Dear All,
I have been looking for months for a decent C4 to drive during the spring/summer periof (being in Denmark, no way to take out the car in winter). I was focusing on a ZR1 but once imported and all taxes paid the prices is too much (close to 60000 USD). Finallly a close friend seems ready to give up on his C4 86 with Greenwood package. See set of pictures on my website: http://jeanlucco.smugmug.com/Cars/Co...26268979_StfqX.
The price is reasonnable, close to 15000 USD (all tax paid, equivalent to 9000 USD for you guys living on the other side of the Atlantic). The car is driving fine, nothing special has been done on it. No rust, most of the electric things work, paint more than OK...). I am used of Vintage Ferrari, Camaro 3rd generations and Mustang. To be honest, there is a lot of character on the car.
My simple question: is it worse to jump on the deal? If yes, waht can be the main things to be done to make the car more enjoyable. I was thing to:
- Change standard headers + exhaust by a straigth line.
- Upgrade drive train, to strat with the brakes, roll bars....
- The dash board is not working perfect, can we get something else or have a replacememt?
- engine?
My main idea is to buy the car and step by step upgrade, preserve the car.
I thank everybody in advance for your feedback. Could be that my pictures are not so good but any feedback will be appreciated. We have long winter in Denmark, leaving us a lot of time to work in our cars

 

That is certainly a nice looking vette. I like the wheels. I cannot tell you what to do with the engine as it is an earlier generation than mine however long tube headers feeding into a true dual exhaust will improve things. The exhaust on the early C4 84 - 91 was more restrictive that on the late model year 92-95.

Do things slowly and eventually you can make the engine look like this one

 

I'm not much on body kits but I must say I really like that hood! The wheels also look awesome. But, if I were in your shoes and wanted to buy a C4 I would get the newest year I could afford. Looks aren't everything in these cars and the newer years had a lot of the bugs worked out. You can tie a sizable amount of money up in mods. I'd look around some more.

 

While the car seems pretty clean, I am not sure $US9000 is a good deal. I try to buy very nice, unmodified cars and I see a few warning signs:
1) those exhaust tips look like (Stinger?) the rather loud but still restrictive ones I had on my car for a month.. hated the noise with no performance gain.
2) the Greenwood kit is not to my liking, but makes me wonder about how the car was treated and how well it was altered.
3) what is the deal with the export tail lights on the inside lights? I did this and put the amber light outside, where they belong and rewired the car to make them the only flashing lights, as it should be.

The '86 is a great year, has anti-lock brakes but not some of the later goodies that can cause problems. The L98 is a great engine, too.
Good luck in your search.

Take your time and you will find a great car.

 

In your terms $9,000 is not a bad price at all. Downside is I think it stops there. That is an old L98, aluminum heads but not very good heads. Exhaust is very bad and for even mildly impressive horsepower the intake is junk. Not sure what transmission is there and very likely a D36 in the rear, any serious horsepower will require expensive upgrades. Bottom line,IMHO, if you want a nice cruiser that is it an a respectable price. If you are looking for a platform for serious power upgrades, keep looking.