stopped at a small parking lot car show today

Grumpy · Aug 29, 2017

I was on the way home from a "honey do trip" and I stopped for a few minutes at a small parking lot, car show today.
there were about a dozen or so obviously modified cars and there was a c4 corvette that looked decent with the hood open, so I wandered over and within a few seconds the owner of the car and a couple other guys walked over too talk, I was looking over the car , and some guy who must of mistaken me for the owner started asking me question's about the car... well I pointed out that I was not the owner and asked , if the owner was there and some old geezer about my age but about 160 lbs and 5.7 walked over and stated he was the cars owner.
I asked him what year the car was because the front bumper lights and rear lights did not match, he stated it was a 1989 front cap & hood on a 1991 corvette, and he said he had a 406 SBC with a set of AFR heads and an accel super ram intake , 40 lb injectors, a higher stall converter and a 3.73:1 rear gear ratio, and an isky roller cam installed.
(very much like this photo I found On the internet)

I asked him how it ran, and he stated he loved the cars power.
I asked him what cam it was and he had no idea as his "mechanic friend had selected it and installed all the components, all he had done was pay the bill."
a guy standing next to me asked what it cost to do the work, and he said he had purchased a non-running corvette with a trashed interior and engine that was locked up, for $5500, about 6 years prior, and had the car transported to his friends car repair shop, and 7 months later and about $9000-$10,000 more dollars more were spent on the cars restoration.
and while he was not totally kept in the loop his mechanic , friend had assured him, he had only charged him about $24 an hour for labor and net cost on parts.
about then one guy next to the owner asked him,
where he found a reliable honest and trust worthy corvette mechanic....here in south florida
I loved his reply........
RIGHT NEXT TO THE HONEST POLITICIANS AND NEXT TO THE TRUST WORTHY LAWYERS...

I think everyone in earshot started smiling or chuckling a bit,at that bit of wisdom.
then just about everyone there spoke up, and we all said rather similar bits of advice, that basically said, you either learn how to do your own work with your own tools or you basically resign yourself to the fact that this hobby can be very time consuming and expensive if you don,t do the work yourself, and must relie on a corvette shop or dealership mechanic to do the work,
at that point I suggested he look up .this website
http://garage.grumpysperformance.com/
as he might find the resource helpful.... and about that time the wife started ringing my phone wanting to know what was taking me so long..... I mentioned .. car show, and she said great, when will I see you?.... I figured keeping the wife happy at that point was more in my self interest so I left for home.

corp_0809_08_z+1994_chevrolet_corvette_coupe+v8_lt1_engine.jpg

LT1/LT4

L98

Indycars · Aug 30, 2017

Grumpy said:
RIGHT NEXT TO THE HONEST POLITICIANS AND NEXT TO THE TRUST WORTHY LAWYERS...

I will have to remember that one, if my half hymers doesn't kick in when I need to spout out the quote.

stopped at a small parking lot car show today

Grumpy

The Grumpy Grease Monkey mechanical engineer.

Indycars

Administrator