Took the top off for the first time, drove around all day, that night it started to rain, so I pulled over and put the top back on, then drove home, no problems.

the next day on the way to work the top blew off at 60 mph.

landed on the headliner side, the back corners have the fiberglass chewed up now, and the corners sit up higher then they did before making it look silly. but not really a lot of damage considering (anyone have a free black top for a 90?)

Right after that I took it to a place called Robert's Corvettes in Kalamazoo.

He tested the fuel pressure, and the injector volts 38 psi and 17 volts on 7 injectors 16.9 on the 8th so I ordered a new fuel pump but I am still considering bigger injectors.

He reset the throttle voltage? (not sure what that is or what it means)

He reset the base timing by unhooking or bypassing the base timing wire (not sure what this means either)
checked all trouble codes ect.
total diagnostic and adjustment bill was $80

He charged me $40 to weld my magnaflow mufflers on.

total bill $120.
when i got it back, OMG the POWER. 20 foot burnouts every time i left a standing stop at just over 80% throttle. I was IN LOVE!

Later that night, I went around a corner at about 40, and huge plumes of white smoke came out the rear, i looked down and my temp guage was pegged, I turned off the ignition, coasted to the side and opened the hood to discover that the pasenger side of the engine was on fire!

I was like YES! ima get a new car.... the guy in front of me stopped and came walking up with a fire extinguisher..... UHG.

so i have it towed back, wait a week for insurance guy... estimate $397 deductible $100 tow bill $105, insurance check -tow bill = $202 , and now it has to go back to the idiots who rebuilt the motor... for the 7th time, to reinstall the intake cus oil leaking from the intake is what started the fire, and im pretty sure they will F up the timing again in the process.

and to make things even more pleasant, the coolant is now low, and i fear the head gasket went bad or the head was warped by the fire.

 

Oh and the insurance guy tried to lock the door, they wouldnt lock, but when i tried to open the door the security bull went off, lock cylendars are stuck, so i had to take the driver door apart and wiggle crap around to get the horn to stop honking and get the car to start.

 

pics or it didn't happen.

 

ok, will snap some off when i get home from work

 

The intake IS leaking oil. but they say that is not what started the fire.

They say the transmission decided it didn't like the new found power, or the 20 foot burnouts and decided to puke, and spew fluid out of the dipstick tube.

I just got the car back Friday, you can tell by the date on the original post they had my car for a LONG time. something like 3 months to get the transmission rebuilt.... NICE. cost me $1400.00 (I paid the trans shop directly)

Passenger side is still covered with fire extinguisher crap, and nothing was cleaned or changed as they decided it wasn't their fault so they didn't do anything.

The power that I had after the timing was finally set right is gone, I cant do a five foot burnout in the rain. My coolant is disappearing and I cant find a leak.

I changed the passenger side plug wires today, thinking maybe the fire had damaged them, but there was no change.

Is there any chance a pretty small very short duration fire caused the head gasket to go bad?

Is there something on the passenger side that could have been damaged that would still allow the car to start and run great, but not have any power?

A large bundle of wires just behind the motor on the passenger side was engulfed in flaming fluid, but neither I nor anyone else have been able to detect any wires that are burnt through.

The speedometer keeps going nuts and reading 9999 or p999 or some other crazy combination, and then for no apparent reason starts working right again.

In other fun news, when I went to pick the car up the passenger side front tire was flat, and the rim was bent in two spots. They also refuse to accept responsibility for this, and say it MUST have been like that when they got it. As far as I can tell the tire has a slow leak, and probably went mostly flat while it sat there for months and when they drove it after installing the trans they hit a pot hole.

They didn't fix the oil leaks either LOL, they say that it will go away in 5 or 10k miles as the seals swell.

They took the tire off and beat the dents back in a little to get the tire to take air, and put it back on the car before telling me they were not going to pay for a rim, so I grabbed the keys and jumped in the car and left without paying them the $300 they wanted to take the trans out and put it back in. I am sure litigation will follow, cus if they don't sue me I am suing them.

Nearly one year ago I took a rather high mileage but good running c4 corvette to a reputable shop becouse I wanted to go faster, I paid them $5800. the car was in and out of their shop about 9 times and still was slower then the day I dropped it off, they had promised me 400 horse, I am lucky if it had 300 for the ONE day it ran right. I told them it was going to be a boosted engine and needed to be set up as one, and the cam and compression ratio were selected for that, but they used hypereutectic pistons and cheap o piston rings with the stock ring gap.
Sooo I am feeling a little cheated, and I definitely think I deserve some of my money back.

I have given up on boosting the vette, or racing it, it will simply be a fun daily driver IF I ever get it to run right and have any power.

I've been working on a new project for the last couple months, It is pretty crazy, and probably way out of my depth, but I have been enjoying it immensely

If you are interested you can take a peak here

http://ls1tech.com/forums/conversion...h-machine.html.

Its not your average build, and as far as I know no one has done a build like it, so, it has been a challenge, but as each obstacle comes up a way around it is found. when the thing is finally finished I expect an 1800 lb curb weight and 310 HP resulting in mid 10 second times at 120+ mph.

Well, there is my long arsed update

 

Damage from the top coming off.




Dirty nasty fire extinguisher crap all over and the wires on the back of the motor.




What the spedo is randomly doing now that it didn't randomly do before.

 

Wow!! If you didn't have bad luck with that car, you'd have no luck at all.

 

Definitely more exciting than a Honda!

 

LOL

I wish I had a honda.

Still, cruising with the top off and the magnaflows rumbling, and as bad as the paint looks up close, I still get lots of smiles and attention. Its nice to own a vette.

I realize the car isn't cursed, I was just careless with the top, I was brutal to a 150k mile trans and the mechanic I picked is an idiot who wont take responsibility for his mistakes.


Still, any ideas on what might help this situation would be appreciated.

 

I know how you feel(about the shops, I don't think many could relate to the fire) but shops like that made me learn to work on my car. Sorry about your experience hope you can get it how you like it

 

Never seen an insurance company not return a car to it's prior state....ie all the fire damage, including the finish on the valve cover, should have been repaired and the wiring cleaned up...typically with a replacement harness. Furthermore, there's nothing that says the car needs to go back to the same shop for the gasket repair. You can chose any shop you want, so why on God's green earth would you take it back to those clowns?

Nonetheless, since "you have what you have", all the wiring connectors need to be checked for contamination. Grounds need to be cleaned and tightened. That might fix the speedo. If not, then it's likely the VSS that's bad.

Personally I'd part the thing out and go buy one that works.

 

Takeing it to a new shop next Monday

I find that I'd much rather work on the race car then the vette,

Part of the problem is I just cant seem to figure out whats wrong with the vette, so I dont know what to tinker is, and that frustration just makes it all seem hopeless.

 

According to the insurance company the damage was only cosmetic, they wrote a check for cleaning, plug wires and towing.

 

Jeezus. If those are the "clean" pics, I'd hate to see the ones with grime all over

 

No, nothing was done. they had it three months, and did nothing.

It took them a month to pull the trans, then the trans shop had it a little over two weeks, then they had it for 6 weeks more, I called them on Wednesday and asked for an update, they told me they were going to "start" on it on thursday, I told them to "put the fu@$ing tranny back in and dont touch another god d@mn thing cus their incompetent asses were never going to touch a thing of mine again, and that if I had a trailer I wouldn't even let them put the trans back in"

They were supposed to clean it, re install the intake, and put the good cam back in it (thats a LONG story, but as of now it has an almost stock cam in it rather then the good one I paid for) change the plugs and wires and check for other fire damage.

3 long LONG months, all they did was pull the trans.

 

Wow sorry to hear about that sounds like the 700r got good and warm.
Dont let the ins co off cheap til its ALL right.

 

LOL, took it to a shop today, he checked it out a little but said he needed to "get into it" and wouldn't have time till Monday. shop is only about 5 minutes from home.

On the way home, the exhaust note changed, then it got louder and hot and lost power and I could smell raw fuel, had to have it towed home.