to or above what you might want to keep your budget at but you wont be dissapointed with the power you get.

Did ya just get back from deployment?

Daffy

Where are you located??

rocco16

Let me just say this: I don't believe either of these cars will be suitable for use as a daily driver.
The first requirement of a car that will be used as your daily transportation is that it is reliable.

Now, if you plan on taking a year and another $5000 to MAKE one of these reliable, okay. Then, it might be a dependable DD.

Look for a C4 in better shape. Either way you're going to spend $10K or so, and you might as well avoid the months of work.
Good luck and hang in there.

Larry
code5coupe

red_johnny

You would be VERY lucky to find one for 5K that would be DD ready. I got super lucky and found a DD for $8,500 with alot of mods to it to boot! Its possible to find one in good shape for the price you want to pay but it may not be as dependable as you might like it. Either way you go I hope you find what your looking for at the best deal!

RRT vette

I look at it this way. Either car is worth what someone is willing to pay. If you spend $5000 on either, there will be at least $3000 worth of work to be done to make it a DD. IMO

I would keep looking!!!

SJW

You will not have an easy time finding a C4 that's mechanically solid enough to serve as a reliable daily driver for $5k. It isn't impossible, but I'd strongly recommend you either save up another $5k or more, or shop for a type of car that can easily provide you with reliable transportation for $5k. A $5k Corvette should probably best be regarded as a toy, a project, and a second vehicle. Nearly any Corvette that you could buy for $5k will likely require at least another $5k worth of work.

Be well,

SJW

Blownfuel1

Red_jonny, been back for almost a year, but was in the yards here in San Diego (That answers Daffy's question as well) for almost all of it (We had a boiler Explosion on the way back, so we really didn't get much of a break upon our return because we were supposed to be the ready ship here!), so it really didn't feel like the cruise had ended, too many long days and nights. Funny enough, I have a complete Summit 383 L-98 shortblock with almost no miles on it sitting on a stand in the garage with a flat cam! I was kinda saving that back as the next motor for my El Camino though.

I realize either car will need some work to become a truly reliable daily driver, but thats OK. I have several other cars I can drive short term, but I'm looking for something fun that will get better than single digit mileage (I commute 70 miles a day just to work and back, and I've got to many 12 MPG or worse cars already!). I've been driving a $250.00 1993 V-6 Camaro that was the steal of the century, but at 210,000 miles, it's transmission is starting to go, and I can't see putting a $2000 trans in a $1500 car (it has some minor body damage), knowing theirs a whole lot of other stuff probably going to go wrong in the not too distant future. The plan is to get something together now so when the Camaro dies, I have something to drive while I learn to build 700R4's! I figure I better learn it because We have 5 of them in the family now, and if I buy a C4, we may have 6!

Really don't want to go to far over $5000. cause the youngest boy just turned 16 and wants a small pick up, so I'm going to be buying one of those soon too. There are a fair amount of cars that come up in this price range here, and the $2500.00 '87' was a daily driver for the kid who has it prior to blowing the head gasket. It's really not that bad of a car for the price, I just don't have any experience with the Chevy Aluminum Heads. I've got an extra set of World Product's Dart II Sportsman Heads I could put on it, but they're 64cc chamber cast iron and I was worried about the compression ratio with them on it. How big are the chambers on the stock heads?

Also, plan on keeping the car pretty stock cause I wanna get 20 mpg around town. Yeah, there are a lot of cheaper cars around that will do that, but for a guy who daily drove a '72' El Camino SS for 3 years (until the Camaro fell into my lap last year), and WILL NOT drive anything BORING (or most things foreign, used to work for Mercedes before I joined the Navy, been there, done that, ain't dumb enough to do it again!), the choices get pretty limited pretty quick!

RFDrpm

So MM1 I assume you arent scared of the wrenching on the 2nd one..


Thats probbaly the best IMO. You can pick it up cheap enough and get the work done for less than your 5k budget.

Just my $.02

Blownfuel1

Nope, just didn't know what my options were if the heads were warped, didn't really want to have to buy another set if these are junk and / or un-machineable. Guess for what I'm paying I could throw a cheap set of Edelbrock's on it, Think Summit sells them for around $850.00 ready to bolt on.

Well, actually their 579.99 a piece.

RRT vette

No thats not a bad price for a 87. I would assume that a good bit of work would have to be done after the head swap though.

RFDrpm

You can ALWAYS find another set of heads.

Or even a single one if need be.

Blownfuel1

True, but they seem kinda hard to come by around here, unless I'm just looking in the wrong places. The only reason I looked at the '86' was I knew I couldn't get the '87' to the same condition for the difference in their prices, but the seller didn't mention the issues with the car before I went and looked at it. I just found another '87' for $5000. here locally that I'll have to go look at.