I retired and bought myself a car.

A bit of port matching and smoothing of the manifold and runners makes a HUGE difference in these in my experience. 

I need to look, but i think i may have a hypertech stage 2 prom around here. 

The original owner did leave me a sweet gift in the car. 

In for another Cousin Eddy build.

Congrats on retirement.

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Are you the second owner?

Thank you to everyone who has posted thus far. I'm proud to have people following along. I will try to not disappoint. It's still fry-your-brain-hot here so my progress may be a bit slow for a little while.

I did get out the engine compartment detailing arsenal and put in some time today doing gross decon. I'll get it cleaned up. In my opinion, a Tuned Port engine is attractive and worthy of a super detail.

I did find a smoking gun on some of the drivability stuff. Apparently the original owner had mice in his garage. 
 

There are remnants of chewed up plug wires if you look closely. RockAuto will fix all that for me. Don't judge me on the engine dirtyness in those pictures. I have yet to dig into it. 

Side note, the valve covers feel like they're plastic when I thump on them.

Slippery said:

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Are you the second owner?

Close. The guy I bought it from inherited it from his dad last year. Dad was the OG owner. The car is from Washington state. The dude inherited it and flew up and drove it back to Texas where it sat in his garage and deteoriated somewhat due to disuse. Then dude's wife buys a new Jeep and the garage parking spot of the Corvette is about to be reclaimed by the wife so the Corvette had to be sold.

Nice.  I've met good Corvette owners at autocrosses.  I am among the worst of Corvette owners.

Irony of all ironies:  People who were not even alive when the Salad Shooter was made/advertised know the term Salad Shooter only because of the C4 Corvette. 

May cucumbers fly from your wheels like a rain of veganism.

A fully polished TPI system would look hella sweet.  Just saying.  (grin)

Valve covers are magnesium if i remember correctly. 

"I don't want to be a corvette guy"

* buys car with color matching hat*
 

I'm excited to see it shine better than new. And curious what you end up with in the audio department. Do carry on. 

Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

Slippery said:

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Are you the second owner?

Close. The guy I bought it from inherited it from his dad last year. Dad was the OG owner. The car is from Washington state. The dude inherited it and flew up and drove it back to Texas where it sat in his garage and deteoriated somewhat due to disuse. Then dude's wife buys a new Jeep and the garage parking spot of the Corvette is about to be reclaimed by the wife so the Corvette had to be sold.

Excellent story. 

The only way this thread could be better is if you had found it on your Washington trip and drove it down to Tx. 

Slippery said:

Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

Slippery said:

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Are you the second owner?

Close. The guy I bought it from inherited it from his dad last year. Dad was the OG owner. The car is from Washington state. The dude inherited it and flew up and drove it back to Texas where it sat in his garage and deteoriated somewhat due to disuse. Then dude's wife buys a new Jeep and the garage parking spot of the Corvette is about to be reclaimed by the wife so the Corvette had to be sold.

Excellent story. 

The only way this thread could be better is if you had found it on your Washington trip and drove it down to Tx. 

I did wind up with a really great Toyota out of that adventure. It's a wonderful little car ! I probably like it more than the Corvette.

Congratulations on your retirement.  You're gonna love it, every day is Saturday.   I owned an '85 in medium blue.  Fun car for what it is.  To heck with the Corvette attitude. "Corvette guys" tend to be snobby, and few really know how to work on them, but boy, can they wear the duds.

A couple of things for bad knees.  As mentioned, the pedal box is tight. After some distance, you kind of run out of room for leg/foot movement.  Another is the "fall in, crawl out" nature of the beast.  Otherwise, looks like  a good one.  Enjoy fussing with it.  I'm in for this build/upgrade... 

Excellent platform to start with .....got my chair got my pooter got my beeerrrah....bring it!!! Hey what flavor is the PU in the stable....I forgot? 

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Valve covers are magnesium if i remember correctly. 

You remember correctly. 
 

Big RockAuto order placed just now. Lots of ignition maintenance stuff and some gaskets. Basically I'll tear the top of the engine off down to the longblock and go back together with all new seals and gaskets and touch up any wiring harness or vacuum harness issues that present themselves. Clean and detail as needed. 
 

@759NRNG. The current stable is my truck, the Toyota daily driver and now this car. 
 

Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

So let me say, I am refusing right up front to become a Corvette guy. It's just a neat car I want to goof with. There will be no satin jackets or discussion about RPO codes.

Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

The car shows to have the 3.07 rear diff by decoding the RPO sticker.

Let me know how to donate to the satin jacket fund me.

Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

I will ruin this car in the eyes of Corvette guys. 

Ruin it!  Ruin it!

Sounds like if you did swap the Salad Shooter wheels to the other side, that would tweak the purists pretty well.  Maybe a good starting point?

Pretty car. I don't own a Corvette, but I already own New Balance sneakers. Maybe a satin jacket and a key chain should be on my shopping list. 

I violated the car first thing this morning. The car has a factory block heater. Weird. Car was bought new in Washington state. I'm sure we could have a lively discussion about how rare block heaters are (there's an RPO code for them after all). But I didn't care for 8 feet of lamp cord being ziptied up in the engine compartment.

Snip !

And flung it in the trash. I did leave the heater element in the block for now. But no more annoying cord cluttering up the engine compartment. 

I lowered the value of the car already.

I would swap the wheels side to side so they looked more natural to me but the tires are directional and I don't care near enough to pay for the tire shop labor.  ZR1 or GrandSport wheels are in this car's future. 

Back off y'all ....Cuzin'E is only lackin' some "fightin' Azle HORNETS" swag. Let him do his magic on this....it's worth the price of admission....trust me

Steve_Jones said:

Duuuuuddeeeeee ! Epic post !

According to the Corvette Black Book, 1585 with engine block heaters.  Only 278 yellow, discontinued 5/11/1990 due to pigment photosensitivity which caused the paint to temporarily darken after sunlight exposure. 

Beautiful car, enjoy it!

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Does the truck have a build thread?  I have a few OBS questions too.