Day 1:
Last Thursday we got home from work to find a fountain in our furnace room. No this isn’t the start of a bizarre fantasy, although the chain of events following certainly does seem like something out of a comedy farce.
The fountain was courtesy of our newly installed water pump, which was just over a week old. Like the old one the new one had blown off the water pipe (different pipes the first was the inlet, the second the outlet) and provided us with our very own ‘internal water feature’.
We were supposed to be taking the weekend off for some well needed R&R but that followed the water down the drain quickly.
Day 2:
Friday we called our handy man. He came and looked at it and couldn’t understand it either. Rather than waste our time, he suggested getting a professional plumber in to sort things out. Finding a plumber isn’t easy though and the only one we could get couldn’t come out until Saturday.
Saturday, the plumber comes around and is also confused by the multiple pump explosions. He starts methodically working through the system and finds that the new pump is broken and won’t pump properly anymore, probably as a result of overheating. Return pump and get a replacement. New pump installed, but cant get it to pickup properly.
Looks like we have a problem with either the line from the well to the house being broken or possibly the foot valve at the bottom of the well has a problem. The plumber pumps out well to inspect the foot valve and pipe into the well, as he’s looking down the well his Blackberry (clipped to the front of his overalls) flips off and down in to the well!
He’s not happy, I’m not happy. I think for a while and remember the Blackberry has a metal frame – so hey! Maybe it’s magnetic – I have a magnetic probe in my tool chest, maybe we can fish it out.
I open the garage and stop. Actually my heart stops! Somehow my tool chests have fallen over and are now on top of the hood of my ‘vette!
I staggered back in the house. tried to explain to Hil but literally couldn’t speak. Eventually I managed to gurgle the word ‘vette’ and she ran out to see what had happened. Minutes later she came back in and tried to comfort me. Honestly I was sick to my stomach, this was my dream, my baby – I don’t know if it would have felt worse if Hil or Kyla had been lying there wounded.
The chests were so heavy we couldn’t lift them and Hil called a friend of ours to come and help. I still have no idea how they could fall, they were on level slab, no drawers were left open. It just seems impossible.
After pumping out the well the plumber goes down to look at things and see if he can find his Blackberry. No luck on that, but the foot valve has been buried in a build-up of mud and sand at the bottom the well. This explains the pump problems. Pump kicks in, tries to pull water up but either can’t or gets restricted flow, overheats and BANG!
Plumber goes to get another pump and installs it. Tries to get water working and kind of does, only trouble is that all the plastic fittings in our water system are now leaking from being taken off and re-tightened multiple times. He says he wants to get new fittings but its getting late so he’ll come back the following day.
Day 3:
We wake and go downstairs for breakfast. What the – ! We have no power? Racking our brains we vaguely recollect that we got a phone message saying we would have a ‘planned power outage’. Of course we forgot all about this because we had no plans to even be there over the weekend.
We try to get hold of the plumber to tell him not to come till noon when the power is scheduled to be back on but we can only contact his home phone – his Blackberry is down the bottom of the well of course…
The Plumber shows up shortly after, he hadn’t got the message until too late. He’s got a gas-powered pump and his going to pump the well out again in hopes he can get his phone out. I think he was a little worried when I started talking about the Lithium from the battery eventually leaking out and poisoning the well…
This time he finds his phone so we’re good on that front. When the power comes on again he replumbs the connections to the pump and tank and finally by late afternoon we have some water.
10 minutes later I look in the furnace room and realise we have way too much water! As in way too much water running off the basement ceiling… I go outside and tell the plumber. The water is coming from above the furnace ducting, so after a great deal of dis-assembly and removal he finds one of the pipes has now burst…
The pipe get’s patched and we now have water in the upstairs bathroom. Plumber leaves and we jump in to have our first real shower in days. Pure heaven! A hasty one though as we had a Corvette Club meeting at 5.30 and it’s the last one before our big annual car show and I’m the president!
We get back from the meeting, pretty frazzled and exhausted. As we enter the house, Hil manages to catch her toe in the mat outside the door, falling and landing right across the door jamb. Huge bruising across both legs and her toe is swollen and bruised as well. We’re now wondering just what exactly we did in a previous existence to deserve this…
Inside we start trying to clear up a bit and soon realise something strange. We have water – but only in the main floor bathroom… everything else is as dry as a desert. It’s far too late to do anything about it so we resign ourselves to another night with our plumbing screwed up.
Day 4:
We call the plumber and he’s booked all day. He’ll try get out to see us in the late afternoon. We use this opportunity to go and talk to some of the local body shops to find someone who can fix the damage to the ‘vette. We have some good recommendations and they can do the work – estimates at $2300!
Plumber comes round and checks things out. All our tap screens and lines are plugged with silt and mud kicked up by all the well activity. He cleans them and blows out the pipes etc. Finally, at 7:19 pm, we have our water systems fully restored.
So $2300 worth of damage to mye prized ‘vette, $800 in plumbing costs, almost four days without water, $400 in non-refundable hotel fees and $150 in concert tickets.
A weekend from hell for sure.
My goal for this weekend was to swap the amplifiers in my ‘vette and thereby restore the functionality of the stereo system. The 90′s Bose system is somewhat notorious for failure; some of the capacitors were of dubious quality and basically turn to powder with age. This leaves you with a system that howls like a banshee, brays like a donkey and squeals like a 5 year old on acid – often all at the same time!
The choices are simple. Buy a set of new amps from Bose, or one of the Corvette parts suppliers – this costs between $125 and $150 per amp. As there are four of them altogether this gets to be a pretty expensive solution.
The other option is to keep an eye out for a good deal on Ebay, which is what I did; a complete set of amps, tested working, for $100 – less than a quarter of the new cost. That had to be a bargain.
Removal of the speakers to access the amps is fairly straightforward, though requires a certain element of contortionist skills in places – especially when removing the front speakers. Despite this I had the two back speakers out in about an hour (mostly because I was deliberately working slowly to avoid any problems).
The two front speakers, well they took about an hour and a half, due to the aforementioned contortion issues. The driver’s side came out easily once all the trim was removed, the passenger side… well that was a little different.
Though removing the passenger side speaker was actually slightly easier than its mirror twin, as I pulled the unit out it snagged the carpet slightly and this was enough to tear off two of the plastic ‘tabs’ where the screws go to hold it in place.
You often hear about plastic becoming brittle with age, but this was ridiculous. There’s always something to bite you when you least expect it!
So… a quick trip to the local parts store for a number of alternative possible fixes, including some ‘plastic weld’. I tried this first and to my complete surprise it made a strong fix that was perfectly usable.
I was a little cautious re-installing the speaker unit, half expecting the weld to fail and the tabs to fall off again; but it worked perfectly and in about another thirty minutes everything was back reinstalled.
A quick test showed the amps to be doing their job perfectly and ‘The Dragon’ now has his voice back! How’s that for a successful weekend?
Now? It’s Miller Time!
Yesterday was a beautiful day here. The snow has largely gone, the roads are pretty clear (so long as you stay off the side streets) and teh temperatures are hitting the pluses with reasonable frequency.
I couldn’t resist any longer. We picked up the gear necessary and went to wake The Dragon from it’s long Winter slumber.
After re-installing the battery he cracked into life first time and purred contentedly. Out on to the streets the beast rumbled sedately, stretching himself in the warm Spring sunshine as we made our way across town.
The first run is always fairly sedate, the tires aren’t really at operating temperature and I spend most of the journey listening to noises from the car, watchful for any telltale warning signs after the Winter hibernation.
There were no concerns. The Dragon was in fine shape, rumbling pleasantly all the way home.
At one point I couldn’t resist, dropping a couple of gears to bring the revs up and ‘exercise’ the secondary injectors. The Dragon reared forward, eager to pound the highway content to do my bidding, whatever that might be. A tingle of excitement jumped up and down my spine and the ‘permagrin’ settled on my face.
ZR-1s are pure excitement!
It’s more or less the end of the ‘vette season here in the ‘great white north’; if I’m lucky the weather might stretch out to another few weeks of patchy driving for the ZR-1. It seems strange to imagine I only took delivery of ‘The Dragon’ on that icy night back in February; the summer has had a peculiar timelessness to it.
The first couple of months were filled with immense frustration, having taken delivery and then having to place him in storage where I couldn’t even get access particularly easily. After the journey up from Detroit he was covered in road gunk and looked a complete mess, like taking in a stray puppy and then not giving them a bath and a warm place to stay.
I admit it; I pushed to get him out. We were lucky to have a fairly mild winter, which helped and I hoped to get him on the road for my birthday in March. That didn’t happen, but I did have my first real ride in him a week later. (Yes, that is snow in the background.)
So how was it? How did Achilles feel when he rode Xanthus? How would it feel to be a Dragon rider on Pern?
At first I was almost in awe of the Z, hardly daring to ‘loosen the reins’; though I have driven some fairly fast cars, nothing could prepare me for the sheer explosive nature of the Z when you ‘get on it’. The power kicks in and you think you must really be kicking ass, then a quick glance down informs you that you still have around half the rev band available! The power curve on the LT5 is quite simply awesome; the closest I have come to it previously was on the Jaguar V-12 engine, that red-lined at 6800RPM but had 25% less power.
One of the things that surprised me a little with the ZR-1 was how brutish the car felt. After reading everything I could on these cars for the last seventeen years, I had expected a more ‘refined’ feel to it. Mine was more like an untamed Beast, ready to snap and bite at any moment. The only time it felt vaguely controlled was with the power key firmly in the ‘off’ direction.
A very early modification I made was the installation of one of Marc Haibeck’s updated chips; this was really the thing that made the difference. Afterwards the car had even more power, but now the delivery was silky smooth yet still just as ‘eager’ when called upon. The transformation was really staggering; the Dragon really was ‘tamed’.
The change to our lives was also quite a discovery. As relative newcomers to Vettedom and Canada we didn’t have many friends, so when we bought the car we also joined the local Corvette club. Suddenly we found ourselves with a bunch of new social contacts; not only that, we found that everywhere we went we were greeted as friends by an amazingly diverse set of fellow owners. When you own a Corvette, other owners really aren’t strangers; they’re just friends you haven’t been lucky enough to have met before.
Then there is the Registry itself, the members of which have been so helpful and encouraging in so many ways and always ready to provide helpful advice, or playful sociopathic banter, as appropriate. Our first ‘real’ road trip was to meet BobbyHi, from the registry forum; we spent five magical days in the Z for an all too brief visit. Not only did he make us feel truly welcome, he even helped us clean the Dragon after the long journey. Brotherhood of the Beast indeed!
Some myths need clearing up. Owning a ZR-1 will not get you recognized immediately as a superstar sex-symbol; in fact you probably won’t get much attention at all. Even other Corvette owners will blithely dismiss the Z as ‘just another C4′. If you are looking for that kind of attention you probably don’t want the KOTH. No ‘vette can be called a ‘sleeper’, but the ZR-1 comes close (as it was designed to).
Open the hood and put the beautiful LT5 on display and you’re sure to start gathering some attention though. Most people still won’t know what it is, but they’ll realize that they’re in the presence of something strange, legendary and beautiful.
Something that most definitely isn’t a myth though is the ‘permagrin’ feature that was hand built in to each and every ZR-1 ever built. The process for finding this feature varies somewhat from car to car but generally goes something like this: start the car, edge out onto an open road with not much traffic around, cruise around a few miles then drop him into third and hit the gas! The acceleration pushes you back hard in to the seat, the car grabs the road like it had claws instead of wheels, and hurtles you forward to illegal speeds in a staggeringly brief period.
Congratulations! You just unlocked the permagrin and awoke the Beast.
Throughout the summer we spent numerous weekends and evenings cruising somewhere with the Dragon. It really didn’t matter where too much; driving the ZR-1 is living – everything else is somehow dull and unexciting in comparison. We went for hikes, driving off then changing into boots to walk a trail. We went on cruises with our (I originally wrote ‘the’ here and realized it was much more than that) club. The club events typically involve more eating than driving but are still bags o’fun(tm) nevertheless. We took Kyla, our four-legged canine beast, in the car (gasp, shock, horror!) and drove off to places to walk with her. In fact we tried to combine the Z with everything we did.
The Dragon took it all in his stride, never phased, always ready to do more and go just that little teensy bit faster.
The culmination this year was just last week. We finally had some vacation and did a road trip around New England – Albany, Boston, Portland and finally back to Canada and Ottawa. It was very much a journey of discovery; we only had the loosest of plans and had no real expectations of what we’d find. It was a chance to see places we’d never seen and mostly a chance to drive places we’d never driven, in the most incredible Corvette ever. As can be imagined, there were things we’d probably not do again, and there were things that we’d very much like to do more and explore further.
The roads through Adirondack Park were incredible, not only for the beautiful scenery but also the sheer fun of driving. Route 2 from Albany over to Boston was an unexpected pleasure. It had everything: tight corners, twisty fast sections and changes of elevation that were nothing short of breathtaking.
One constant was the ZR-1, the Beast, King of the Hill… our Dragon. He never missed a beat and took everything in his stride. On the few highways we took he was impeccable, on the twisty back-roads he was simply awesome.
Whenever I open up the garage to take the Dragon out, it still sends a shiver through every pleasure center. When I park up somewhere and return I feel a thrill as I approach just from seeing him sat there. The Z takes even the most mundane of trips and turns it into a wondrous journey.
So, what’s it like owning a ZR-1? Magnificent, spine-tingling, thrilling, and above all, inspiring.
Long Live the King!
(Originally published in ‘Heart of the Beast – Issue 12′ by the ZR-1 Net Registry)
There’s been a lot of talk on the ZR-1 forum and others about the removal of Zinc from motor oil, specifically Mobil 1 and the potential detrimental effects on the LT-5 and other Corvette/high performance engines. Opinions have varied and I’m certainly no expert so I decided to do the obvious – I asked Mobil through their support line. The response was -
“The new ILSAC GF-4 motor oils (10W30 and lower viscosities) do have reduced (0.08%) ZDDP in the formulation for longer longevity of the catalyst converter and system. This is not a problem on newer vehicle designs that utilize the roller cam, valve train technology however, if you have flat tappet cam, valve train technology you generally want higher ZDDP levels. Mobil1 15W50′s, Mobil1 diesel motor oils, Mobil1 motorcycle motor oils and Mobil1 High Mileage 10W30 and 10W40 have high ZDDP levels and would be the best choices for these engines.”
I also found some good online resources discussing this issue and additives in general -
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/e…ech/index.html
http://www.performancemotoroil.com/truth_about_oil_additives.html
Hopefully this will help people make an informed decision.
The deed is finally done!
After all this time I have finally bought a ZR-1.
The vehicle is currently in Michigan and has 33000 miles on it, the bodywork is almost flawless and so is the underneath. It has a custom exhaust and wheels, but comes with all the original parts (including the original 1991 tires!) and even has the original window sticker (original price $66000!)
The previous owners have really kept the car in amazingly good condition and a big thank you goes out to all of them.
Of course, the story is not quite that simple. It never is it seems 
– in this instance the car is in the US and I’m in Canada, so now I have to go through the importing process.
My first thought was that I would drive it back Continue reading
When the Corvette was first conceived the idea was that it would be a lightweight, cheap (more or less…) car aimed at younger drivers unencumbered by the delights of mortgages, educational plans, pension plans or families. After all, who else would be interested in an impractical two-seat sports-car anyway?
Sadly, the relative price of the Corvette has risen dramatically in real term costs. When introduced in 1955 the base price was 84% of the average wage. As can be seen below, by the ’80s the base price had risen to almost 150% of the average wage and this trend has continued ever since.
| Year | Average Wage * | Base Price | % |
| 1955 | 3,301.00 | 2,774.00 | 84.04% |
| 1965 | 4,658.00 | 4,321.00 | 92.77% |
| 1975 | 8,630.00 | 6,810.00 | 78.91% |
| 1985 | 16,822.00 | 24,878.00 | 147.89% |
| 1995 | 24,705.00 | 36,785.00 | 148.90% |
| 2005 | 36,952.00 | 44,245.00 | 119.74% |
*Wage data courtesy of the US Dept. of Social Security
That’s not to say that the later model Corvettes are poor value for money, the technology and power levels being achieved are incredibly impressive, especially when compared to other exotica such as Porsches and Ferraris. What it has done though, is made it much more difficult for the average guy in the street to buy one and, especially with rising insurance costs, it effectively puts them way beyond the budget of a lot of (if not most) younger drivers.
The Corvette demographic is an aging one, sadly myself included, and seems to consist largely of people trying to recreate the misty golden days of their youth mixed with stockbrokers and other wealthier types hoping that they will be able to buy something that they can cash in on and see the kind of vastly inflationary prices seen recently on the early ‘vettes Younger drivers appear largely confined to children of existing owners who have received ‘hand me downs’.
So the question is – where are the next generation of Corvette owners going to come from? Continue reading
The latest copy of ‘Corvette’ magazine has a feature on the ZR-1 and exploring its demise in the kind of derogatory tones that I’ve gotten used to seeing quoted in far too many places.
The resounding idea from the article is that the car’s engine, the mighty LT-5, was too expensive and that it became obsolete and unnecessary because good ol’ Yankee ingenuity made the aging small-block Chevrolet almost its equal.
As an example of this, it tells the story of how the GM engineers developed reverse-flow cooling systems for the small-block that allowed them to create more power from the engine without the heads melting.
Traditionally, engine cooling feeds cool water from the radiator in at the bottom of the engine, this works its way up and the hot water is sucked out of the top. Hot water naturally rises, aiding the flow and all is well.
Except, by the time the water gets to the cylinder heads (the area most in need of cooling as that’s where combustion takes place) the water has been heated in its journey through the rest of the engine block, making the cooling effect less effective and constraining the power levels achievable.
With reverse-flow, as you might imagine, the cool water is introduced at the top through the heads where it can be most effective and is forced down by pressure, where it is removed at the bottom. This gives more cooling up top and allows more heat (power) to be generated without having to suffer lots of unpleasant things such as detonation or combustion chamber meltdown.
A great refinement. Good engineering. A deft solution to an old and stubborn problem.
Perfected by Lotus engineering on the development of the LT-5.