Change in Plans

[DRM500RUBYZR-1]

Just another comment.
Ed's lament about the trials and difficulties of owning an LT-5 sounds very familiar.
There was an earlier Corvette engine that many felt the very same way about.
While the bulk of the engine was pure small block, with parts available almost at the hardware store, there were about 10,000 made over many years that had a very strange rectangular box.
Very few mechanics understood or knew how to fix one, and parts were very hard to come by. Much of that is still true today.
The box of course is the mechanical fuel injection unit.
If you own a Corvette Fuelie today, you have one of the most iconic Corvettes EVER made!
While others were faster; and others much easier to work on, very few owners of a Fuelie today would even consider parting with their prize.
Some will, but many won't.
It does not matter how difficult to fix, or how scarce the parts are or may become for the ZR-1, it will not matter.
I will be happy to do what it takes to maintain MY piece of Corvette history.
After all, how many own such legendary cars!
The C-5 is all that Ed says it is.
But what it is not, is legendary.

Marty

[BigJohn]

Cool car Ed, do you want to race?

[-=Jeff=-]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

Cool car Ed, do you want to race?

Kind of hard when one of the cars never leaves the garage

[Hog]

Originally Posted by -=Jeff=-

Kind of hard when one of the cars never leaves the garage

I was going to say that about all these "great" fuelie cars. If I had to put any significant street miles on a car, it wouldn't be a Rochester Ramjet car.
They're great for bragging to those that haven't had to actually "live" with them.

[Roadster]

Originally Posted by DRM500RUBYZR-1

Just another comment.
Ed's lament about the trials and difficulties of owning an LT-5 sounds very familiar.
There was an earlier Corvette engine that many felt the very same way about.
While the bulk of the engine was pure small block, with parts available almost at the hardware store, there were about 10,000 made over many years that had a very strange rectangular box.
Very few mechanics understood or knew how to fix one, and parts were very hard to come by. Much of that is still true today.
The box of course is the mechanical fuel injection unit.
If you own a Corvette Fuelie today, you have one of the most iconic Corvettes EVER made!
While others were faster; and others much easier to work on, very few owners of a Fuelie today would even consider parting with their prize.
Some will, but many won't.
It does not matter how difficult to fix, or how scarce the parts are or may become for the ZR-1, it will not matter.
I will be happy to do what it takes to maintain MY piece of Corvette history.
After all, how many own such legendary cars!
The C-5 is all that Ed says it is.
But what it is not, is legendary.

Marty

Originally Posted by Hog

I was going to say that about all these "great" fuelie cars. If I had to put any significant street miles on a car, it wouldn't be a Rochester Ramjet car.
They're great for bragging to those that haven't had to actually "live" with them.

Yes, the FI Vettes of the late 50's & early 60's were problematic during that time, only if you or your mechanic did not have the knowledge and "know-how" to keep them properly tuned. Only a handful of Chevy mechanics knew how to keep them running properly at the time. On the other hand as the story goes, the FI Jags at the time were not so troublesome as related to keeping them in tune. It seems that the Jag mechanics had the tool(s) needed to keep the Jag engine in check. Supposedly, it was a simple tool used not only on the Jag, but was used on the Rochester FI as well for the people that knew. I can not verify the above, as that was told to me by another Vette owner.
Which brings me to the CFI, which I would say 90% of people would not want to touch one because of that induction system. Same reasons, most mechanics did not understand how they operated and how to set them up to run properly. Have to say my 82 was tuned by an old school mechanic who knew and understood the system. My proof, after 4 1/2 years of ownership and almost 80,000 miles of my driving, it runs great.
My point, doesn't matter what you are driving, if you want to drive it that bad, you will find a way and figure out how to keep it running as it was intended to perform.
For the difference between the C4 and C5, sure there is a difference. When I took delivery of my 97 way back when, driving off the dealer's lot, I'm thinking, this is the best Corvette ever......and I enjoyed every mile of ownership at that time. But like so many here, I always wanted a C4 ZR-1 and extremely happy I own one now. My second choice if I were to buy another Vette now would be the C5 Z06, as I have mentioned many times, I think these two models are the buy of the decade for all the obvious reasons.
Enjoy the ride!!!