Thursday, December 22, 2011

My Corvettes- 1988, 1995 and 1991 ZR-1

1988 Corvette 4+3 Transmission L98-245hp
Not an over-powered car but the automatic down-shift
of the 4+3 transmission makes good use of torque.

1995 Corvette Convertable Automatic LT1-300hp.  With dark purple
metallic paint, black convertable top and automatic transmission, this
beauty screams of female mid-life crisis!  Driving this car always made
me feel as though I was a "kept" man, sort of a dandy as well.  Sort of made
me feel like taking the top off, throwing on a scarf and over sized
sunglasses and driving around town, really slow...


1991 ZR-1 Corvette ZF6 Transmission LT5-375-405hp
Male mid-life crisis exudes from this car every bit as much as
shaving the male pattern baldness off your head!  This is no
ordinary crisis car, its design specifically addresses the need for
speed, style and performance that is absent from its owner.  When
the 20 something rice burner driver flashes his pinky finger, I just
down shift and engage the secondaries with WOT.   Works every time!  

The 1991 ZR-1 is four inches wider than the base C4 in the rear to fit the
wide 315 tires.  This car handles like it's on rails and accelerates like a new
base model Corvette.  Not bad for being 20 years old!  This car has 27K
miles on it and drives like I drove it off the show room floor yesterday.

The 1991 ZR-1 engine is the LT5.  Extremely complex in its design, GM out-sourced
the manufacturing to Mercury Marine.  Mercury was probably the best choice because
of their expertise in all aluminum engine manufacturing.  GM co-designed the LT5 with
Lotus. To date, the LT5 is, if not the best,  is one of the best engines ever built.  If properly
maintained, this engine can live well beyond 200k miles!  Always remember to change the
10 quarts of oil every 3k miles or every 6 months! This car still holds the endurance record.
(Hence the King of the Hill classification)   A stock model was driven at 170MPH+ for 24
straight hours while covering over 4000 miles.  I'd like to see that from an obscenely
oversized-single-piped ricer! Ha!

Another view of the LT5 engine. For some reason I can open the hood and stare at this 
thing for a good ten minutes before I feel the need to start cleaning something.  Specialized 
Racing Products LLC http://www.zr1products.com makes a super charger that fits the LT5.   
That should up the hp to over 500 I would think.  I would always worry about blowing it
up.  And at $20,000 to replace or at least $10,000 to rebuild I would have to think long and
hard about it.