Hi all. I've been digging through the posts here and while some of them are helpful for my son's car, many of them are dated or don't contain part numbers. So my 19 year old purchased a 1990 Corvette several months ago. The guy who had it was an old school engine mechanic, if you will. The story on the car is it was part of a group of vehicles that a shady body shop had before they got in trouble and was shut down. The Vette was paid off by the insurance company and sent to a salvage yard where it sat for roughly 5 years. He bought the car and immediately removed all of the fuel injection and replaced it with a regular intake and a carburetor. To make matters worse, he managed to get an 87 hood from another car only to butcher it for the breather and a 4" hood scoop. I'll be replacing the hood as soon as I can find a decent one but that is a matter for another day. The wiring harness and most of the wires under the hood have dried out and are cracked, exposing the wire itself. The computer was removed and he somehow wired it up to run but it doesn't run right, smells of gas all the time. Most of the EGR equipment has been removed (Louisiana 1996 and above has to pass emissions). We have the original intake complete with the injectors that my son wants to put back but I think it is going to be more trouble than it is worth. Here is where I need some direction. I've got a couple of paths that I can go to help him: 1) Remove the current intake and put a Weiland or MiniRam on it with a Holley 4160 and a dropped base air cleaner. 2) Keep the current intake and just run a Holley sniper. 3) Try and locate a complete wiring harness and put it back like it originally was. I could also run the sniper with the Weiland or MiniRam. Bottom line is I want to complete the EGR deletion, clean up the engine bay, and have a dependable vehicle for him to drive around on the weekends. For those who reply, first let me say thanks for your input. Secondly, if you have part numbers please post them so I can price out everything before I start spending money. I actually have a couple of other vehicles that are mine that require restoration but I feel teaching him is more important.

 

Some decisions to be made. Is this a no rush learning experience? Or need to get a good running car for him to drive? No rush and he wants to learn tunig-the Holley sniper. Otherwise just keep it carb and get it running good and looking like you want.

 

Yeah, there is some ground to cover here. If you have all the original intake parts and injectors, then fine, but those injectors are likely to be toast by now and you could need some new/rebuilt injectors just to start. Also, your fuel pressure regulator, O-rings, etc, will all need to be rebuilt/replaced with new to be safe. Since the engine has been converted to carburetor, the electric fuel pump in the tank probably hasn't been wired to run or used since then (converted to mechanical fuel pump under the right front side of the motor yah?). So the fuel pump and associated electrics probably need a good going through. And this is just to start. Haven't even sourced a replacement ECM, oxygen sensors, other sensors, how is the throttle body looking?, etc...

Even original 1990 cars by now need many of those components either replaced or rebuilt. If you know what you're doing and want to invest the money and time, so be it - and there's lots of help available here on the forum. It would be a great learning experience for your son after all, so there's some value in that alone.