Now I have Black Z26. Ho Ho Ho.

[LOLVTEC]

Finally.

Like 11 or 12 years later finally.

The end.

[heavywoody]

Pics or it didn't happen.

[LOLVTEC]

Are you calling me out Sir Wood Heavy? ; )

I actually had some questions for you since you also have a 95. (Playing with ideas in my head of how I could waste money on this car)...

[3X00-Modified]

OBDII conversion... LOL

[LOLVTEC]

It's pretty rough. The suspension and/or motor/trans mounts are shot. It has all the usual blemishes and flaws; sagging Z04 bumper, bubbled dash, wet carpet syndrome, broken cup holder, console lid busted, headliner is rough, window trim and weather stripping in rough shape, etc. etc. (I suppose you would expect that at 20 years and 195k miles). But, the body is rust free and in pretty decent shape asides from the paint (which is in decent shape considering it's age and how poorly the rest of the car was kept up), and I did manage to drive it hime 2.5 hours from Atlanta with no trouble... Car will scoot and has plenty of power.

Other not so typical issues I noticed are:
-some kind of plug in the gas tank that was a hack job done by someone?
-driver side window is completely phucked up, needs a new regulator
-driver side door panel was ruined by huge metal screws used to hold it to the door
-missing rear spoiler
-speedometer is about 10mph off (below 50 or 60mph anyway, seemed to be close to accurate around 70+, not sure why that is)
-high beam indicator doesn't like up, I'm assuming it's a bad bulb
-steering wheel/column is crooked. Yes, you read that correctly. Crooked.
-left channel of stereo doesn't work. Yay for having to having to rip out all hack-job wiring and starting from scratch.
-could be just my imagination, but I swear the OD wasn't working or something... (or maybe the tac is off), because I was driving between 70-80mph last night and it was sitting at 3k the whole time... or is that about right for this car? IIRC that was how my 93 3.1 Auto was, I just figured a car with an extra gear would sit a little lower on the highway).
-more than likely needs a tune-up
-tiny bit of curb rash on each wheel






Not the best pic, perhaps not even worth posting but whateva



For chits and gigs, another vehicle that took me almost forever to find: 07 Colorado Xtreme, 3.7 Inline 5.




I love the way this truck sounds.

Anyhow, any enlightenment on said issues with the car would be appreciated. I was thinking about whatever suspension I buy for this car maybe I could swap to my GTU (since that setup appears to be in poor shape) whenever I get around to finishing that car; but I think I remember that 94+ suspension is different or something? Or is it 95-96? Anyone know what is and why?

[3X00-Modified]

95-96 was different for suspension. Different mounting perch on rear of car body as well as axle changed and had a different mounting location for both the shock and springs. Fronts were the same spring at least.

That RPM is way off... It's quite possibly has no 4th gear or is just not going into TCC lockup.

[LOLVTEC]

I figured as much in regards to the RPM. I don't know much about 4t60e's or autos in general. I know you've been through one plenty of times (or the like), any ideas off the top of your head as to what I should look into?

[3X00-Modified]

Not much you can really troubleshoot without tearing it out and apart. Only thing you could do is setup a logging laptop and see if the TCC solenoid is engaged or what gear it says it's in but that just verifies you need to tear it apart.

[ifixalot]

My 96 Beretta's steering wheel is closer to the dash on one side as compared to the other which is normal.
Is that what you mean by crooked?
Looks pretty nice otherwise.
What ja pay?

[Asylum]

ALL Berettas and Corsicas after 1990 ('91-'96) with the re-designed dash have the steering column offset and the steering wheel is not centered perpendicular to the dash..

I'm sure Cam, a long time L-Body owner, along with 99.9% of Beretta owners knows this, and this car has another issue!

Sounds like some idiot just re-installed it "wrong". LOL!

[woody90gtz]

Could be the pivot pins in the tilt mechanism. They were shot on my 91. Some Corvette guy sells oversize pins, on you can reassemble with some Loctite 603. If that's the cause of the issue, there will also be play if the grab the wheel and try to wiggle it. The trans you can fix with a 5spd. haha

Where did you get it? I see it's missing a spoiler and has huge silver Z26 decals.

[Asylum]

Missing the spoiler to me is a GOOD thing!

Wish I had of deleted mine when I had the car done, (AND wish I hadn't given my mint non-spoiler trunk to B-Man! ROFL!!) No Bad!

Nice looking start!

Everyone needs a $10,000 project!

[LOLVTEC]

Oh boy. My mind is just turning all kinds of wheels thinking of different routes I could go with this car. I was hoping I could just fix whatever little odds and ends with it and actually get to drive it around and enjoy it but if it ends up being that the trans is on it's way out or going to be a PITA then that opens up other doors perhaps... I thought of swapping a 3400 in, just because it should be fairly straight forward... These are a couple of the things I'm kicking around:

-5 speed swap, due to trans being messed up (plus I would much rather have a manual trans). My hang ups on this are that it's not super straight forward and it seems to require acquiring a lot of parts that are not so easily found. I will be researching this soon. In terms of this, I also wonder if it would be better to stay with OBD 1.5 or swap to OBD 2 (in terms of simplicity for the swap, I know that OBD 2 seems to have much more tuning capability).
-Swapping to OBD 2, as Jon suggested. I don't know a whole lot about this subject, is it as simple as swapping the harnesses/electronics? That being said, like the previous idea, which is more suitable for a 5speed swap if I did one?
-3400/3500 hybrid swap, or just a 3500 swap? I know the 3400 swap drops right in and I know that the 3500 top end swap isn't too bad of a job, but in this car what would a total 3500 swap be like? I'm assuming said swap would be more easily done if the car was converted to OBD 2... Yes?

I'll leave suggestions and givings of advice to you guys, most of the company in this thread know plenty more about this stuff than I do.

I paid $1500 for the car. I honestly don't even know if it was worth $1000... but whatever, I finally got what I wanted. It's tax season and I was lucky to pick it up so quickly before someone else did, even if I had to pay a little more.

Actually Asylum I had no idea that the steering wheels were like that... But I don't think this case is what you are referring to... this wheel actually spins in a crooked fashion, it's very noticeable. I already have a good 94+ dash and steering column/wheel that I could just throw in this car (although I was saving it for my GTU...), I suppose I could find another one out there.

Woody, I got it from a guy in Atlanta. Lol I thought the same thing too when I saw the pictures of it, I was like damn I wonder if that's the remnants of Woody's car haha... The guy swore that the decals were factory . I know it's not your old car because it doesn't have any rust lol.

Damn no love for the factory spoiler eh? I don't think it looks bad, but I tend to prefer it on a Beretta... I'll eventually put one back on I think.

[3X00-Modified]

Look at my latest posts to see what I've had to do to a 3500 to make it fit... Ignore some of the performance stuff, BUT if sticking with Auto the trans bracket has to be re-thought out, you need an external crank trigger to use for timing, or install the internal machined wheel to replace the stock one, and then fumble with the front AC mounts to make them work if you want to keep AC, and being in SC I can see you wanting to keep that. And then of course... YOU NEED to tune it. OBDI.5 is close to as tunable as OBDII but the tables are a bit more limited. Going to OBDII allows you to run a 97 type ECU which has more parameters you can mess with... Then again I have not seen what is open in the OBDI.5 tuning suite as far as table support... it could greatly exceed what DHP originally did for the 96 Beretta ecu which is what forced me to go to the 97 Venture ECU.

Regarding OBDII swapping... I have a thread on that as well... You can do this by only swapping the engine bay harness with a donor, and also swap the master cylinder, and ABS system and a few other components dealing with the fresh air vent... and you need to do a few wiring changes on the harness to make it work with your 95 dash harness. Very simple in the end and what I did on my 95 a while ago to get it tunable before OBDI.5 tuning was available.

5-speeds are fun... but as you noted... Its getting hard to find donors for the swap, and then even if you do the trans has to be in good shape because good luck finding a rebuild kit...

Everything to rebuild and strengthen an auto is still readily available because those autos were used for a while, so unless you want to find a newer and different manual to swap in and custom fit, rebuilding the auto may be the way to go.

[LOLVTEC]

Thanks for the insight Jon, I had already taken a gander at both those threads last night.

I'll more than likely commit to the trans swap, but that being said, from what you're saying, the only physical modifications that have to be done are swapping the crank trigger and then fabbing up some kind of AC bracket? It would be a direct/drop-in swap otherwise? (I'm sure some of the same things I had to do for my 3400/3500 swap in my GTU still apply, such as the TB adaptor and TB itself, as well as an EGR adaptor for the 3500)...

So 97 Venture ECUs have more to work with than a 96 Beretta would correct? Is that because they were originally 3400's (at least some of them) and it's a better starting point? So if I use a 97 Venture ECU, what's the best engine harness to use, a 96 V6 Beretta's?

From what little I know about DHP and such isn't it possible to program the computer to switch from an Auto trans to a manual? Actually, I read that here, in regards to 95 OBD1.5 tuning: http://www.pcmperformance.com/programming.html

One thing I've always wondered, I know 94 is OBD 1... and at least with GM stuff 95 was "OBD 1.5", are all other companies' systems referred to the same way for 95? I remember talking to other car people and bringing that up and they didn't know what I was talking about.