Back in Black

g damn, i love your garage. NICE.

Lookin good, homie. Now would be a great time to relocate turn signals to side lamps and make the turn signals into air intake/brake cooling ducts.

  

Daaaaaaayyyum! Fine job! Want to do my diamond white pearlcoat next?

Thanks everyone! Here's a pic of the garage just for you Charlie - from when we first moved in and it wasn't clean yet. Holds up to 9 cars and of course, the best tool, the lift.


Also Charlie I've always liked that idea! It didn't cross my mind though.

Anywho back to business - Kristin, I would love to but I know what's involved in that pearl paint and I don't think I'm ready for that lol.

Got the rest of the paint done! I still have to do one more buff but it's presentable! Then I can get back to doing a light polish and wax on the rest of the car. I spent almost all day Wednesday wet sanding to get out little imperfections (the paint is WAY too hard to get all the orange peel out, but I got major stuff) and then a few hours buffing because i don't have proper tools. Came out pretty damn good!

The roof was so tedious because there's no sunroof or curves or anything - just a flat wasteland of paint.


I'm very sore, but the pain is worth it!


Finally! No white faded clear coat! I'm so happy!


And a front bumper that doesn't look like it came from a junk pile.




Alyssa's '93 Bonneville in the background. It's in incredible shape for 130,000 miles! Stuck an SSE/i grille on it. Also, I'm glad I tinted my turn signals.




One last shot, then I'll stop. This is at work today! Couldn't resist.

dont stop the shots! Sick lookin' Riv, bro!

Love it.

Nice garage too!   

....just another show room car Andrew.

Looks great! I like the rims. What are they? Thanks! - Hal

charlieRobinson wrote:

g damn, i love your garage. NICE.

Lookin good, homie. Now would be a great time to relocate turn signals to side lamps and make the turn signals into air intake/brake cooling ducts.

  

Actually you could do this with "flashback" LED bulbs in those sockets, they illuminate white when on constantly and flash amber when pulsed. Just use Google to find them, "flashback LED 1156" should get you several options. Or search on eBay.

Albertj

Oh wow thanks Albert! I like that option.

Thanks everyone else!

Hal - welcome to the site! (I never did in your thread) Those are Sport Edition SE-14's in their 17x7.5 size. They make 18" as well. I was going for sportier looking wheels while maintaining a potentially stock appearance. Those and the tires made for one of the best car purchases I've ever made! Huge improvement in looks and handling/ride.

Hey all,

I finally got a video of some zoom-zoom with the Riviera. I was driving, Dad was taking the video.

I have no idea why the quality dropped through the floor when I uploaded it to Youtube, but it's alright for right now. I haven't done a ton of 'real' mods to the car, or tuned it yet, but MAN with the mods I do have it MOVES.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjScnGExv7s&feature=youtu.be

Oooooooooooooo that supercharger whine. Oh baby.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.......haha.super

Haha thanks guys. I love that sound...it's so unique and no one in my area seems to know what that sound is.

Well, today was a sad day. Along with an oil change, I had to put on my Winter wheels and dry rotting winter tires. Blizzaks coming soon...

Looking good Andrew

Thanks Stan!

I got the Winter coat of wax on the car today. It shined up pretty good as always!

Wow.....Andrew bro....that second picture is 2015 calendar material...

I never have enough of black Riv pictures. You are obliged to post pictures regularly.
I love Your parcel but it would be nice to see some shots of the riv in urban area as well.

damn i missed a lot of this.
riv looks great!
What was the deal with the lifters? You tightened the rockers down and you had lash between the pushrod and rocker arm (or pushrod and lifter same difference) - a space. And just replacing the lifters with LS7's fixed that for you?
Oh too late I know but at least maybe for assurance sake yeah I'd say you can reuse the aluminum LIM gaskets without trouble. I ended up porting my old (installed in '08 removed in like '11) GM aluminum set with maybe like 25-30k miles to match my IS3 head porting and have been running them for a while now.

Haha thanks Bullitt...I haven't taken too many pictures lately of the car but I post good ones when I can. Hopefully one of my better ones makes it into the calendar!

Codith - the lifters were a funny one. You're exactly right, there was a gap between one of the pieces on cylinder #2 exhaust valve. I'm pretty sure it was the lifter/pushrod, so I just replaced them all with the 'upgraded' LS7's. I have never heard of anyone having to do that before to get the rockers to work correctly, and I had to do it on this car AND my Lesabre T-type's Series I L67. Only on the Series I, it was EVERY lifter that was making noise - they just wouldn't pump up.

And thanks for the confirmation on the gaskets - I didn't think it would be a problem. When I took mine off they looked exactly the same as when I had installed them 2 years ago (albeit only 11,000 miles ago).

Hey all,

I've been meaning to post this for a couple weeks but I just finished rebuilding my main computer. I decided to get new exhaust tips! I don't mind the stock tips, really, but mine were getting pretty questionable as far as how long they would last (mufflers are on their way out too). I got these at Advance Auto for almost half off, so I figured 'why not?'.

They're actually not very big, about 1/2 the width of the stock tips. They're still ovals though! But better because they have a slight angled cut.




The rolled ends on them aren't particularly good, so I applied some high-heat clear silicone so water wouldn't sit in there.


Stock tips:




New tips!






I'm quite pleased. They're tucked under the bumper in exactly the same spot the stock ones are, so they don't look out of place at all, but I think they made a huge improvement to the back of the car.

Very Nice!
Those tips look familiar:

Ha! Nice!

I just ordered a 3.5" MPS! I don't really have KR day to day, and even without being tuned much my car really pulls. I hope I don't get too much KR with this but I can at least tune now if I do!

I think I've done enough supporting mods to handle it though.

Ok, I'm ready to join the MPS club!

Finally!



I'm very happy with it, but I need to tune badly. I'm getting consistent knock above 4,000 RPM, but I rarely go there. I'm loving the bottom end torque and the overall power increase and ease of driving. I have a fun time go-fast car (the T-type) so i think besides tuning, this is probably it for mods for the Riv. I'm very VERY happy with it and how it runs and drives now. Drives and handles like the GS it should have been.

EDIT: Holy crap, my engine is filthy. Damn Winter.

Knock with that big of a pulley and all those mods? Weird