Snake Bite!

[A12pilot]

Sooooooooo.....in between finishing the Beater Bee....tearing apart the Musclestang...and buying a Trans Am....what else is one to do with all this free time?!?!:hmmm: Simple! Buy another car so it can sit like the rest of them do!:no:.

I've always liked these Blue & White 96/97 Gen II GTS Vipers and thought to myself, "Self? If one came up that was the right car, I'd jump in it!". So after much searching, I stumbled upon this original owner 97 GTS. Actually, a coworker of mine has a friend who's a Viper freak and he found the car for me. 28,000 miles, all original, all paperwork/manuals. The gentleman passed away and willed it to the kids who didn't want the car, so enter me!:grin:

I quickly became edjumacated with everything Gen II Vipery courtesy of this newfound friend. I was a little intimidated by the car, since the latest thing I've worked on to any serious extent was a 1970 Challenger. I'm not one to get into Fuel Injection, Compooters, and all that jazzy fancy stuff. But, what the heck!? Nothing ventured, nothing gained!:grin:

Gen II Vipers need things, and especially the ones with no miles on them or ones that have been driven and enjoyed yet not serviced. With 28,000 miles on the clock, some things were done, some things weren't. The car basically needed everything a 1997 somethingorother needs, but it's a Viper and not a Honda and as such, everything is uber expensive!:thumbsdown::thumbsdown: So with wrench in hand, I took the plunge! First up was to ditch those WWII Incendiary Bombs for Catalytic Converters. I know exactly what a pig in a blanket in the oven feels like with these things roasting my fat-a$$ in the interior!:no: So a 3" Corsa with hi-flo cats were installed. A little cutting and welding, but otherwise a bolt in installation and the sound is friggin' awesome!!!!!

Cheers:beers:

Dave

[A12pilot]

Moving onto the engine bay, what's needed in there? Lots of stuff! Vipers tend to leak a lot, especially with factory gaskets. One of the major culprits is the timing cover gasket. Leaking coolant into the engine bay is NO BUENO!!! That's about the extent of my Spanish, well...except for Las Tatas es muey Grande'!!!! Wait...:hmmm: Can I type that on here? Anyway, it's gasket removal time! Up on deck is a Cometic oil pan gasket, timing cover gasket, water pump gasket, thermostat housing gasket, oil filter mounting gasket, crank seal, and since you can't remove the thermostat without removing the 5ft long intake manifold, an intake gasket too! While I'm in there, a 180 degree thermostat will go in as well as a cleanup of the whole front of the engine due to the leaky timing cover and PCV gasket. Oh yeah, add to the the PCV hose and seal!:grin:

Along with these things, a new serpentine belt, tensioner (those always fail), and a much needed power steering pulley and mounting bracket. If you can believe this, the original is plastic! Yes, plastic! Remember those Revell models you built as a kid? Well, they make the PS Pulley and braket for real big cars too! Not really, but it is plastic. I replaced those with billet items. Looks good and lasts a long time!:cool2:

And last thing is all the hoses get replaced: upper lower radiator along with FIVE, not 2, FIVE heater hoses! :thumbsdown: Can you reach them easily? Is this your first time reading one of my threads?!?!? Of course you can't!!!!:thumbsdown:

Cheers

Dave

[A12pilot]

So what's next? Glad you asked! Cooling....this big V10 puts out some heat. So you'd think the radiator would be this big honkin' thingy that could cool a Panzer tank!:cool2: Nope...try a 2 rwo, puny, Dodge Neon part. A puny little thing with a not-so-powerful single fan.:rolleyes2: So, yank that out (which is really easy to do hunched over a 6ft x8ft clamshell hood and a body angle of back to floor at 90 degrees...really ergonomic!:rolleyes2:) and send it to my radiator guy for a 3 core 5/8 tube upgrade. The factory radiator actually has the room for 3 rows, but only utilizes 2. And in addition to that, I added to small pusher fans in front of the condensor. The result? This Locomotive engine will stay around the 195-200 mark in 100 degree, Bottom of the Indian Ocean Houston Humidity all day long! A cool thing is each part of the Viper is signed by the workers. There's three signatures under the front valance alone! Really puts a personal touch on the car.

Last things were K&N Air filter and smooth tube intake runners. This alone was worth it's weight in performance and sound. When you walk by the front of the car, the sound from that NACA intake vent from the air being sucked in my that yyewwge (that's Houston for Huge) air pump is like the snake hissing at you!:grin: Really cool to hear!!!! Jump on it and between the exhaust growl and the intake hiss, you're senses are overloaded with pure Detroit venomous muscle awesomeness!!!!!!!

Next up tomorrow is a brake upgrade and then it's off the upholstery shop for a few really cool, tasteful, and factory looking upgrades! More to come.....:grin:

Cheers:beers:

[A12pilot]

I was able to get the daughter of the original owner to send me a few pictures of him with the car, and this is my favorite picture of him. He looks like an 8yr old who just got his favorite toy for Christmas!!! Just priceless...

Of course, and one with Kelly who know apparently owns this car too...:hmmm::grin::biggthumpup::biggthumpup::biggt humpup:

Cheers

Dave

[flyingn]

very nice, Dave.. lots of patience needed with this cars, huh? :)

[m22mike]

Dang, that was allot of typing in on day. :D. Very neat stuff Dave :biggthumpup:

[njsteve]

Welcome to the club!

I bought this old gal new, in late 1992 for our magazine project car. Still sits in the garage with 8,000 miles. Back in '96 I bought a new Viper coupe under the program they had that gave vouchers to current registered owners of Vipers. I sold it a couple years later. For two years it stank to high heaven of the out-gassing solvents from the fiberglass (or whatever the polymer body panels were made of back then). I would get a sore throat from just sitting in the car for more than a minute. Kind of like that acrid smell of a stack of new tires in a tire warehouse.

Back in the old days Dodge was always sending me spare "heavy" stuff for the project. A large section of my basement is still full of the parts in boxes. I have the original exhaust system from the actual Viper Pace Car in the stack of pipes. (The long muffler set with no cat). Several boxes of the aluminum NOS rocker side pipe panels, spare rims and unused 1992 Michellins XGTZ's. One of these days this stuff might actually be worth something when people start restoring these cars.

I also made sure and ordered every single rubber coolant hose and weatherstripping item from the dealer while they were still available. Some of those crazy heater hoses go behind the block against the firewall. Insane design!

[HawkX66]

I was able to get the daughter of the original owner to send me a few pictures of him with the car, and this is my favorite picture of him. He looks like an 8yr old who just got his favorite toy for Christmas!!! Just priceless...

Of course, and one with Kelly who know apparently owns this car too...:hmmm::grin::biggthumpup::biggthumpup::biggt humpup:

Cheers

Dave
What a fun new toy to play with! The car! You're right, the previous owner does look like a little kid in that picture. RIP :3gears:

[njsteve]

Having you driven your coupe much since you did the upgrades?

The boy and I had the old girl out last night for the first time in years. (Just changed the oil...last time was 2009 at 7,850 miles! It's got 8,148 miles now) I forgot how much scary fun these are to drive. My ears are still ringing (headers with 4" Borla XR-1 racing mufflers). It's like being in the front row at a Ted Nugent concert.

[A12pilot]

Good on ya, Steve-O! Yep... love this car and it grabs more attention than any other I've had. Amazing. It seems to draw everyone to it. I love letting people sit in it and get pictures. The sound with the Corsa is awesome!! I've put about 250 miles on it since I got it. Once the brakes are done I'm through with maintenance items on it.

The brake redo is new slotted rotors, pads, a flush, and the calipers are being coated Red. Should be back on the road in another week. Then its onto a few interior improvements. Pics soon! It's running great, and cool, since the fan and radiator improvements.

Cheers
Dave

[njsteve]

Cool. One caveat on brakes: be careful when you place the tire/rim back on the front wheel studs. If you approach the studs at the wrong angle you risk the chance of the edge of the rim denting the mild steel brake line that serves as the crossover from one half of the caliper (at the bottom), to other half. That stupid little steel line is not serviced as a separate part.

Funny story from back in the day: Our home base was located down in Central Florida - just as hot as Houston, when we were building this project car. It always ran hot in traffic when it was new - into the yellow line portion of the gauge which is around 230 degrees. We told Team Viper about the problems in hot weather traffic. They eventually came up with a fix for the problem...they removed the yellow portion of the gauge face on subsequent models so it only showed red around 250. ;-p

My fix when racing was to pull the A/C compressor lead off the compressor. This way when I turned on the A/C it would activate the electric fan immediately but not the compressor itself - kind of like a manual/override fan switch.

[A12pilot]

In continuing my quest for the perfect Viper....well...not really, but since it's Hurricaning out there, I might as well update a few threads!:thumbsdown:

Up on jack stands it goes for a brake redo and a cleaning up of the front and rear suspension is in order as well. Of course, factory markings present as well as parts tags will remain. :burnout: The last worn out parts to replace are the sway bar end links front and back too. Brakes on the Gen II Vipers are...well....not exactly up to today's standards on the Gen Vs or even the later Gen IIIs. After exploring a bunch of options and realizing this thing will never see a track day (OK, maybe one day for fun:headbang:), I decided that slotted rotors with Hawk pads would be just fine. Of course, what's a B&W GTS need to really look good!? Simple....shiney red calipers which always make the car go faster!:wink:

Look at how puny those back calipers are! Like leftover Neon calipers. I'm going to make a cover eventually to go over that (Tom at Tom's Big Brakes used to, but they no longer exist:frown:) just for asthetic purposes so I can have a Viper logo on the rear ones too. Just a brake bleed away from being back on the road! Well, that and a week of no rain!:thumbsdown:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

[njsteve]

They could very well be Neon brake calipers as the overwhelming majority of parts on the Gen 1 cars were sourced from existing parts throughout the Chrysler corporation. You like the 6-lug wheel hubs that came from a 1500 pickup truck?

I just had some expensive fun with my snake-car. I washed the car and then turned on the wipers for the first time in about 24 years. They promptly did their little "I Dream Of Jeanie" dance and then jammed together in the middle of the windshield. The Viper uses two separate electric motors - one for each wiper blade. They are synched through a series of sensors inside the motors. One worked fine, the other would start and stop and then get caught in the path of the passenger side blade. I then tested each by unplugging them and running power to the correct terminal on each motor. They both worked fine when separated.

Here is the important thing to remember for when yours start going out. The bad wiper motor is NOT the one that is stopping. The bad motor is the one that appears to be working fine.

It seems that the sensors in the one that is working fine are no longer sending the correctly timed signal to the other motor to swing - so it starts and stops awaiting the next signal that never comes. I had to order a new Mopar passenger side wiper motor which is no longer available but still stocked in some dealers (PN 4643065 at $248) and hopefully it will arrive next week. The driver's side part number is PN 4708171, in case you eventually need one or the other. These part numbers cover all the Gen 1 and Gen 2 Vipers.

My next project on the car is either the non-working Alpine cassette deck (no sound coming from the speakers) or the falling headliner in the detachable hardtop. Jeez, it's like a typical old car already...and it's only been 24 years.

[A12pilot]

Yep..... guys at my shop were asking me why I've done so much to the car since it's new? Well... it's new to me but not NEW new, and as such, needs everything a car from 1997 needs except it's a Viper and not a Honda. I've replaced a bunch of weather stripping [and get those while you can! ] that was worn out too, and just freshening up a bunch of tired parts. After the brakes, I'll be diving into the interior upholstery upgrade.

One guy at the shop wants the car in the worst way. Let the negotiations start! But honestly, this car is such an icon I have to enjoy it for a little while longer before it goes to another caretaker. So much fun!

Dave

[Woj]

Dave, I love the upgrades on the car. I can't believe how tiny the original calipers are. Apparently it worked for the engineers. Anyway, I know it will be a better car when done with some tasteful upgrades.

Good work.

[njsteve]

The brakes worked really well when we raced ours, back in the day. Sebring was our home track and it was quite fun going from 145 mph on the short straight into the 20 mph hair pin turn (which has since been removed and made into a much more gentler transition without a runoff escape route that pointed you directly into a large billboard or a chain link fence. :-)

From my racing experience with the Gen 1 suspension in my 93 I found that it was well balanced in the braking department. I think the best 60 to 0 braking distance we measured was 105 feet, running on the first design BFG R-1 racing tires. No fading, though it would boil the brake fluid frequently on long runs and I had to go with a really expensive high temp fluid and added Porsche brake duct flaps attached to the lower control arms to direct the air toward the calipers.

You may find that if you enlarge the rear brakes you may also have to go to bigger front brakes as well as the braking balance may be upset.

Here's a shot of the Porsche brake flaps hose clamped to the lower control arms. (please ignore the rusty rotors from sitting). We also had to wrap the ball joints and tie rod ends in heat barrier material as the brake rotor heat would boil the grease right out of the ball joints...right toward the brake rotors. Now THAT made for an exciting time. You can also see on the bottom of the caliper where I added some orange RTV in a glob as a cushion to prevent that transfer tube from getting dented during wheel changes. The car also had a set of custom coil-over shocks that Koni made for us with adjustable spring seats for altering the ride height.

[A12pilot]

Brakes are done and what an improvement! The car runs cool due to the radiator recore and addtional fans....not to mention it's not 1,000 Degrees outside!!!:thumbsdown:

Been driving it all week. Ran next to a Gen V on the road which was prettty sweet. It's rare to see a Viper on the road, so this was a treat. Stopped at the local airport to jump in my buddy's Cessna 310Q, and took a few photos. The car is a blast!!!

Cheers:beers:

Oh...might of had to get a few pics by the Bee too.....:naughty:

[njsteve]

Glad you're enjoying the snake-car. Took mine out yesterday for the second time this year. I got the new wiper motor in and they now work properly again. Also, I charged the battery fully with a battery tender for a couple days and now the stereo miraculously works again! Who knows: maybe it was a voltage issue with the factory amplifiers in the trunk? Now if I could get the drooping headliner to also repair itself THAT would truly be a miracle.

[cook_dw]

The viper..

:rolleyes: :D


https://media.tenor.com/images/77b4cd906774b434560cee954054bd4c/tenor.gif

[A12pilot]

Hahaha!! I was looking forward to a "Darrell" comment!!!:biggthumpup:

Cheers

Dave

[cook_dw]

You may call me the godfather of gifs..

https://media.tenor.com/images/e82490b97b851a15dc6867ddc5cea839/tenor.gif

[JRC99]

You like the 6-lug wheel hubs that came from a 1500 pickup truck?

Ah, yes, the bane of my existence. Trying to find nice 15 inch wheels for my Dakota is like a needle in the haystack.

On topic, I love the blue n White GTS Coupes, they're probably my favorite of all the Vipers. Speaking of that Dakota, I ought to paint it in that blue if I ever do get it painted.