by Gene Slater
The
car was bought some 3 years ago, with the fender flares, and taillites just as you see it.
The hood was done recently here in Florida, by a talented airbursh guy down the street
named Mack of Air Effects in Orange Park.
The car has a hisory of being an old show car from the 70's. It.was purchased in '73 , used, from a Washington D.C.a area dealer, and turned into a show car. It was white/lime green in it's first show car paint job. It was redone into the present Ditzler Radiance about 9 years ago.
Upon buying it, I sat on it for about a month, studying what I wanted to do with it.
First
thing was '92 wheels 17x9.5 all corners.
Next thing was to ditch the carb in favor of an L98 injection setup, serpentine drive '88 Vette style, electric fan, and Camaro aluminum/plastic late model radiator
So after rebuilding everything in sight, brakes, suspension, etc., the engine was updated down here in Jacksonville, Florida. I moved here some 8 months ago from the DC area.
Currently
the engine is an '89 truck block, one peice rear main seal, all factory style roller, ZZ9
cammed (TPIS) and roller rockers, thick heavy iron casting on the heads, l94-150 valves,
minor porting, gasket matching, full length headers, 2.5 inch pipes, and torque tube.
The tranny was a Muncie 4 speed, so for the o/d I went with a slam shifting THM700r4 setup, widening the tranny tunnel on the pass side by about an inch, and fabricating my own rear tranny mount, by modifying the original to accept the longer tail-shaft. I also redid all the universal joints and differential seals.
The
brakes were stainless already, but the additon of dot 5 fluid stopped even the hint of
rust.
The suspension/wheel adapters are by Vette Brakes--who else?
The car has a narrower steering radius NOW than a C4--go figger.
When the new engine was installed, the hood was also added, with cowl induction--on an L98--only one in the country, I'd bet....:-)))
That
cowl induction box was a real nice time-consuming project. The 250 buck price I was quoted
from a local hot-rod fabrication shop was cheap--as it took me 3 days to do the same thing
myself...;-(((
The interior was redone by me, with Al Knoch materials--and the custom HVAC controls and light display are all mine, as is the total wiring harness for the engine and tranny. The custom light displays in place of the ashtray/lighter. It's an LED display of the engine firing order, 18436572 in sequence, and the last two banks of injectors A&B plus fuel pump and SES.
I used to do engineering prototype development. work so it wasn't hard, just time consuming! I still have the original hardtop, but don't use it here in sunny Florida.
Copyright 1996 Barbara Spear
