Tom400CFI

Found and bought another C4 this weekend. It was located in Denver, and was CHEAP. 89, 6 speed car. Clean title, had been stolen, in an accident, and recovered. Owner wanted to fix it...tried to fix it, but it was beyond his abilities. Sat in his garage for 5 years until I took it home, Saturday.

Pretty much every body panel has damage...even the roof glass is broken. Hood has a blem, front bumper cover is torn, left door is punched in, left 1/4 is missing, left rocker is torn loose, rear bumper cover is torn off, windshield is broken. The interior is pretty ragged; driver's seat is toast, carpet is worn, stereo works but whines and 1 speaker is out.

Perfect car for a restoration? No way. This is one of those cars that needs $15k to be worth 9. It's virtues are in the mechanicals; Decent engine, Black Tag ZF6, D44 rear, late frame, late brakes and late suspension. This car has the mechanical goodies of the C4 gen...and cost less than a used snowmobile.

Anyway, I Drove from PC, UT to Denver Sat AM, got to the sellers house around 2, spent about an hour looking at it and loading it, then headed home. Here she is...









Problems: (aside from the body damage); When the car was in the accident, it slid into a curb w/the left rear wheel...that pushed the entire rear suspension assy to the right about 1". It did this by tweaking the rear frame rails. Not "bending" them laterally...but twisting each one CCW very slightly. This will be a challenge for me to rectify, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Also, the engine won't run. It has a fuel delivery problem; it will fire and run on ether, (so, spark) and the fuel pump runs and there is good pressure at the rails...but no injection. I believe that I've identified the issue but need to run one more test before confirming.


Today I tore into it and have the rear assy out of the car so I can get a better look at the frame rails and start working on a solution for that issue.


The ultimate goal? I'm sure many will cringe...but I want this:




....with some modifications to that execution. I want mine to be street legal. If it doesn't work out...there'll be some nice parts for sale.

95tealconvert

Tom, I cannot wait to see you transform this into another " Road Kill " wicked street machine. I have been wanting to do the same since I saw the show Road Kill and man was that thing fast and light.

As I remember they ran it against a C7 on the track and as memory serves me it held it's own with a much more powerful and better suspension-ed C7. I just remember how much fun those guys on Road Kill were having when they would drive their super light creation.

Seemed like it would do cookies all day long and handled very well on the track. They even took it out on the dirt and had a blast driving it like a sand rail.

Looking forward to seeing how this all goes and who knows I might have to drive down from Boise when it is done and check it out in person.

jay23ls

Some ppl dont like that but its really much better than letting another C4 get scrapped.

mazdaverx7

It definitely is an awesome candidate to chop up all Mad Max style.. With the latest version of the L98 and the black tag ZF trans.. I mean, that's an awesome combo! And it would really cost so much to restore that car that it wouldn't even be fun to do. The cost would eat you away unless you had most of the parts in your garage already or had a parts car that was in worse shape. How's the interior?

1bdvet

Nice find to make into Mad Max, have fun chopping it!

QCVette

Sounds like a fun project.

However, I did cringe a little at the picture of what you wanted.

To me the car seems like a great start for a fun beat up driver. Only get it running and driving good, put the body panels back on but not worry about some damage or paint. One that you can drive through the winter, park anywhere, and not worry about the car, but still fun to drive and cheaper than most of my winter beaters.

Whatever your ideas for its end use, I like seeing people take on projects especially if it involves working on a Corvette.

Good luck.

Tom400CFI

Thanks for the enthusiasm guys!

I agree with '95tealconvert; fast, light...visceral. It should be a hoot.



Pretty toast. Drivers seat is gone, passengers is OK but well worn. Carpet is gone. A lot of the trim/bezels are cracked around the screws. Dash pad is good though, door panels are good, and the digi dash works!

DGXR

As you said in your "needs $15k to be worth $9k" comment, this car is too far gone even for "purist" standards, let alone a full restoration. So it is a canvas for your creation... have a blast turning it into your personal speed machine, I'm sure you and the kid will have a ton of fun!


Just be sure to post pictures of the process and the finished beast.

Patsgarage

That looks like it will be fun when you are finished (?). Let the purists cry, nobody was bringing that one back to showroom.

Pile_Driver

I just bought an 88 project car. Let me know if you're willing to sell any parts.

Tom400CFI

I'll update as I make progress.



I will be selling undamaged body and interior parts. PM for details. I could start pulling things and shipping right away...if I have something that you need.

1993C4LT1

Have fun Curious to what it will weigh with all the parts removed.

95tealconvert

I am pretty sure the Roadkill guys said theirs weighed about 2300 lbs after everything was removed. I went back and looked at the Roadkill episode that featured their Corvette C4 Kart and they were I believe about 4 seconds slower on the track then a Lingenfelter C7 that had around 650HP-pretty impressive.

Tom400CFI

I think Freiburger (sp?) was w/in 1 second of the Lingenfelter's time.....but they've done some improvements to the car since then, too.

10:34, "A little over 2100 lbs", w/an iron headed SBC.





Go to 30:45...and take note at 33:15...oh yeah...that's nice.

95tealconvert

YOU ARE CORRECT TOM, I HAD THIS PLAYING LAST NIGHT WHEN I WENT TO SLEEP SO FOR SOME REASON I HAD IN MY HEAD THE 2300 LBS. AND 4 SECOND DIFFERENCE. NICE TO SEE ONLY 2100 LBS. AND 1 SECOND SLOWER THAN THE 650HP C7-VERY IMPRESSIVE INDEED. MAN THAT KART LOOKS LIKE AN ABSOLUTE BLAST TO DRIVE !

3JsVette

An Ariel Atom on steroids. Have at it Tom.

Silver85

SUBSCRIBED!!! Love this project.

Tom400CFI

I had a little time so did a little work on it.

My first priority is getting it to run. If it runs, I can move it in/out of my garage, etc...it's mobile. Not running, it's monopolizing a bay in my garage that I may want or need for something else. Anyway, it has fuel pressure, spark, but won't run. I did a fuel pressure drop test by cranking it w/the fuel pump unplugged. The pressure did drop during cranking...but not much. Maybe from 40 to 30 lbs in 10 seconds of cranking? Should have dropped way faster than that.

I hooked a noid light to the inj harness and it pulsed away during cranking as one would expect it to.

Finally, I ohm'ed the injectors and had 15-16 in 5 of them; 13.1, 8.9 and 2.4. It needed injectors.


Off to Pick 'N Pull I went, in search of some 22 lb/hr injectors from some 3800 Series II engines (w/o supercharger). I found a '97 and a '99, both cleanish under the hood, with fresh gasoline in the fuel rails (they'd been run recently). I grabbed 8 injectors from the two cars ($6 each) and came home. One a funny thing occurred at P'n P; I saw this Audi S4. You don't typically see Audis at P'n P...much less a late model S4.




Tonight I started to tear the intake apart to get the injectors out. Wow....what a PITA the TPI intake is, to work on! Pulled the plenum, runners (learned about the bolt that goes from the inside out), diverter valve, fuel line bracket and then lifted the fuel rail/injectors up and supported the rail in that position.





In this position, I reconnected the 5 injectors that had ohm'ed correctly, then had my boy crank it so I could see what fired. We know that injectors can ohm in spec (coil is good) but not open the pintle (it's stuck), or it's clogged. Of the 5 injectors that ohm'ed in spec, only 3 of those shot fuel. Car won't start on 3 injectors. That's where I left off tonight. I'll swap injectors with my "bad assed" Buick injectors tomorrow and try to get it back together and see if we have a runner.


.

mazdaverx7

At least you weren't out much on the injectors you just bought. Looking forward to hearing that the car is running! Are you going to take it up the road to see if everything else works on the car once you get it running?

Raidmagic

I'm a big fan of the Roadkill Vette Kart. Good luck and keep us updated.