New daily? 1984 Corvette

Yes, it is amazing how a 1984 performance car handles compared to something like this!
Let's see, center of gravity, springs and shocks, footprint of tires through suspension movement...
Kidding aside, I'm glad it's responding to your efforts and you are happy. Just like any m*** produced car they have issues, but they are well do***ented.

 

Hehehe. I drive a variety of modern cars all the time. I think what surprises me is that it has no computer ***istance or stability aids to compensate for bad engineering, everything is just built and balanced right. At the end of the day the cheesy 80s electronics are just eye candy for the driver... it is still a cable throttle V8 on a mechanical ch***is with no technological guardrails and it will kill you just like that Model T if you push it past its limits. Those limits are just pretty hard to reach.

 

Yeah, I think they are pretty darn good engineering. Modern stuff may have a bunch of aids, but at the end of the day a low slung, lightweight ch***is is going to naturally work better than something that's another thousand pounds, sits higher and has computerized yaw, brakes, and suspension.
People have gotten used to the nannies ignoring that a 5500 pound SUV with 4x4 and 4 wheel disc brakes is still not going to steer and stop like a sports car. Physics has limits! I'm so glad I'm not commuting before dawn on snowy roads with those things anymore.

 

Glad to see an 84 get another chance on life. Cool quirky cars, there is a really nice survivor that goes to Cars and Coffee here on occasion

 

I forgot to post here but I got a built ("stage 3") 4L60E and a standalone controller for it. I'll try to do***ent the install process.



Story goes was built for an LS swapped 85 Monte Carlo. He blew the engine, got a 6.0 to replace it with and found the 4L60E wasn't compatible with the 6.0 so replaced it with a 4L80. I have been inside the transmission and it has definitely been worked over and appears healthy. Ordered a US Shift controller for it. Looks like it will be straightforward.

 

The Corvette 700r4 (right) next to the 4L60E. I will need to take about half an inch of the output shaft off, and the vehicle speed sensors work differently. The Corvette's is mechanical, with a beveled plastic gear on the output shaft spinning another gear mounted to the sensor in the tailhousing. The 4L60E has a straight cut steel reluctor wheel read by a magnet on the vehicle speed sensor.

The Corvette tailhousing accepted the 4L60E's VSS and seems like it will be in the right place to read the reluctor wheel, but I'm not sure if the Corvette's computer will be able to interpret the signal it generates, or how to find out. Guess we'll just plug it in and see what happens. I can't see any way to move the 700r4's plastic gear over to the 4L60 tailshaft.

e: The 84 ECU will be expecting 2000 pulses per mile and the 4L60e sensor generates 4000 pulses per mile, so I will need something like this to correct the signal for the ECU (and dash): https://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=1192/mode=prod/prd1192.htm

e2: Looks like the shift controller I ordered actually supports intercepting and adjusting the speed signal to feed to the car's ECU. Nice!!!

 

I'd haunt a vette forum or 2. This has to be something others have done.

 

Good lord I am tuning a hot rod with a computer. What is this fast n furious ****??? Where did my life go so wrong? Is this why Ryan never wanted an off topic forum?

 

Wiring in the USShift Quick 2 is so far straightforward. The challenge was finding somewhere for the controller to live. I decided to mount it inside the center console so it's out of the way and invisible. That required me to drill a hole in the trans tunnel, depin the connectors and bring the harness up through the floor. From here I will have to fish the wires through a hole I drilled in the center console but I'll do that later, for now I want to make sure all of this is going to work.



The transmission I'm using is a 4L60E out of a 93 truck, but it has been rebuilt with better guts. The tailshaft housing from the Corvette is required for the C-beam, but when swapping it over it is apparent that the truck transmission has too long of an output shaft and will need to be trimmed. The figure on the internet is 3/4", but to match the 700r4 that came out of the car, I only had to shave it by about 1/2". There's probably a right way to do it but I just used an angle grinder for this.

 

Other than breaking the distributor cap everything went great and we are back on the road. No real pitfalls to speak of except I am having trouble getting an accurate speed signal to the dash but hopefully I can futz with the Quick 2 and get that going.



We hid the unit in the center console. Feels great to be driving again! This transmission is working flawlessly.

 

Cool! I thought of you when I recently also bought a late model vehicle to make into a daily driver. Mine is 3 years newer though.

 

What'd you get?

Drove the Vette home today.



I missed this car! It's really a blast now. The shift controller is able to change up the transmission's behavior on the fly in a pretty cool way by regulating line pressure and shift points electronically. If you leave it in (O)D and drive it like a grandpa you can barely feel the shifts and you wouldn't know anything had been done to the ******, but if you bump it down to D (3), 2 or 1 it suddenly gets really aggressive. On a hard launch it will chirp the tires on every shift. Reminds me of Hurst's dual-gate his and her shifter lol. Drives great, runs cool and seems to really bring it to life. The install was great and the system is really nice so I'll rep the company on the car.



Only one problem. I wasn't doing 164 here. I am having a hell of a time getting the speedometer to work. I guess I'll give their tech support a call - they were really helpful in figuring out what I needed when I ordered the unit and preloaded it with a tune optimized for the car, so hopefully they can shed some light on this for me.

Getting this working is important. I don't really need a speedometer to regulate my speed but this car has cruise control, which is run by the gauge cluster itself, and I'd love to get that working for longer trips.

 

I bought an original paint 87 SWB Chevy pickup with a brand new motor, brakes, etc. It just needs some final ***embly to get it running and driving after the previous owner p***ed away in the middle of the project. Oh, and it needs wheels and tires and lowered as well since everything is cooler lowered. I bought it from the same widow that I bought my 51 Ford from.

I’m sure you are glad to get your car back together and driving again. My son just drove his 2001 vette for the first time since February since it was having clutch problems. He has been traveling too much to help me fix it. We finally finished it up tonight.

 

So I've driven the car for a week and it's a pleasure to have in cl***, but I'll have to add a trans cooler for sure, the stock cooler is struggling hard. I saw one guy delete his spare tire and hang trans, diff and engine oil coolers in the space. That might be a little more race car than what I really need but in all likelihood I will never use that spare...

 

I am following you, Love it!!