Hey everyone! I recently purchased a (late) 1986 Corvette pace car with an L98 engine as a project car. I've always been interested in cars but never dared to do any real DIY work on my trusty daily driver (RAV4), but I found my motivation to really get my hands dirty and learn how cars work because it's cool and a useful skill. So, I took up a deal for a C4 that had been sitting for probably around 15 years, previously a highly used car (151k miles) but now abandoned.

I've been working on the car for about two weeks now and I've found this forum so incredibly helpful in helping me learn the ropes, just figuring out what the names of everything are, what resources/websites are useful, and taking on the first challenge - getting the car to start! For my own sake and potentially for the benefit of others, I decided it would be cool to keep an online log of my work on the car as time goes on. I'm not promising updates of any regularity but I am hoping to get the car in pretty good shape in the next 12 months.

Now to start from the beginning, here are some pics of the car when I first got it.







Here's the state of the car when I went to look at it:
Mechanical: car cranks but does not start. Car will run when starter fluid is sprayed in, but shuts off when no more fluid is added. New fuel pump recently replaced. Otherwise, all major parts in engine bay intact.
Exterior: new tires and decent condition wheels, and structurally solid body panels, but really really needs a new coat of paint and a replacement rear window (hate those plastic ones, by the way).
Interior: beat up and damp and probably moldy, but mostly intact surfaces. Seats were in surprisingly good condition.
History: driven from 1986 to 2002, accruing its current mileage of around 151,000. There was a big gap in records between 2002 to 2016, when the car was retitled, and again retitled in 2020. According to the seller (who is a guy that runs an auto repair shop), the owner got the auto repair shop to do some work on the car, but ended up never coming back for the car. I think the shop owner went to apply for a bonded title in 2016 which was then cleared in 2021. I suspect the car was already in pretty bad shape in 2002 even though it was still putting on around 4,000 miles a year between 1999-2002. The interior looked like it was very much lived-in from the 90s - I found multiple pairs of sunglasses, umbrellas, a LOT of quarters, and even a motor vehicle identification card with the previous owner's social security number on it (nope, not posting pics haha).

So, with these details, the asking price of $2000 lowered to $1800, and many interested buyers, I closed a deal on the car, got the title and keys, and got the car towed to my house - all in one day! There were other Corvettes I was looking at, but (1) I realized I like the C4s the most, and (2) I probably wasn't going to get a better deal on a car that (hopefully) did not have major mechanical issues.

Since that time, I've made some progress towards getting the car to start (in the area of the fuel system), identified some more parts in the car, and invested more than a grand into tools, parts, and most importantly, the shop manual and Haynes manual. Will update on the work I did between the time I got the car and today in a later post. Hope this will benefit someone!

 

Congrats on the project. It sounds like your starting issue is related to the VATS security shutting down the fuel injectors. Verify key has right resistor pellet, car door sensors are working, or transmission select position is reading 'parked'. Or invest in the VATS bypass which is a cheap effective resistor and 30/50 hz clock signal which some people are for and against.

 

I hope you have lot of patients and money for the restoration of your new car, looks like it will keep you off the streets for a while.

Good luck, have fun!