My Z has a B-day

[Hib Halverson]

My '95 just turned 20
(sigh)
The car, SN 140, was built just before Thanksgiving in 1994.

The Dark Purple Metallic '95, I've come to know-and-love as "Barney", has almost 84,000 miles on the odometer and other than some leaking weatherstrip sections and a digital speed display that sometimes goes to zero on the freeway, the car runs well and everything still works.

Had the car out last Wednesday night doing some testing of headlamps. Needing to run about 100 for a little while, I had the excuse to floor it and take it to 7000 before making the 1-2 and 2-3 shifts. Man...for a 350 with stock cams and headwork, that car still runs hard. Thanks to Van Dorn for a great Automasters engine

My next big project with it is to replace all the weatherstrip.

Not looking forward to that job.

25 DPM ZR-1s were built. I wonder how many are still in existence?

[XfireZ51]

So will you be at the 25th?

[WARP TEN]

Congratulations Hib. WARP TEN doesn't turn 20 until about April 10, 2015 I'm guessing or a couple of days earlier (build sheet date March 30, 1995). I think I will eat a birthday cake. --Bob

[Hib Halverson]

Originally Posted by XfireZ51

So will you be at the 25th?

Haven't decided, yet.

[Hib Halverson]

In honor of Barney's 20th B-day, since the car hadn't been driven any significant distance since I used it back in 2012 to prerun the recent National Corvette Caravan route from the L.A. area to B.G., I decided that, on this long Thanksgiving weekend, the purple '95 needed a few miles put on it.

I, also, needed to get some more test miles on a set of GE Nighthawk LED headlights about which I was writing a product review for the Corvette Action Center and I needed to make a trip to the L.A. area to visit my Brother-in-Law who was recovering after cancer surgery at City of Hope.

So, I made the 260-mile round trip from where I live in Goleta CA to Duarte where City of Hope is located. It had been two years since I'd spent a significant amount of time in my ZR-1. Good memories of some of the great trips I've taken over the years–the "Barney Expedition" of 1995 (remember that, in the Old "Legend" magazine?), Black Hills Classic in 1996, VetteNet Southwest tours in 1998 and 2000, 50th Anniversary National Corvette Caravan in 2003. Prerun for the '09 Caravan in 2007 and Prerun for the '14 Caravan in 2012–came flooding back during the about six hours I spent in the car.

The trip down was an afternoon adventure through L.A's. congested freeway system. It was Tuesday before Thanksgiving which I originally thought that would be a "safe" day to travel as I thought most people would leave town the next day.

Wrong.

It took me four hours to get there. There was medium/heavy traffic everywhere on the trip and the last 20 miles was bumper-to-bumper. Some people don't like congested traffic in a car with a manual trans but keeping my clutch hydraulics in good condition and having a McLeod aftermarket clutch which has reasonable pedal effort but enough clutch pressure for my 500-hp Automasters LT5, makes constant clutch work in traffic no big deal. The mods I performed to the car's cooling back in the '98-'99 period still work well so, in traffic, the highest coolant temp I saw was 202°F.

Another feature of Barney which makes traffic congestion less tedious is the upgrade I did a year or so ago to the sound system. I replaced all four Bose amplifier/speaker modules then replaced the stock radio with a more modern Pioneer. This trip to L.A. and back was the first time I'd taken a long trip in the car listening to that upgraded sound system. Man, what a difference. If you want more info on that, read articles posted here and posted here.

The drive back was exactly the opposite. I made it in an hour and 45-min but then...I waited until 9 PM to leave. By then there was no traffic. I stopped a couple of times along the way to get off the freeway then get back on using WOT to the top of second gear. Of course, I had to do that to clean off any spark plugs fouling left by all that traffic congestion on the way down.

Well, ok. I lied. My engine doesn't foul plugs.

All I really wanted was to hear my LT5 running between 6000 and 7000 rpm though its Flowmaster exhaust. Actually, I love to listen to any V8 at high-rpm though a proper exhaust but my favorites are my 95 ZR-1 with it's hybrid exhaust (a mix of stock 96 Grand Sport and Flowmaster parts) and my '12 Z06 (backdated 2011 center section and lower restriction 2012 mufflers) because both engines will rev to just over 7000 rpm.

The drive back to Goleta takes me over a section of US101 west of Ventura that is a critical test of headlights. The stretch between the Ventura city limit and the Rincon Beach exit southeast of the city of Carpinteria has almost no street lights, so to drive safely at "normal" ZR-1 speeds, you need good lighting in the lane ahead of you and along the right shoulder where your eyes should be when the glare oncoming traffic blinds you but...you don't want that "good" lighting to actually be "bad" lighting for oncoming drivers of which, since US101 is major route between the California central coast and the greater L.A. area, there are many. On parts of this stretch, you can't use high-beams because of oncoming traffic, so you must used low-beams. Finding headlight systems with good low-beam lighting for that is challenging. The Nighthawk LEDs I've been testing work well for that kind of driving.

Yesterday, the day after my trip to Duarte, I tested a tool used to pop plug boots out of LT5 cam covers made by ZR-1 owner, Steve Jasik. If your interested in that tool, read a product review by clicking here. In the process of doing that review, I also pulled a couple of plugs, just to see how they were doing. I hadn't changed spark plugs since the end of 2002 when I put in a set of Denso Iridium Power IT-22s. After 12 years and 23,000 miles, you'd think there'd be some reason to change plugs but, the engine idles smooth and pulls cleanly to the 7072-rpm rev limiter. The ones I pulled were pretty clean, the ground electrodes still had their "u-grooves" and the gaps were still right around .050-in. So, I put them right back in. Amazing performance and durability from those Densos.

Tomorrow, I'm going to wash ole Barney, a rare treat for my '95, considering the city in which i live has mandatory Stage 2 water conservation rules in effect.

Now...I just gotta build up the enthusiasm to replace all the car's weatherstrip. The doors leak, the hatch glass leaks–it's about time. That's my big project for the Winter.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

[Hib Halverson]

Originally Posted by XfireZ51

So will you be at the 25th?

Ok, I decided..

I'm going to be down there. The NCM contacted me about chairing one of the panel discussions.

Also, I've decided...
(sigh, gulp)
...I'm going to put my ZR-1 up for sale this Spring.

Why am I doing that after 20 great years of ownership?
1) I need some cash. I want to buy my Wife an ATS-V. She's lived with 12-years of my being a Corvette Caravan Captain. She put up with my buying Z06 "toys" in 2004 and 2012. So, now, she gets a "toy". She wanted a BMW, but I sold her on the M3's new arch-rival, an ATS-V.
2) We only have garage space for three Corvettes and the off-site storage we've been using for the fourth is soon going away so we need to downsize the "fleet."
3) I'm getting too old to service and maintain four Vettes.
4) My '71 BB Coupe is not saleable right now, the 2004 Z06 isn't worth enough and I don't want to sell my '12 Z06 so, in a few months, Barney will be someone's "shopportunity" to become one of the few Zroners who own a ZR-1 from the last year of production and which is painted a "one-year color".

[XfireZ51]

Love the purple color. Please post a pic soon.

[Demps]

Send it up to Las Vegas.
Ted

[gbrtng]

I want Wifey to buy ME an ATS-V after pawing over one at CoTA last Saturday.
Buggers aren't cheap ... but the ATS-Vs driven by Johnny O and Andy Pilgrim put in a VERY good showing in the GT class considering it was the first time out.

CU at BG,
Glenn