Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

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Rettax3
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Re: Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

Post by Rettax3 »

:shock: Jon, I'm not sure if I love you or hate you... Okay neither, maybe I love that car! I cannot believe you got that thing, congratulations! It is very exciting to see so many photos, and to know it went to a true enthusiast. :good:
Also very glad to see it is running and still driveable. :Rose: It is a good fit with your other Berettas too, I think. Congrats again.


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Re: Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

Post by themixer »

i dont like it, needs more rust and duller paint


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GT_Indy
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Re: Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

Post by GT_Indy »

I'm interested in the back suspension.
Where are the rear springs? Are those air shocks with ride level sensor?

It also says about the 4 wheel drive lock. Does that mean it has electronic or air lockers on the differentials?


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Re: Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

Post by woody90gtz »

I would guess it's just a lock for the "transfer case" and not the diffs.

Needs uglier wheels! Haha


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Money pit Beretta
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Re: Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

Post by Money pit Beretta »

Oh man 3X00 how the hell did you get it? Never mind....it sure went to a good home. Last time it was here I copied most of the photos. They are still eating up hard drive space.


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Re: Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

Post by 3X00-Modified »

GT_Indy wrote:Congradulations! Great find!
I saw a bunch of the photos, that's disappointing seeing some of that rust on the factory lines and a little underneath on the unibody. But the structure looks solid.

That's a unique 1 of a kind car, I'm glad to see its in a nice home!
That's what happens when a car sits, as well as when it's tested on GM proving grounds. I'm sure they drove this car in many different conditions. Luckily the damage is not bad at all. It's mostly due to paint chipping off and bare metal rusting below that... That's completely unavoidable.

Regarding why I took some things apart before Bfest, Well the car is 30+ years old... It's been sitting for at least 7yrs, Granted it has under 8k miles on it but age kills things... especially when it just sits around and does nothing. Fuel goes bad, Clogs injectors, causes them to fail, and rubber deteriorates over the years causing the motor mounts to begin to sag and fail. Also when you have a car that you start up for minutes at a time to move it around a warehouse, or museum then everything in the exhaust track takes a beating... and one major item that is damaged due to that is the rear turbo VNT system. These turbo's are supposed to open up and change the inlet size on the turbine side to allow for increased boost, but the rear turbo has seized up in that area. This is why I tell people, cars are meant to be driven... Don't drive them and whatever you built it for it will never do it again properly. As for this car, since I did not have a ton of time to learn about it, or properly fix the turbo's, the car is locked in at 7-8PSI since the VNT actuators are both disabled. So I did not run it at Great Lakes Dragway... I will have to learn quite a bit more about it before I ever feel comfortable running that down a drag strip. SO many parts unknown about the transfer case, so the last thing I would want to do is break something. The most this car may ever see is a closely monitored run on a Dyno. And Air to Water inter-cooler's are used on many cars when plumbing constraints require it... This would be very difficult to route the outlet pipes from the turbos out front and then back to the intake again with how tight the bay is already.

And I got it because I contacted the guy who had it and made him an offer... Quite simple... Almost everyone knew where it was since it was on eBay and both me and Brendan posted photos when we went to look at it. The issue was, no one wanted to pay his price.... So therefore it sat in his garage till someone made him an offer he'd be happy with.

Regarding the diff lock... It's all Pontiac 6000 parts, so it is SUPPOSED to operate the same way. Lock's the center diff. Now the thing to remember is even on a Pontiac 6000, like this car, the front and rear diff ratio is not the same... SO the center diff should NEVER be locked and driven on hard pavement. You will damage the unit. Sadly this car has the switch and it appears to be wired up, yet the plug is not plugged into anything. As well as where the vacuum solenoid and vacuum actuator would sit, there is the rear motor mount for the Beretta, SO unless they had designed something to work back there then the original parts would never fit. And if they had designed something to work back there, someone removed it at some point and never put it back in, so the center diff lock feature on this car does not work.

The rear suspension is ALL Pontiac 6000, so it's the same configuration as those cars had. Air charged struts that WERE connected to an auto leveling system on those cars but this one just has the ability to pre-charge or empty them via a schrader valve. And there is a fiberglass/composite mono leaf that runs from one lower control arm to the other. That's the rear "spring"


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Re: Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

Post by GT_Indy »

That pretty awesome how they fitted it together and made it all work. I knew the TT Beretta sold at the auction but I never knew it was on ebay. I know a lot of people ruin their 4x4's and awd vehicles because they leave it in 4 high or something when they should leave it in 2 high or auto depending on road conditions. Personally I feel awd is not worth it unless its strictly off road, I never had trouble with only 2 wheels even on ice/snow. lol

I think its awesome you have the TT Beretta. But it looks like it is difficult to work on the engine under the hood. When I did the turbo on the 90 Beretta a few years back I had the turbo sent out to get rebuilt, cost plus shipping for me was about 1100 dollars for one turbo. They redid everything and repaired any damage it had, looked like a brand new turbo when it came back. I can try to find an old receipt if you wanted their name for reference.

I agree that most show cars with low miles get neglected. They need to run, they need to drive at least a little bit, and they still need regular maintenance. that is one thing we are careful about with our fleet of vehicles. I agree that owning a car just to let it sit is kinda pointless, but if you get like 20-ish vehicles like us then its kinda fun because you can pick and choose which car you will enjoy driving every year. lol. :)

I wonder if its possible to get a build sheet from general motors, or maybe if someone has some contacts with GM or something, maybe there are tech specs that you could acquire? I still don't know who to contact about the 90 GTZ's Mesa AZ backstory, I was thinking of asking the GM heritage center if they know anything about my vehicle. Maybe they might have info on the TT Beretta.


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Re: Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

Post by 3X00-Modified »

I have about half of the documentation of the work done to the car, Yellow repair/work order sheets, but since it was an experiment I doubt there are any actual "build sheets" This car has a lot of custom parts or aftermarket stuff. Head studs, Gold Race roller rockers, custom forged crank, forged rods and forged pistons... It was probably all sourced from current top performance parts makers at the time. And the turbos are Garrett turbos so I would probably want to contact them regarding rebuilding anything if I have to go that route. I don't want to introduce a 3rd party who may not know a lot about these turbos since I have YET to find a comparable unit anywhere online... It took me about a month to figure out it has a VNT system on it and that was brand new for 1988... First year it was ever used on a production vehicle, a JDM Honda to be exact.

Where are you getting the story about your car being a Proving grounds car?

I have some names on the paperwork that came with the car, but trying to find those technicians now may prove to be difficult.

Clearly you're new to AWD... The performance benefits from it are immense...(you sound like that old guy who wants his carburetor over any fuel injection option out there) And this car is like most other AWD vehicles... Yes the diff is "open" on the center but it still provides driving power to all 4 wheels when you are moving. It's typical full time AWD.


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Re: Barrett-Jackson Beretta Twin Turbo All Wheel Drive.

Post by GT_Indy »

3X00-Modified wrote:I have about half of the documentation of the work done to the car, Yellow repair/work order sheets, but since it was an experiment I doubt there are any actual "build sheets" This car has a lot of custom parts or aftermarket stuff. Head studs, Gold Race roller rockers, custom forged crank, forged rods and forged pistons... It was probably all sourced from current top performance parts makers at the time. And the turbos are Garrett turbos so I would probably want to contact them regarding rebuilding anything if I have to go that route. I don't want to introduce a 3rd party who may not know a lot about these turbos since I have YET to find a comparable unit anywhere online... It took me about a month to figure out it has a VNT system on it and that was brand new for 1988... First year it was ever used on a production vehicle, a JDM Honda to be exact.

Where are you getting the story about your car being a Proving grounds car?

I have some names on the paperwork that came with the car, but trying to find those technicians now may prove to be difficult.
The proving grounds backstory for my 90 gtz is what was written in the last 2 for sale listings in the forum. I think I'm the 3rd one in the line of owners who is trying to see if there is truth to it. Aside from the GM Heritage center, I wouldn't know where else to find more information for any of the Berettas.

I'm thinking being a company vehicle the TT Beretta probably had a paper trail within the office, somewhere. But I agree, that would be hard to track down even with a name. I used to work with someone a few years back, he used to work with the guys who designed the 1227727 and 1227730 ECM's and eeproms, possibly others. He was showing me where the facility used to exist, its gone now. He even asked me to bring my ECM box one day and he was showing everyone what he used to do.
Hopefully wherever they built the TT Beretta they didn't toss anything they might still have.

Yah the place my turbo was rebuilt was a 3rd party company, but they are supposedly well known and experts. They knew immediately what part numbers and what parts where necessary for my unit, they even knew about upgraded parts that could be used and they called me before doing anything asking what I wanted to do. It was like a concourse restoration on a car, except it was a turbo, original paint marks put back too. lol


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