Well it's a long story but I'll give an abridged version:

Pulled from a want/feel the market advert I posted in the ls1tech.com classified section. I do know they make full conversion kits and for the price I probably should have gone that route back when the car had 36,000 miles and just needed a body (which ironically I had access to a black digi dash '87 hard top!).

With the *** end of the car giving me too much greif as it is, I've decided against the screams of my friends to not cut this up:



But I think it's time.. I'm 1900 bucks away from snagging the title away from the underwriters and I think it's time I give the ol' girl a proper third lease on life. What do you guys think? Cheaper than the 11 grand I sunk getting it back on the road. :barf:

 

Chop it up!

I took what I thought was a perfectly good 2000 Z28 six-speed and parted it. (I found that no car is perfect, despite the PO's claims... ha)

Sure, when I was staring at the pile of parts that was the 2000, I thought "WTH did I do?!?"

But, now that everything is finally going into the '89, I have no regrets. The thirdgens are just so much cooler.

Maybe I'll think differently in 20 years when the fourthgen is an endangered species... but, I doubt it.

 

I guess I'm on the side of your friends. I'd consider getting what I could out of your 4th Gen or taking it to somebody that could figure out the problem and then selling it and go all 3rd gen. There are a lot of nice ones out there. Your call, keep us informed and Good Luck!

 

"Un-satisfactory chassis reconstruction". As a collision tehnician, that is one hell of a redflag. If the car had frame damage and wasn't properly fixed, no matter how nice the car looks, its virtually worthless, atleast as far as I am concerned. The biggest scary issue with I'm-proper structure or chassis repair on newer cars is safety, mostly to do with airbag timing. If this car does infact have legitimate unibody damage, part it out and swap the thirdgen. If i mis-interpreted "unsatisfactory chassis reconstruction", then don't part a car that doesn't deserve it.

 

Well for starters this is what I did to it at Milan Dragway in 2011.

After the truck drug her off the flatbed:
Angle1 Angle2 Angle3

exhibit of the force of the impact (wheel is pointed straight via the steering wheel.

How much donor material was needed..

In the shop getting pulled and prepped. Took a month to pull it back, tell ya something?

In the end, like I said I was 10k lighter in the wallet and she cracks and pops and well.. it's not a joy ride more than it is a chore. Electronics and driveline wise there was no damage whatsoever. Later replaced the axle tube and pumpkin as a precaution with a unit that came off the line the same day my car was built. All in all she runs pretty well but she's not worth much cash wise.

Hence my decision at the time to attempt a third gen transplant. However, I didn't own the TITLE to the car, and thus couldn't do anything to it. Said f'k it and pieced her back together and drove her as is to this day. But now with a new job and potential for higher income I thought about giving it a go again. Granted my car has a full exhaust and EGR delete so I've jumped one major hurdle in emissions work but after studying the process it looks like all I really can save are the fans, the driveline, shifter assembly, and probably the diff (factory 3.42 ratio 4 channel with TC and ABS).

One odd thing about the build that you may notice in the pictures: NO bags blew, and no glass broke. No broken interior pieces aside from the steering wheel which bent slightly and the obligatory wobbly center console lid. In fact I have spare glass and wheels! Was thinking of selling it all off to Hawks in exchange for a wholesale swap of all the LS components into a clean salvage third gen chassis. Think I have enough in salvage parts minus the engine to fund one outside of labor.

What do you guys think? Anyone see Hawks restoration work first hand or would you suggest the 'go it alone' route?

 

That's kind of what I was envisioning with the $11k price tag you mentioned in your initial post.

I've brought cars back from the dead; cars that should have been cut up and/or sold as scrap. Tire wear was always an issue, and there were inevitably gremlins and structural deficiencies that surfaced after a time.

My opinion is that when you're forced to repair the "structural members" of a unibody car, you really need to do a comprehensive analysis of the damage. What you see is twisted sheet metal. What you don't see are over stressed welds and crack propagation from stress risers. Those little creaks and pops you hear now are showing up because the rigid uni-body has become flexible poly-bodies.

But, as was stated before, it's your call.

EDIT: You'd probably get an opinion biased in the opposite direction from LS1Tech... consider the audience, I guess.

 

Abadv8 has nailed what I was thinking as I wrote my post. Will be really hard to get a non biased audience on that issue. Couldn't tell from the pictures if your rocker was sectioned, or if the quarter and wheel house only were replaced at factory seams. Side hits are alway hard to judge, and seem to move things in odd ways compared to straighter hits. Totally a shame to have something happen like that, not fun to see nice low mile cars get wounded. I parted out a 1 owner 97 Z28 with 48,xxx miles last fall, and fealt guilty the whole time. Once the front clip was off and driveline out, it the. Became apparent I made the right call. Car was appraised at 7,800 and had a estimate for 9,200, but after I found all the missed damage, I would have condemned the car as not fixable in the first place.

 

Spot on 25th. The rocker was sectioned to hide the damage at shows and was going good till the frame started to pull back from the lateral sandwiching of the frame and the seat pans, tunnel, and seat backs. The creases are still there so it is what it is.

Abadv8, I'm pretty much sold on the idea of doing a swap because the parts are there and in good order. Ls1tech kinda pressured the build on to of emotional ties to the car being my first v8 car period.

If I can find a clean GTA or TA chassis..

 

It is not bad practice to section a rocker, IF done correctly with sleees and such. but If the car still has buckles in the floor and tunnel sections, it probably should not have been fixed anyhow.

 

I'm sorry! I totally misunderstood "unsatisfactory chassis reconstruction". I thought that you just had the rearend and suspension overhauled, not that it had been in a wreck. After seeing too many "repaired" cars dog-tracking down the road, I'm now totally in your corner and I say go for it. I'm looking forward to following your build!

 

Yeah, needless to say she's going to need a fresh chassis. Have a feeling that something's going on with my panhard mount because the rear is wallowing a bit. Not the typical wheelhop I'm used to on the 10 bolt back there. Pretty much ceased putting money into it aside from engine related things to just keep the LS1 sitting pretty.

Recently took it out to a Dyno day at Dynotune Motorsports in Galloway and seeing an 88 IROC go for it I figured it was time to give the heart over to a third gen once I found out that untuned with a CAI and exhaust she put out 343 on a weak pull.

One thing that is puzzling me though; if I happen to find a chassis with the digital dash option is it possible to wire the dash to read the LS engine's outputs?

 

All factory thirdgen guages can be made to work correctly with a ls1 swap. I don't see why a digital GTa dash would be any different

 

go with the 3rd gen swap. you won't regret it. are you stuck on the gta/ta thing, if i had the time/money to do another one it would be a 88-90ish formula as a daily driver.

 

91-92 formulas are my favorite. Formulas period are under-appreciated....