zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Shop is looking great. Speakers add a nice touch. Happy New Year to you and your family and I am looking forward to seeing what you do in your shop in 2025.

Shop is looking great. Speakers add a nice touch. Happy New Year to you and your family and I am looking forward to seeing what you do in your shop in 2025.
Nice score on the Klipsch speakers!
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What happened or is the plan for the Camaro?? Or, is it going down the road?? Nice looking Vette!!
Thanks Nick!Awesome!! Congrats man!
Congrats on the new ride in the stable.
I feel the same way to have been able to have some of the things at an earlier point in my life than where I ever thought I'd be able to, and know how hard it is to accomplish so I salute you on your accomplishment. Looking forward to seeing more of it in the future on your thread.
Congrats on achieving your bucket list item!!
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Very nice! Looking forward to the full report.
Awesome vette! Hope you enjoy many miles cruising in it!
Corvetteforum is a great resource for them, and I hope you keep the corvette wave alive when you are out in it!
Yep!Wait there's a Vette wave? You mean to tell me that I have to wave at Jeeps and Corvettes now? This is going to be too much![]()
I 3rd this. I had a poster of an E46 M3 on my college dorm room wall and now to have owned one for going on 6+ years, it's a great feeling. I also had a poster of a Lamborghini Countach on my bedroom wall when I was like 8, so is that next for me?!Congrats on the new ride in the stable.
I feel the same way to have been able to have some of the things at an earlier point in my life than where I ever thought I'd be able to, and know how hard it is to accomplish so I salute you on your accomplishment. Looking forward to seeing more of it in the future on your thread.
Dude, so pumped for you and cannot wait for some mountain driving together this summer! CONGRATS!
I 3rd this. I had a poster of an E46 M3 on my college dorm room wall and now to have owned one for going on 6+ years, it's a great feeling. I also had a poster of a Lamborghini Countach on my bedroom wall when I was like 8, so is that next for me?!![]()
Welcome to the club!
Mine's a few years older.
For me, it came down to C4 ZR1 vs C5 vs C6... C6 Z06 would have been the ultimate choice, but I started looking too late. I missed out when you could pick one up for $30k-$35k. C4 ZR1 got passed over since I figured I'd get more enjoyment out of something I'd feel comfortable roadtripping in.Hell yeah man, same, it's going to be great!
Nice C5! There was a long period of time where I though that I would end up with one of those instead of a C6.



I don't know one good reason to spend your hard earned money on a Corvette. From my experience there are way too many good reasons to list here. I spent ten years at night school while working full time, taking care of and upgrading our house, two cars and being present for all our children's activities. We moved from New York to Florida when I needed two years' night classes to finish my degree. When I graduated at 32 our children were 14 and 15 and Liane asked if I wanted to start a second family. I said: "Not really, I'd rather buy a Corvette." She said: "Great, you go shop for your Corvette and I'm going to have my tubes tied!"
[Good thing she did or this mob would be even bigger]
The Corvette thing started early in our marriage and we were going to buy one when I earned more than $10,000 a year (in 1962, the average family income in the United States was approximately $6,000). When I found an eight year old (1969) 427 4-speed convertible with 96,000 miles on it for $3,500, it came home with me. Wrecked it six months later and Liane told me to forget about fixing it -- just go buy another one but make it an automatic coupe. Found a '72 454 and made it my daily driver for seven years. Turned a few upgrades into a gigantic project that is still a work in progress. Returned from a 2-year assignment in Australia ready to finish the '72 and Liane said: "No way, your job is sucking up all your time so just buy another Corvette." She saw one she liked in a used car lot on the way home from a Corvette Club meeting in our '74 Fiat X1/9. It was a four year old '87 convertible with a bunch of stuff on it. Drove it to the drug and grocery stores yesterday when it was mid 70s and brilliant sunshine.
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When you see an old geezer driving around in a Corvette convertible with a $hit eatin' grin on his face, it's because he (or she) found at least one good reason to own one.
Save the wave...![]()
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@Mr. Roboto, that's how my C4 looked when it caught Liane's eye. It had the ground effects, gold paint and aftermarket wheels put on by a Chevrolet dealer in Ft. Lauderdale. Not sure when the Bose audio system was replaced with a bizarre Sony audio system but it produced a spectacular smoke show a few years later. Over the years I changed a lot of things but kept the basic look Liane liked. The front bumper and hood had bug pox (acne?) that I couldn't polish out so after I replaced the front and side ground effects (matching design) I had it re-painted the same colors. Early in my retirement I re-covered the seats with crack- and tear-free leather, polished all the aluminum in the engine compartment and stripped and polished the wheels. For S&Gs I got the startup oil cloud fixed with new valve seals and higher ratio roller rockers and installed a set of stainless headers. There's a complete stainless exhaust system waiting for my lazy *** to get back under the car.Your C4 looks wild! Is that how you purchased it or you've made it that way on your own? And you still have the 72 as well?

@Mr. Roboto, that's how my C4 looked when it caught Liane's eye. It had the ground effects, gold paint and aftermarket wheels put on by a Chevrolet dealer in Ft. Lauderdale. Not sure when the Bose audio system was replaced with a bizarre Sony audio system but it produced a spectacular smoke show a few years later. Over the years I changed a lot of things but kept the basic look Liane liked. The front bumper and hood had bug pox (acne?) that I couldn't polish out so after I replaced the front and side ground effects (matching design) I had it re-painted the same colors. Early in my retirement I re-covered the seats with crack- and tear-free leather, polished all the aluminum in the engine compartment and stripped and polished the wheels. For S&Gs I got the startup oil cloud fixed with new valve seals and higher ratio roller rockers and installed a set of stainless headers. There's a complete stainless exhaust system waiting for my lazy *** to get back under the car.
I still have the '72. It blew an oil filter and spun a main bearing on a Corvette Club outing in 1983 so I helped a friend blueprint the 454. My stupid happy guy avatar was taken while I was cleaning up the empty engine compartment. My friend had a complete engine machine shop that his father started, doing small industrial engines. The kid wanted to expand the business and do auto engines. When my engine broke down he offered to blueprint it for free if I paid for the parts because he wanted to use the tooling he acquired for Big Block Chevy engines. He was trying to make his shop specialize in offshore racing boat engines, many of which were monster size Big Block Chevies. The new engine deserved something better than the TH400 I rebuilt so a TCI took its place. Drove it to work for a year and decided the new drivetrain deserved something better than the crazed Ontario Orange lacquer paint on the car. Once I had the paint stripped, it seemed like a good time to make a few mods. Started with an L-88 hood, custom front and side grilles, a pair of custom rear bumpers and some aftermarket 16" wheels (when the C4 size wheel was 'in'). Things escalated from there with rack&pinion steering, hydroboost brakes, coilover conversion on all four corners, a set of Jet Hot coated ****** headers and a Magnaflow stainless exhaust system. I needed an adapter pipe between the Hookers and Magnaflow and the quote from a local welding shop forced me to buy my own MIG flux core welder. Flux core wire doesn't play well with stainless steel pipes so a second MIG welding machine (still cheaper than the welding shop's estimate) joined the fleet. A fair bit of Google-foo later and the new welder was set up to weld stainless. By now, it's 1997 and the C5 is born. My C3 had to have quad center outlet exhaust so a bunch of bodywork and a few feet of mandrel bent stainless pipe got glued together. My mods to the rear escalated with a fiberglass Camaro spoiler fitted to the rear. It helped disguise the raised license frame. I'm not done by a long shot but it keeps me out of the bars and almost everywhere else beyond our driveway,
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Nice mods on the new to you Vette. Glad that you were able to get it out and enjoy it.
Wanted to get our Camaro out yesterday and go for a drive, but it was too overcast and looked like it was going to storm so decided against it. I really need to get ours out and drive it more this year.![]()
Glad to hear you are loving the corvette life!
I can't wait to get my C5 out, but probably a few more weeks before winter is done with us yet.



























Funny you mentioned the Honda socket. I bought one many years ago for an upcoming job. To this day I've done multiple Honda/Acura timing belts and I have yet to have used the socket.
I tried a 1/2" drive socket years ago and it did OK, but I had to rattle on it just a bit to spin it off. Now I grab my 3/4" drive socket that has much more mass to it in wall thickness and it zips right off without issue.
holy smokes, this really makes a big difference.
love the silver, black, carbon combo.
The Vette is looking good. It's fun to make little and subtle "tweaks" that make big changes.










Glad the car came together quickly and sold quickly. That's always a good feeling vs. having to hang on to something and then waffling on selling or not. I tend to talk myself out of selling something if it doesn't sell as quickly as I want it to and like you, I can't keep every car or project that I "think" I have to have. As I get a bit older I am finding out that less is more.







