C4 getting spanked at the light!

[CKA_Racing]

I have no other way of saying this to you Kingman, so don't take it as an insult. But you need to educate yourself allot more about C4 corvettes and their capabilities.
Yes, some C4’s are slower than others.
A C4 LT4 is still a fast cat, even by today’s standards. I have run 12.9 @110mph in my totally FACTORY stock LT4. I’ve run a boat load of 13-13.1’s also, even ran 13.3 running like crapola due to bad O2 sensors. A C5 can run the same depending on what year/model/options just like the C4 models. Driver also counts for allot no matter what car you run. At top speed, there are not many of today’s car’s that can hang with a C4 and that includes the handling arena. Yes, I know you mentioned 0-60mph. Maybe you should go to the track and see how well a C4 with a good driver can do. You’d be surprised.

Yes, there are some quick little cars out today and I give them props. But even so, just like you more or less said. I rather drive a Corvette than a Neon SRT-4.

 

[MoeJr]

I don't let the ricers get to me. I own an 84 Vette and I love driving it. It is totally stock except for a gutted cat. Is it the fastest car on the street? No way but it is quick and like CKA said at higher speeds it is very stable and handles well. I had to do an emergency avoidance on the highway a few months ago at 80 mph. Any other car the rear end would have came right out when I jerked that wheel but my 84 Z51 stuck like glue and the rear end never broke traction. Also do not count out a C4 on the highway. I ran a guy up on the highway to 100mph and his 330Ci BMW could not catch me until I slowed back down to normal hiway crusing speed. Don't worry bout them pocket rockets. Corvettes are better vehicles no matter what year they are. Just my .02

 

[BigRed]

Welcome to HOT-RODDING!!

There will always be something better,faster,nicer,etc.. thats what makes hot-rodding so much fun!

But no one will have YOUR car thats why we customize and do radical things to make our babies ours!

Any smuck can go buy a Z06 or Harley Davidson but slap a custom engraved cover on the ol V-Twin or a ground effects kit on your vette...Now not just anyone will have that car or bike will they?

Pull the motor start cleaning,reassembling,painting,chroming.
Put some taller gears in there like 3:73's!
Add a NOS shot!

Point is there is ALWAYS something else you can do and there will ALWAYS be something else out there you want that other people got, this is the endless circle of hot-rodding and why its never going to die.

Enough motivational speeches from this cat! Enjoy your car because SO many people would love to be YOU.

 

[Mad-Mic]

like alot of C4 owners here i find it insulting when someone says "I can't hang with the newer cars so it's time to Upgrade to a C5"


to me the C4 is the best body style that a vette ever came with. handling, performance, and looks in one package!

let me ask you this. how much money do you have in your 96 vette? how much is it worth now? how much is a C5 that you would want? i would guess a 96 vette with less than 50k in miles is worth only about 15k at most. you can get a C5 for around 20-25k. spend the 5 or 10k and build that LT motor you got into something that will blow even the new C6 away. can it be done? yes very easily. long block 383 stroker 5k + procharger D1 SC 4k = 500+rwhp that would smoke the ever loving crap out of most cars on the street.

my 87 is pretty much stock and is close to running 12's and i only have 240 rwhp and 340 rwtq. yes she's not the fastest but for a mostly stock 87 vette that runs 13.1 @ 106 mph with 2.59 gears and a stock 1600 rpm stall i catch ALOT of C5's off gaurd and even pull them on the top end. kicker is i have less than 500 bucks in mods.

looks like you need to start modding! with a few mods and some tuning a LT1 vette should run mid 12's easy with a stock motor.

if your interested in modding that beast give us a call and tell them Mad-Mic sent ya. 410 242 0404 http://www.fbodycentral.com we specialize in LT1 LS1 FBody's and Vettes.

 

[MoeJr]

I gotta agree with Mad Mic the C4 is surely capable of being king on the street. My 84 with only a gutted converter screams. Everyone says the Cross Fire cars are like the plague. They may not be the most sophisticated but they still make good power. One of these days I am gonna experiment with an 84 and see what I can get out of it for power.

 

[Corvette-Pilot]

You guys know what the anser is, come on and admit it.

Most of us Vette owners love our shinny, waxed glistening paint and think it would be a crime punishable by death to put any stickers on it. But without those stickers we will never have a chance

Guess we will all just have to drive around looking cool and watching our car values go up. Poor us

 

[Mad-Mic]

I gotta agree with Mad Mic the C4 is surely capable of being king on the street. My 84 with only a gutted converter screams. Everyone says the Cross Fire cars are like the plague. They may not be the most sophisticated but they still make good power. One of these days I am gonna experiment with an 84 and see what I can get out of it for power.

Moe,

i like the CF cars actually. i have an 82 Z/28 with CF with some work and alot of tuning i had her running 13.6 at 102 mph. 3.42 gears, ported heads, cam, added fuel pressure, timing, 3500 stall, and a few other mods. she pulls to 6500 rpm easily. granted this was 12 years ago but i still have the car and it is getting a work over. unfortunatly i'm not going to keep the CFI and will probably put the motor in my vette now with the TPI setup in the Z as i am building a shortblock now for the vette with a reworked LT1 intake setup. future plans are LS1 M6 for the Z

 

[MoeJr]

Moe,

i like the CF cars actually. i have an 82 Z/28 with CF with some work and alot of tuning i had her running 13.6 at 102 mph. 3.42 gears, ported heads, cam, added fuel pressure, timing, 3500 stall, and a few other mods. she pulls to 6500 rpm easily. granted this was 12 years ago but i still have the car and it is getting a work over. unfortunatly i'm not going to keep the CFI and will probably put the motor in my vette now with the TPI setup in the Z as i am building a shortblock now for the vette with a reworked LT1 intake setup. future plans are LS1 M6 for the Z

You gonna put a 305 in the Vette? i am confused

 

[taegdh]

Getting spanked at the lights, is not good us studly and mature types!

I was a "dreaming" the other day about dropping a Big Block into the 85, then saw this thread. Now just a wondering, how much of a problem is it?

Last time I did an engine swap I inserted a 390 with a T10 4spd into a 57 Ford Ranchero. (The original 292 let loose a con-rod at 6:30 in the morning.) I didn't worry about underhood clearance back then, and exhausts weren't a problem back then, and being that was in 1973, I didn't have to worry about the emissions with a 57.

But a 502 in an 85 coupe would be awsome.....

 

[Edmond]

Mic,

Do you know if the 83 Z28 has a CF in it? I bought one last September and other than a tuneup, I haven't touched the car. It's been sitting in my driveway ever since. I haven't even driven the car. Only paid $500 for it and see no reason to drive it cause I got the Vette'.

This is kind of a concern for me, but it's no fault of the C4. We can't forget that today's family sedans are putting out L98 HP, but certainly not L98 torque. You wouldn't find too many cars today that put out L98 like torque.

But I've decided to tear down the Vette' this winter and rebuild it. The only thing I'm sure of is that I want a 383 and I'll be using AFR heads. I have the 700R4 and was told that I can pretty much count the Mini Ram out. I remember Grumpy talked about a Stealth Ram unit that was designed (on a limited basis) to fit under the hood of a C4. Anyone know if they're still available?

 

[Mad-Mic]

it's either CFI or Quadrajet carbed. 83 Z's came with T-5's or 700R4's. just pop the hood and look at the intake. if it has 2 TB's it's CFI

Mic,

Do you know if the 83 Z28 has a CF in it? I bought one last September and other than a tuneup, I haven't touched the car. It's been sitting in my driveway ever since. I haven't even driven the car. Only paid $500 for it and see no reason to drive it cause I got the Vette'.

This is kind of a concern for me, but it's no fault of the C4. We can't forget that today's family sedans are putting out L98 HP, but certainly not L98 torque. You wouldn't find too many cars today that put out L98 like torque.

But I've decided to tear down the Vette' this winter and rebuild it. The only thing I'm sure of is that I want a 383 and I'll be using AFR heads. I have the 700R4 and was told that I can pretty much count the Mini Ram out. I remember Grumpy talked about a Stealth Ram unit that was designed (on a limited basis) to fit under the hood of a C4. Anyone know if they're still available?

 

[Mad-Mic]

Hell no!...lol the 305 is coming out of the Z and the L98 is coming out of the Vette and going in the Z. i have another roller short block out of a 88 Iroc that is .030 over and going in the vette with my LT1 intake

You gonna put a 305 in the Vette? i am confused

 

[MoeJr]

Ahh ok. Thats sounds better. I knew there must be a logical answer to it.

Hell no!...lol the 305 is coming out of the Z and the L98 is coming out of the Vette and going in the Z. i have another roller short block out of a 88 Iroc that is .030 over and going in the vette with my LT1 intake

 

[Skant]

Whenever some ricer tells me that vettes are slow, I ask him... Which vette are you talking about?

Really... there are 50 model years of corvettes... and several options within each of those years... some of them aren't all that fast. Some of them eat ferrari's for breakfast. In general, Corvettes tend to be the fastest cars on the road. Even the slowest vettes... I think 1978 is the slowest they ever got (?)... are still faster than any other cars that were produced in the same year... even if it's a bit slow by today's standards. (And it's not fair to compare against, for instance, european cars that couldn't run on american streets due to emissions requirements. The vettes run quite a lot faster without the emissions gear, too. Lets compare apples to apples)

There has been a general rise in performance over the last few years across the automotive industry. That's great! It's a good thing to see a renewed interest in cars with muscle... regardless of how that is achieved. That's good for the sport. But it does mean that newer cars are starting to challenge some of the older vettes.

There's two ways to handle that. One is to just figure that your car is a decade or so old... and it's taken the other cars this long to catch up. And frankly your vette will always be cool.

The other route is to improve your beast to keep up with the times.

That may come in the form of updating the car with modern mods. May I suggest that a good set of modern tires may dramatically improve your 0-60 time? Or just more aggressive rear gears will do it.

The fact is... a Corvette is a much better platform than the Subaru to begin with. Keeping up with and surpassing a Subaru's capabilities isn't much of a stretch for a platform which is practically a race car layout. It's lower. It mounts much larger tires. It's a 2 seater. It's heavier, but only because it has a much larger power plant which has hugely more potential (4 digit horsepower is possible here). Whereas the Subaru is a sporty 4 seater sedan that comes really hot from the factory (and is burning the candle on both ends just to keep up).

Plus remember that AWD has an inherent huge advantage in getting off the line. If that Subaru can just beat you going 0-60mph... you'll cream it in any contest that doesn't include a launch from zero. If you want to attack the 0-60mph dash, that's not really what the Corvette is optimized for in its stock configuration (and that _is_ what the Subaru is going for... which is why it does it well). Gears and tires are the main things to change in the vette to improve its 0-60. It's already got enough ponies... that's not the problem.

Plus... launching a vette is difficult... and driver skill will make a very large difference in 0-60mph time... when I was measuring my 0-60 times. I found nearly a whole second of difference between my good launches and my bad ones.

As for myself and my C4... I've only ever been beaten in a stop light contest once. And that was by another vette. I've faced all sorts of ricers that were straight out of the Fast and the Furious. No problem. Not even close. Even had a ricer pop his nitrous on the freeway, and he could only sortof keep up with me until his nitrous ran out...

But it's eventually gonna happen. And so what... like some others have said, there's always a faster car out there. And you have to keep in mind that _any_ car can be made fast with enough alteration. There are ricers who put $50,000 in mods into their car (but nearly all of them just boast and pretend they've got that much in the car)... that can be enough to beat a stock corvette. Ooo... aah... they could have spent the same money on a corvette platform with mods and been _MUCH_ faster. But instead, they're pouring money by buckets into a weaker platform. Okay... that's their choice. But a modified rice car beating a stock vette doesn't mean vettes are slow.

I'll put it this way... given $100,000 to spend on a car plus mods... what's the fastest car you could get for that? Ain't gonna be a ferarri. Ain't gonna be a porshe. Ain't gonna be a subaru. It's gonna be a modified corvette... it's the best platform around.

- Skant