Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

My wife and I purchased our first Corvette, a 1985 A4 coupe, in 2005. I was excited to finally own a Vette. It took us 6 years to get our Medium Gray Metallic monster in shape. Now, it was decision time. Of course I wanted more power, but what to do? The L98 has impressive torque, but it ain’t going to crank out 400HP. Do I attempt an LS swap? Over time I’ve noticed prices of ZR-1’s falling (bad for owners, but good for buyers). I’ve been researching, searching, and test driving Z’s for a while now. I couldn’t afford a “nice” Z, but I had noticed some that were in decent shape that could be had in my price range. I love the 1990 body style. It helps that 90’s are the most plentiful, oldest, and most affordable. I really wanted either Steel Blue (11 made) or Charcoal Metallic (73 made). I saw one Steel Blue and zero Charcoal’s during my search. I finally decided that All Corvettes Are Red. A month ago I spied an interesting Red over Black Z in San Antonio, TX. I’m a mere 1300 miles away in Wisconsin. I’ve purchased cars from out-of-state before, but never at this distance. (Our ’85 Vette was from Ohio, while our ’87 was from Illinois.) After getting some info from the current owner and checking out the previous seller, I asked here if anyone would be willing to check it out for me. I got the great advice to have Corey Henderson look it over. He did and said the Z was basically sound, although needed some love.

On Friday the 13th, my wife and I flew to San Antonio to pick up our “new” car. (It really helps to have a supportive wife in this hobby =D>) It’s a little scary to drive an older car that far. Thankfully we made it home in spite of the dry-rotted tires and marginal brakes. We also had to “outrun” the severe weather.

If you’ve read this far :blahblah:, you deserve a reward … all I can do is post some pics.

1990 ZR-1 #2180, 47750 miles at purchase (49120 today).

Gary

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Bonus points for snapping another red ZR-1 in the background- it might be some time before you run into another one.

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Congrats on the beautiful "Z"!!:cheers:

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Most excellent. Glad you had a safe trip home. Corey is indeed a real asset to the ZR-1 Community.

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Nice wheels! Nice color!::sign10:

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Looks great! Enjoy the secondaries

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Beautiful! Welcome to the club.
I see you already have mod(s)-
Corsa exhaust, so might as well
get bitten by the mod bug and
make it faster, and faster,and faster!
There is never enough:cheers:

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Congratulations and don't worry the LT5 is bulletproof. When I picked up my 91 from a club member my father and I took a indirect route home, 10750miles, 31states, 55 museums and one Oshkosh air show over a seven week time period. You definitely started in the right place this forum of enthusiast you will find more then helpful they have truly been a brotherhood. I am stationed over seas right now and always make sure to check up on the forum before I drop after my stint.

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Gary, good choice. The red ones are a bit faster anyway :-D

I have a 90. #0064.
The first 33 were test mules.
Oh and I have Corsa exhaust as well.

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Congrats, thanks for sharing the pic!

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Gary:

Congrats on the car and safe trip home. Tires will be shipped tomorrow. Welcome to the MADNESS! :-D

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Wow, thanks for the warm welcome. I appreciate it :-D I've already chatted with a number of great people, here. (Joe, thanks for selling me your tires.)

Work is a little hectic right now, so I haven't been able to check the forum. I will post some other stories of our trip later.

In the first image, you can see that I had to drive it in the rain :eek:

In the second image, you can see me (L) with THE MAN (Corey Henderson, R)

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Hey Blackbird, I see your in ABQ. My wife and I just moved back to CA from there (lived in Placitas). There is a shop out there called Scotty's Southwest Corvettes. Great guy, I don't know if you've used him before but should you need some work done he really knows his stuff. They replaced my Injectors (FIC) and did my headers installation and a few other minor things just before I moved. I drove the car out to Santa Maria, CA two days later and it ran like a champ while getting 26MPG.

Anyway, just wanted to pass on the word. Scott and crew are great.

-Nate

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Congratz!!! Nice color 2!!

Can't believe nobody mentioned YOU'RE IN FBI country, and Marc Haibeck is having his 4th annual BBQ. YOU NEED TO BE THERE!!:-D This will give you an opportunity to meet n greet a great bunch of ZR-1 nuts and modders; the FBI gang! Oh, you gotta come, buddy! It's this Sunday!

See the East Central Region; Marc's BBQ thread!

P.

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

I agree! We are driving from balt md!!!!

Hope you can come

:cheers:

David

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

:hello: Gary, and welcome to our little corner of the asylum!:mrgreen:

You're gonna love your decision, trust us on that Brother!:thumbsup:


:cheers:
Tom

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Awesome. Blackbird I sent you a pm on _that other site_

Thanks, Paul. I saw this but I just can't make it (it's killing me not to see Marc's place, meet him and the 'boys'). I will get down there sometime.

I was wondering if WI folks were allowed in the FBI?:confused:

It's great to see guys driving their cars!

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Congrats!!:cheers:

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Allowed??? Oh, heck yeah!! Lots of "honorary FBI'ers" around. The only rule is .... their ain't no rules...'cept what you see in Pete's garage STAYS IN PETE'S GARAGE. No dues, no officers, and the only obligation is to have FUN and occationally eat some pizza and go drag racin! It's an all inclusive "club". You don't even need to be a ZR-1 driver to join in the fun!Tell ya what...Gimme your shirt size and I'll buy you a "T" shirt that Ken is going to be bringing to the shindig! Then you'll look "official"!:mrgreen:

This goes for anybody, but you really owe it to yourself to visit MECCA at least once in a while...eat some BBQ or pizza. Or if you happen to be on the east coast, the WAZOO gang gets together often, and rumor has it there's a Texas bunch and a Las Vegas bunch. The main thing is it is an opportunity to meet other nuts, share ideas, and keep the KOTH the KOTH!

:fahne:

P.

(why you shouldn’t worry when you first drive that “new to you” car)
 

The first day of driving my new-to-me Z was a little nerve-wracking. Any used car has its own idiosyncrasies that you need to get used to. I had experienced this before with other cars, so I wasn’t shocked, but still ... There are always items that won’t bother you after you figure them out. I’m watching the tach and thinking “what??” but fortunately I remembered some posts about issues with the tach filter and inaccurate readings. At a constant 70mph in 6th, it was reading nearly 3K RPM. I’m assuming that might be 2x (?) the actual reading.

We left San Antonio much later than I was hoping. The first leg of the flight down was perfect. I told my wife as we boarded the hop from Dallas to SA that I couldn’t believe how smooth the trip was starting out. Once we were all seated, the captain announced “We have a broken seal in one of the exterior lights. Should be fixed within 30 minutes.” The guy next to me said “an hour and a half” - he was right. I also had to stop at Henderson Performance, so by the time we left there it was well past 3pm. Corey advised me to take the “toll bypass” around Austin. Well, I missed it and directly after that we were in stop-and-go traffic for an hour. I was worried as I kept watching the temp rise. But, the Z held together and finally got beyond Austin. The first night we stopped in Plano (after a 10pm traffic jam in downtown Dallas – this was a Friday night).

The car isn’t too dirty after the first day

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

When I got my Z, I had eventually came to the decision that a Ruby was my first choice but didn't think I would find one. At that time I lived in a somewhat small town outside of LA. Surely there would be tons of Zs in LA, and maybe even some Rubys. Well, it turned out the one I ended up with was from someone that lived maybe ten miles away from me!

Congrats and welcome. Nice looking car and sounds like a fun trip. Don't forget to join the registry.

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

this story makes me want to fly off somewhere and buy a car. Any time I've bought one they were always within a days drive.

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Thanks, Paul. As you can tell, I wasn't at Marc's today, so you'll have to send me an XL ;)

Cool that you got the color you wanted and it was close. I wouldn't mind that someday!

I'll admit that it is fun ... and it really does "make memories." My boys and I have done this in the past and they still talk about the trips many years later.

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Congrats on the purchase. Make sure you nail that Texas plate to your garage wall.

I visit Wisconsin. Several times a year. Usually in Hudson and Rice Lake/Cameron area. Nice place to visit.

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Congrats. Nice car and color too.
My 90 is a red/red #2161.

(are weirdos attracted to your Vette too?)
 

I know better than to cruise in urban areas with my Vette. Everyone with an exhaust pipe bigger than my head wants to race. I hadn’t had any trouble driving through Texas until I needed to stop for gas. The billboard said “clean rest rooms” – that should have been my first clue to keep going. As I was walking out of the building, an inebriated individual was trying to communicate with me. I just kept walking. Once in the Z, he walks up to my wife’s side and starts pounding on the roof. As I was pre-occupied it took me a few seconds to put the key in to start it up. Did I mention that there’s an issue with the clutch interlock switch? No start. Release clutch – push clutch. Again, no start. It fired up the third time. I yelled, “back off” and left. I’m sure the right-rear 315 didn’t run over his foot, but it was close ;)

I was eager for my first “wave” in the Z, but the only other Vette I saw the whole time in Texas was being trailered. Of course I was driving on Friday the 13th and severe weather was coming … maybe that had something to do with it.

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

I plan to. I was glad the plates stay with the car in TX so I could get it home easily.

As I've been able to do just a little "repair" with the clay bar, I'm starting to really like the color too!

Re: (are weirdos attracted to your Vette too?)
 

Congrats! You will have LOTS of adventures!

You know why it took the Blonde 3 days to go 20 miles?
She saw a sign that said, "Clean Restrooms 20 miles."

Slow day.

Re: (are weirdos attracted to your Vette too?)
 

Good one :-D

(be careful where you park)
 

Last story … I promise (well, I do need create one more post with some pictures of the engine).

On drives, I love to stop at stupid tourist traps along the highway. I never buy stuff, but there’s something about looking at “gift shops” that I enjoy. We didn’t have a lot of time to do that because we needed to get the 750 miles from Plano to the middle of Illinois on Saturday (we were trying to outrun severe weather, which we did). We stopped twice. We should have only stopped once …

We stopped at the “world’s biggest gift store” in Missouri (who could resist that?) I was standing near the front when a lady walked up to the cashier and said “I just hit a little red car in the parking lot.” For some reason, I don’t think of the Vette as a “little car,” but my wife immediately gasped. She pointed out the window and said, “not that car?!” Yep … it was our “new” ZR-1. I’m pretty anal about my cars and I usually go ballistic when something happens. Like most of you, I park far away from other cars, etc. When my DD (2006 Grand Prix GXP) got its first ding at work, I tried to hunt down the person who did it! For some strange reason, I was pretty calm. I went out to look and thankfully it wasn’t bad. There’s a scrape, scratch, and some blue paint on the passenger side nose. I knew she felt terrible. She told me her husband owns a C3 and he will kill her. There are a few paint “issues” on the nose anyway that I knew about before I bought it. I thanked her for telling me and said not to worry about it. (At home, the clay bar took care of most of it. We’ll see if I can polish out the rest).

Besides the two stops pictured here, the final one is the required pic by the Route 66 sign :-)

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

So how do you like the Corsa?

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Congratulations and welcome to the brotherhood.

Re: (be careful where you park)
 

I'm pretty sure I would not have been so calm :)
Great pics. Looks just like mine except the wheels. (and the scratch)

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

I think Door county is the best kept secret in WI

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I really do like them. There's no drone. While the sound is "muted" compared to some systems, it allows me to hear the LT5 wind up :dancing

Thanks. I can't wait to get the beast out and meet some of you guys along the way.

It isn't like me at all; but, just having this car is a great blessing :-D
Now, if she had smashed the front end ...

Warning - troubling pics ahead
 

These images of my LT5 are not for the faint of heart.

I looked at a number of engines while shopping for a Z, but this one is bad ... what happened here?

I know better than to try and wash it, but I will try simple green (or similar) and rags.

Any suggestions?


[Thanks for following along - I hope that I can contribute in a more meaningful way after I have some experience with my Z]


Gary

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

bead blast and powder coat...after having it ported of course.

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

Check this thread: http://www.zr1.net/forum/showthread....t=engine+clean

Enjoy your new Z !

Re: Bringing home ’90 #2180
 

I also used a very mild polish for plastics to restore some luster to oem LT5 paint that was subject to age and harsh cleaning agents.

I used Novus plastic polish #2- this stuff fixes anything and is really fine so it won't scratch even clear plastic.
http://www.google.com/products/catal...ed=0CHYQ8wIwAg

not bad for 1/2 hour of work:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...k/DSC03790.jpg