Drove my 1st ZR-1 - WOW

[sledutah]

Hello all,

Been looking to buy a ZR1 for the last month or two. Drove my first one a few days ago. WOW, it was just what I expected and more......... Drove to Boise (350 miles each way) on the Harley to have a look. It is a '91 w/85K miles. It ran GREAT and strong. They want $19,900 for it. I have been looking at some with less miles that I think I can get for not much more.

The one thing that has me wondering (maybe someone could help out!!) The plenum and valve colors have a light green tint. It looks like paint. I'm not sure why anybody would paint them light green, the car is Black/Black. If I was too purchase this one, I would want them to be stripped and back to silver. What is involved in this? Is it worth the cost/time to do it.

I haven't driven anything with that much power since I sold my '70 Torino Cobra w/429 SCJ w/ram air :-D:-D Could light the tires up going into 4th.

Thanks,
Craig

[We Gone]

Should be silver..some one may have cleaned with the wrong type cleaner :confused:

I have seen many that get this green tint, by the way it is only painted silver.

Good luck in your hunt and welcome.......:hello:

Steve

[tomtom72]

...can cure a bad day! Tell me you didn't have a grin big enough to swallow your ears? Welcome to the club!

I'm just a rookie owner, less than 9 mos, so I don't have much on the tech side. I'll offer up this thought for you to consider. I bought a low milage 90 over Christmass 04. 9200 miles from the original owner & paid 25K. Now I will have to address all the common repairs that would have been done if the car had had more normal milage on it. I got to use it a good bit before the problems cropped up. My point is if you get one with 35K miles down to about 20K miles on it you may be better off. Most of the common things will have been done and it will be used to being used. Just a thought.
Anyway good luck in your search & welcome to the neighborhood!
Tom :cheers:

[Z Factor]

The one thing that has me wondering (maybe someone could help out!!) The plenum and valve colors have a light green tint. It looks like paint. I'm not sure why anybody would paint them light green, the car is Black/Black. If I was too purchase this one, I would want them to be stripped and back to silver. What is involved in this? Is it worth the cost/time to do it.



Hello Craig, and welcome to the forum. :handshak:

The light green is not correct for the ZR-1 regardless if it was painted or affected by an improper cleaner(I suspect the latter). As to the cost and time being worth it, I'd say yes it is. The LT5 has to be one of the best looking engines on the planet, and we ZR-1 owners are always proud to open up the hood to show it off.

There are plenty of ZR-1 tuners that will power-coat them back to the original color, or even a custom color if you wish. Many people opt to have the plenum and injector housings P&P at the same time for performance gains. There are also several members here on the forum such as Jeff (Jeffvette) who do the powder-coating. Although I have not had him do mine, I have heard he does a very nice job, so drop him an PM and inquire as to cost.

You may wish to use the need to repaint as a bargaining chip in your negotiations.

Good luck, and let us know when you pick one up.

:cheers:

[Kevin]

Jeff will be doing my motor when the time comes. But you are looknig at $450-1500 to get the top end/cam covers done.

[Nick]

Welcome to the Forum. While I would not be afraid of a car with 85,000 well maintained miles (if in fact it WAS well maintained), I think if you have located other cars with fewer miles for not much more money, you should take a hard look at them. Let us know what other cars you are looking at.

As for re-doing the engine finish, Jeffvette does an excellent job. I let him practice on mine, and now he's an expert, and very $$ reasonable. Take a look for your self:

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a1/skedadl/TopEnd5.jpg

[sledutah]

Should be silver..some one may have cleaned with the wrong type cleaner :confused:

I have seen many that get this green tint, by the way it is only painted silver.

Good luck in your hunt and welcome.......:hello:

Steve

It looks like it was painted or powder coated. It is a even color over the plenum and the valve cover. I forgot my camera and the pictures the dealer has posted on their webpage are not clear.

Thanks,
Craig

[sledutah]

...can cure a bad day! Tell me you didn't have a grin big enough to swallow your ears? Welcome to the club!

I'm just a rookie owner, less than 9 mos, so I don't have much on the tech side. I'll offer up this thought for you to consider. I bought a low milage 90 over Christmass 04. 9200 miles from the original owner & paid 25K. Now I will have to address all the common repairs that would have been done if the car had had more normal milage on it. I got to use it a good bit before the problems cropped up. My point is if you get one with 35K miles down to about 20K miles on it you may be better off. Most of the common things will have been done and it will be used to being used. Just a thought.
Anyway good luck in your search & welcome to the neighborhood!
Tom :cheers:

Yes I did :dancing:dancingFrom the ride up and back and especially the Z....

Thanks for the tips, I appreciate them. What type of work did you need to do with that low of mileage? I'm looking at cars in the 35K-70K (mileage) range. Any lower than that, it looks like the price jumps up. It sounds like you got a good deal with that low of mileage.

Thanks,
Craig

[sledutah]

Kevin and Z-Factor:
Thanks for the tip. I may contact him if I need to.

Craig

[sledutah]

Welcome to the Forum. While I would not be afraid of a car with 85,000 well maintained miles (if in fact it WAS well maintained), I think if you have located other cars with fewer miles for not much more money, you should take a hard look at them. Let us know what other cars you are looking at.

As for re-doing the engine finish, Jeffvette does an excellent job. I let him practice on mine, and now he's an expert, and very $$ reasonable. Take a look for your self:

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a1/skedadl/TopEnd5.jpg

That is what I'm looking for :):) It looks great.
I've had my eye on a '90 in Vegas (not too much info ;)). Had a friend (He pointed me to ZR1.net) look at it for me. I'm just trying to get them to lower the price alittle more. I've been watching it for a month now, so we'll see.
Thanks,
Craig

[Z Factor]

It looks like it was painted or powder coated. It is a even color over the plenum and the valve cover.

Did it look like this?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/te51cle/JoesGreenEngine.jpg


:mrgreen:


:cheers:

[Jeffvette]

Craig, more than likely the surfaces have been cleansed with something in the past. The LT5 finish is durable, but yet it is very fragfile at the same time to chemicals. Water can even discolor the pieces if they are warm. I'm also abailable to travel and do the tear down and rebuild if you would like.

Thanks for the kudos guys.

Here are some other colors.

Black with Silver
http://www.pnwzr1.net/Jeff/Powdercoating/IMG_2117.JPG

Yellow with Black
http://www.pnwzr1.net/Jeff/Powdercoating/IMG_2119.JPG

Black Chrome no lettering
http://www.pnwzr1.net/Jeff/Powdercoating/IMG_2392.JPG

Admiral Blue no lettering (don't ask about the blanked
out letters)
http://www.pnwzr1.net/Jeff/Powdercoating/admiral.JPG

Silver Felck/Red Lettering
www.pnwzr1.net/Nick/Plenum/IMG_0223a.JPG

Red/Black lettering
http://www.pnwzr1.net/Jeff/Powdercoating/DSCN2726.JPG

Black Wrinkle/Red lettering
http://www.pnwzr1.net/Jeff/Powdercoating/MichaelM/IMG_4259a.jpg

Black Chrome no lettering
http://www.pnwzr1.net/Jeff/Powdercoating/JohnP/BlackChrome.jpg

Red/Black lettering
http://www.pnwzr1.net/Jeff/Powdercoating/DSCN2726.JPG

[sledutah]

Did it look like this?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/te51cle/JoesGreenEngine.jpg


:mrgreen:


:cheers:

My momma always told me if you can't say anything nice :confused:

It wasn't quite that dark :sign10:

:cheers:

[sledutah]

Thanks Jeff:

I like the Silver Fleck/Red letters and the Black wrinkle/Red letters, they both look awesome. :notworthy:notworthy

[Kevin]

Jeff,
Do you do the two color letters? numbers in red letters in black?

[Jeffvette]

Kevin, there is no surcharge for the dual color.

[tomtom72]

Hi Chris, The vacuum system that controls the secondary port system on my car has developed a leak somewhere under the plenum. The breather box gasket and or breather hoses leak a good bit. The cost of the parts for these two issues are not significant, the labor to get to them is. Not that R & R on the plenum is any more complicated than an intake manifold swap on an old s/b chevy. To me the question is what else is under there that is a wear item affected by either number of duty cycles and or time in service. That answer I compare to the fact that every time one of those parts needs replacing you have to R & R the plenum. If you have a work space, which I don't, the Q is not relavent because you can just correct each problem as it comes up.
The clutch hyd system needed to be replaced because it sat more than it was used and developed leaks. I'm sure that system's problems were a combination of duty cycles and time in service and me wanting to actually use the car. There were some other issues like the speakers and CD player that were N/G when I got the car. Again, I felt if you use it alot you would be inclined to fix those minor issues because they would bug me as a driver. The owner never brought it back for the PROM update, again I feel because he didn't use it enough for it to bother him. Heck he just had the seat belt recall done about a yr before he sold it!

Maybe I'm wrong about all this but you know when something's wrong with your toys it bugs me & makes me want to fix it. Oh, it also still had the OEM rubber on it, 15 yr old tires! Don't get me wrong, I'm not sorry I bought a ZR-1! I just think had I thought about it a little more I might have saved some $ on the price and bought one with more miles and more fix'in done to it. Hind sight is always 20/20!
JMHO,
Tom :cheers:

[sledutah]

Hi Chris, The vacuum system that controls the secondary port system on my car has developed a leak somewhere under the plenum. The breather box gasket and or breather hoses leak a good bit. The cost of the parts for these two issues are not significant, the labor to get to them is. Not that R & R on the plenum is any more complicated than an intake manifold swap on an old s/b chevy. To me the question is what else is under there that is a wear item affected by either number of duty cycles and or time in service. That answer I compare to the fact that every time one of those parts needs replacing you have to R & R the plenum. If you have a work space, which I don't, the Q is not relavent because you can just correct each problem as it comes up.
The clutch hyd system needed to be replaced because it sat more than it was used and developed leaks. I'm sure that system's problems were a combination of duty cycles and time in service and me wanting to actually use the car. There were some other issues like the speakers and CD player that were N/G when I got the car. Again, I felt if you use it alot you would be inclined to fix those minor issues because they would bug me as a driver. The owner never brought it back for the PROM update, again I feel because he didn't use it enough for it to bother him. Heck he just had the seat belt recall done about a yr before he sold it!

Maybe I'm wrong about all this but you know when something's wrong with your toys it bugs me & makes me want to fix it. Oh, it also still had the OEM rubber on it, 15 yr old tires! Don't get me wrong, I'm not sorry I bought a ZR-1! I just think had I thought about it a little more I might have saved some $ on the price and bought one with more miles and more fix'in done to it. Hind sight is always 20/20!
JMHO,
Tom :cheers:

Chris :merror:[-X[-X I've been called alot worse :wink:

Thanks for the feedback, things that I can look out for. It makes sense that with low mileage comes problems like that, never really thought of it before.

Craig

[A1990]

I think the black chrome is way cool! Would like to see the whole engine.

[tomtom72]

Hi Craig, My apologies! A brain lock moment or I just can't read! I don't known which...probably both! :o

When I was looking, in late 03 & thru 04, I had noticed that most of the cars with abnormally low milage had a very short list of "things already done". Most had no list at all. The more seasoned cars had most of the things that you would expect at 10 to 15 yrs old would need to be addressed already done. Either way you go I guess it's fairly equal dollar wise if you can put a dollar value on not having any miles on the drive train. I just feel that maybe I could have thought about it more carefully. Again, JMHO.

Good luck,
Tom :cheers:

[bobbyhi]

Jeffvette,

You do an awesome painting job. Wish you were closer to me so I could spruce up my LT5.:thumbsup:

[Kevin]

Jeffvette,

You do an awesome painting job. Wish you were closer to me so I could spruce up my LT5.:thumbsup:

Tare it down and send it to jeff. :-D

[bobbyhi]

I suppose that could be a Minnesota winter project! ! !

[sledutah]

Hi Craig, My apologies! A brain lock moment or I just can't read! I don't known which...probably both! :o

When I was looking, in late 03 & thru 04, I had noticed that most of the cars with abnormally low milage had a very short list of "things already done". Most had no list at all. The more seasoned cars had most of the things that you would expect at 10 to 15 yrs old would need to be addressed already done. Either way you go I guess it's fairly equal dollar wise if you can put a dollar value on not having any miles on the drive train. I just feel that maybe I could have thought about it more carefully. Again, JMHO.

Good luck,
Tom :cheers:

Not a problem, I know what you mean :wink:

Thanks again for the suggestions, makes sense to me :thumbsup:
:cheers:

[Jeffvette]

Jeffvette,

You do an awesome painting job. Wish you were closer to me so I could spruce up my LT5.:thumbsup:

That is why I've been working on a write up for the job. Go to the tech section.

http://www.pnwzr1.net/