From Childhood Poster to Garage - My 97 GTS

[usmcfieldmp]

I bought my childhood dream car about a month ago, and as I've started to replace parts and fix things that are wrong/broken, I figured that I'd start a thread to help keep track of what I'm doing with the car and to share its journey.



April 27, 2021

I became the fourth owner of VIN #00800 at 57,300 miles (second owner bought it in Feb 2017 at 50,000 miles; third owner in May 2020 with 54,000 miles).

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Unfortunately, that's a paint job... not a wrap - done by the second owner; attempting to make a Batmobile, apparently (had a 4GOTHAM plate, and put a Gotham City Motors sticker on the roll bar).

In the ad, I was told that the car had the following modifications:

• Autoform T/A carbon fiber rear spoiler
• Autoform Rollbar
• Roe Racing Triple Pass Aluminum Radiator w/ Hoses
• Roe Racing Air/Fuel Ratio Gauge (Turned out to be a VEC1)
• RSI dual fans/relay kit
• A larger oil cooler (I think this is wrong; I think the power steering cooler has been changed though)
• Billet aluminum power steering bracket and pulley kit
• 3-rib 10 quart oil pan with Roe oil baffle system
• Moroso oil catch can (VTA though)
• Sidewinder II wheels with Toyo R888 tires
• Wilwood BBK with two-piece slotted rotors
• Stainless steel braided brake lines
• Parking brake relocation kit
• Borla catback w/ cats removed and piping heat wrapped through sills
• Vented Sills
• Front and rear tow hooks

May 01, 2021

Fixing issues right off the bat. Driver's side door sag; a quick and simple fix. In the process I found that the door card was loose, so I replaced the screw that was missing from the bottom.

Shifter was feeling absolutely terrible and the eBrake was super weak, so I took the center console apart to attempt to correct what I could.

Found a B&M STS with all four mounting bolts loose - also is missing the dust boot to keep gunk out of its insides.

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I went ahead and installed an IPSCO 3" shifter extension. With the bolts torqued and the extension added, shifting became much smoother, but not perfect. Going from fifth to fourth was still really hard - shifter doesn't want to return to center, and seems to fight going back to center from the 5-6-R positions.

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I also found a controller box under the Driver's Seat. Turns out the "AFR Gauge" was a VEC1 controller.

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And then finally, I cut out the sagging elastic band from the ebrake boot and replaced with a small black zip-tie. It's not elegant, but it works. lol

[usmcfieldmp]

May 02, 2021

Randomly drove the car around DFW for about 200 miles throughout the day since it had rained every single day since I bought it.

Pulling it into my driveway at the end of the day and I'm greeted with a "nail-on-chalkboard" type screech from under the hood. My heart sinks and think my world has just ended as smoke starts to billow out from the hood vents. Turn the car off as quickly as possible and then I smell the burnt rubber. My mind eases a bit; should just be something belt related.

Pop the hood and find that my idler pulley bearing has self-destructed.

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I went ahead and started to pull it off of the car, just so I'd know the extend of the damage. Turned out that nothing else was damaged, thankfully.

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It was about 8 PM by that point; for the hell of it, I checked the AutoZone website. Holy smokes, they've got one in stock locally! Hopped in my Cobalt and went down to the store to pick it up. The pulley was actually a bit wider than the stock unit and would touch the alternator when mounted, so I pressed the bearing out of the both, then pressed the new bearing into my OE pulley. Reinstalled with a new belt. Voila! Fixed it in a matter of hours. I was determined to finally be able to drive it to work the next day.

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[usmcfieldmp]

May 05, 2021

Short lived fun. Only a few days later and a new problem cropped up, lol.

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Roe Racing Upper Radiator hose ruptured and lead to an overheating event. I crossed my fingers (and still have them crossed) for no long term damage.

Ordered some Mishimoto hoses along with a handful of other needed parts - end links, anti-sway mounts, engine mounts, and upper and lower ball joints.

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While waiting for the radiator hoses, I replaced the totally destroyed end links and slowly went over the car looking at everything in detail. Found that I have an oil leak (I thought it might be RMS, but the backside of the flywheel is dry... so maybe the oil pan bolts are leaking? Unsure at this point), it appears as though my driver's side diff seal might be leaking, and the brake fluid was ancient.



May 13, 2021

Radiator hoses come in and I rushed home from work to start installing them. In the process, I also found that the "bleeder hose" coming off of the passengers side of the radiator was kinked into a V shape - surely not effective, lol. I trimmed a bit off of it , but the kink was persistent... now it's more of an L shape, but should flow at least some. I need to replace that hose (I had honestly forgotten about it until typing this out).

After installing everything, I poured in a 70/30 antifreeze mix, started it up, and went for a drive. Everything seemed to be in order - temps floated right around 190 now and I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Huge sigh of relief.

[usmcfieldmp]

May 23, 2021

I've got the Viper up to 58,137 miles and I'm absolutely loving it - cannot wait to get this thing fully squared away to the point that I can start doing autocross and track days with it (Next SCCA Solo is late July; fingers crossed).

It's a rainy weekend though... so why not put the car up on jacks and get some work done!

First order of business - even though I have plans to replace them all, I went around and put flushing that brake fluid. It was daaaark. I'm guessing it's been in the car since before the second owner.

Sucking out the reservoir...
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Bleeding from each caliper. These Wilwood calipers have REALLY tiny bleeder nipples (1/4" wrench to loosen), so it wasn't actually easy to get a good seal - but once the fluid turned clear-ish, I knew I was good.
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Next, I installed the IPSCO Trans Crossmember and Trans Mount. Turns out, the car had a Woodhouse trans mount on it, too - I was going to stick with that, but went ahead and put the Energy Suspension from IPSCO in. Engine mounts followed. Not a fun job, haha. Took me a little while to get them out and back in, but the car DEFINITELY needed them. The driver's side had completely separated, and the passenger side had a pretty good lean going on.

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I was amazed at how much the new engine mounts smoothed out the shifting; it glides into each gear like butter now. No more trouble going from 5-6-R to 3-4.

When I bought the car, the previous owner gave me a shift knob and IPSCO shift knob lowering kit that he had bought for it. I had thought that I was needing a new brass thread adapter, because he had threaded it onto the non-1/2-20 side of the lowering kit. After giving it a really hard look though, I figured out that he had threaded it onto the wrong side... the adapter was actually a 1/2-20 adapter, so I went ahead and put the knob on the car. I generally like the look, but I'm not convinced that I like the feel. I actually liked the height of the shifter before for its leverage and close proximity to the steering wheel. There was a noticeable increase in effort required to shift after the swap. I'll run it a while though and see if I change my mind.

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Driving the car around after all these upgrades and I suddenly started getting a vibration from the driver's front wheel. My first thought was that I didn't torque the lug nuts... but after pulling over, I found them to be tight.

Turns out the tread had started to balloon under the surface. Sigh. I was hoping to be able to get more life out of them, as they still had plenty of tread left. They are 5 years old according to the date code though, so I knew I'd be replacing them... just didn't expect it to be this soon. To go along with that, while the car has been in the air, I've noticed a lot of the suspension bushings are shot... including those on the shocks (which I was told upon purchase, that the second owner had just installed those around 52-53k miles or so). So I have two sets of OE shocks/springs that are essentially worthless now - since I also learned that OE Koni's are not rebuildable, which I was kind of banking on since when I purchased the car he said he had the OE setup boxed up in the garage.

So, to start this week, I ordered new Aldan Coilovers and Continental ExtremeContact Sport tires. I was tempted to hop on the Koni ACR's listed on eBay, but for the price, I figured Penske's would be the better purchase... but decided not to spring for the top option just yet... which is why I also chose the Conti's over the PZero Corsas. Save a bit of coin and get a bit more mileage. For now.

Next on the list is transmission and differential fluid changes. I'll likely end up going with Motul, as I've been using that on all my cars and motorcycles for the last handful of years. I do have a Chrysler sticker under the hood saying "The following authorized modifications have been made: TRANS FLUID 75W85".

[AviP]

Do I dare say that paint job actually looks good!

[ILLMAX1]

Do I dare say that paint job actually looks good!

LOL...I was thinking the same! Car looks sharp! Enjoy the ride!

[usmcfieldmp]

The car looks really good with the matte grey look; especially in person. Plus it's currently ceramic coated. There's a chip or two, plus the scrapes on the front bumper, that end up showing a touch of the OE Red that's underneath it... and there's a spot or two where I can see imperfections in the job that they did. Not a huge deal. Just a deal, haha.

I have the OE front emblem, too, but I'd like to scrap off the OE 3M tape without damaging the emblem itself. I'm sure it can easily be done, just a matter of sitting down to do it.

It's funny that I've looked at wrapping cars matte grey before and always wanted to do something like this before... but when it came to buying my first Viper, the paint actually made me hesitate. I reeeeaaaally wanted Red or Blue/White.

But as my girlfriend said after I mentioned the paint to her, "I'm sure this won't be your last Viper, so I'm sure your next one will be a color that you want."

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Those are bugs on the front bumper in this picture; we had just gotten back from a 250 mile trip around some twisty roads south of Fort Worth.

With that said, part of my "disappointment" with the paint job, is that the ogres that did it definitely left out and/or lost a lot or all of the OE panel spacers. When fixing the door sag, the small body panel that covers the door hinge only had a couple regular washers behind one bolt hole location. The headlights definitely need to be raised, as well.

[lane_viper]

Do you happen to know what the original color was? I'd be sick if it was B/W as that's what I would want.

Otherwise, I'm having memories come back to the days of sorting mine out when I got it. (Pulley, transmission, cooling system, Interior) Fun to put yourself in the car and enjoy the reward!

Also really digging the gen 5 wheels.

[usmcfieldmp]

It was a red car. Unsure if it had stripes or not, but the base is definitely red.

[thetalonguy]

Awesome! I love seeing that you're wrenching on it yourself. It makes the Viper bond that much more special.

I dig the paint as well. Kind of reminds me of the Carbon Gen5 color, which is one of my favorites.

Appreciate your chronicles as the Gen 2's are definitely aging and getting some miles on them. A lot owners will be coming into the higher mileage maintenance windows. I have almost 59K miles myself and I know I'm going to be in it for coilovers and bushings soon; dreading bushings. Also have had a set of new OEM motor mounts sitting on my shelf for probably 5 years. I attempted to start that one not too long ago, but when my Dewalt impact gun couldn't break the first the nut, I decided to put it off for another day.

Anyway, Congrats and keep plugging away. Texas is definitely a big Viper region, so try to meet up with some other members; especially for track days.

[01sapphirebob]

It was a red car. Unsure if it had stripes or not, but the base is definitely red.

A red ‘97 will not have stripes. Red coupes didn't have a stripe option until ‘98 and even then, silver was the only color choice.

[ACRSNK]

Congrats! That thing looks sick!

[usmcfieldmp]

Soooo, I'm pretty sure this isn't standard equipment since I couldn't find it mentioned in my service manual, but there's a phone line tucked above my driver's side sun visor, haha. I ended up forgetting to investigate it once I got home, but it made me laugh a bit when it dropped down as I pulled the visor down. I'll investigate it this weekend, along with why my driver's side seat back feels like it's only latching on one side.

I've contemplated taking a valve cover off, as well, as I can't imagine that the first owner did all these other extensive modification but wouldn't do a relatively simple modification like roller rockers and pushrods.

Tires will arrive on Friday; coilovers will be here Saturday.

Awesome! I love seeing that you're wrenching on it yourself. It makes the Viper bond that much more special.

I dig the paint as well. Kind of reminds me of the Carbon Gen5 color, which is one of my favorites.

Appreciate your chronicles as the Gen 2's are definitely aging and getting some miles on them. A lot owners will be coming into the higher mileage maintenance windows. I have almost 59K miles myself and I know I'm going to be in it for coilovers and bushings soon; dreading bushings. Also have had a set of new OEM motor mounts sitting on my shelf for probably 5 years. I attempted to start that one not too long ago, but when my Dewalt impact gun couldn't break the first the nut, I decided to put it off for another day.

Anyway, Congrats and keep plugging away. Texas is definitely a big Viper region, so try to meet up with some other members; especially for track days.

Thanks!

I know my UCA/LCA bushings are cracking and on the way out. I've actually been contemplating buying a mini lathe and making my own Delrin bushings for steering, UCA/LCA, shock mount, diff mount, etc.

A red ‘97 will not have stripes. Red coupes didn't have a stripe option until ‘98 and even then, silver was the only color choice.

Good info, thanks.

[RyanLS.GEN2]

Looks like 2 Right motor mounts. On the OE is a nub that sticks up so you cant put them in wrong, but the heat shield might not fit the right way since the inter locks will be backwards.

[ViperSRT]

The Valentine One radar detector uses a phone connector for power.

[usmcfieldmp]

Looks like 2 Right motor mounts. On the OE is a nub that sticks up so you cant put them in wrong, but the heat shield might not fit the right way since the inter locks will be backwards.

I definitely noticed that when putting the new ones in. The metal tab/"safety locks" on my driver's side mount are pointed towards the exhaust manifold now.

I'll likely be making my own in the near future; I'm working on a couple different ideas/designs.

The Valentine One radar detector uses a phone connector for power.

Cool, that makes sense given its location then.

[usmcfieldmp]

May 28, 2021

We went out on Friday night for a nice dinner downtown and a drive-in movie.

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Saturday afternoon, the new Continental ExtremeContact Sport tires went on the car, along with Aldan American coilovers. Car rides so much smoother with the new tires; the Toyo R888's that were on the car were five years old and getting a little rough around the edges. The Conti's actually grip more than the Toyo's did, as well - part of the problem with aged tires is the loss of grip.

I'm glad I had an extra OE coilover set lying around so that I could pull the clevis off of those before messing with the ones on the car. A nice "just in case something goes wrong". Hardest part was getting the springs off, actually... I need better spring compressors. I set the coilovers to their mid settings; I'll likely play around with them a bit. I still have my eyes peeled for a set of ACR Koni's, but I get the feeling that for the same kind of money the Penske's might be the better purchase. I'm hoping to have all my bushings replaced by the time next spring rolls around and jump to a more aggressive tire/suspension combination then.

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Oh, and I lost my Driver's Side Hood Grille Screen ("Speaker") on the highway on Sunday afternoon. The road kind of humped up, I'm guessing the last of what was holding it on let go, and it started to fly off the car. I flipped a u-turn at the next exit and went back to where it happened a handful of times. Never saw it in the road, and I got out and searched the grass on both sides... never saw it. -_- Haven't been able to find one on eBay and JonB couldn't source one for me either. It might be a hard print, but I might try to model something close and 3D print it. It'll suffice for the time being... better than just having that empty spot, at least.

[James]

Congrats on your purchase and good luck with all the further repairs. Seems this lady was in desperate need of someone taking good care of her, glad she found you!

[98RedGTS]

I think I met your car 9 years ago with maybe the 2nd owner? It had a Gotham plate on it and the owner lived in Taylor. I actually thought he still owned the car today so maybe two people in Texas did the same treatment. . Picture from a car show back in 2012.

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[GTS Dean]

Two different cars. Gotham has a Batmobile wrap, wing, diffuser and splitter.

[usmcfieldmp]

I came across pictures of that one and thought the same thing initially, but it's a different car - (post #8). I dug a little deeper into my my car's history though. Car was reported as Red by DMV Registration/Inspection March 2018... and then March 2019 reported as Gray. Inspection report from 2020 shows the plate to be "4GOTHAM".

[SlateEd]

Thanks for sharing all of your impressions and experiences so far! Looks like you are nursing this one back to full health!

As someone posted earlier - Valentine uses RJ-11 for power. Escort radar detectors also use RJ-11... that's definitely the use for it above the visor.

and

"But as my girlfriend said after I mentioned the paint to her, "I'm sure this won't be your last Viper, so I'm sure your next one will be a color that you want."

Sounds like a keeper!

[usmcfieldmp]

June 26, 2021

I had big goals for the weekend...... and accomplished almost none of them.

I tried charging my A/C a week or two ago and found that the rubber hose portion of my Liquid Line (high pressure line) had a hole in it. So my first goal was to replace that. This ended up being a much larger undertaking that I had anticipated, as my service manual made it seem like a quick remove and replace job. I could not seem to get the old hose out with the passenger side headlight attached though... and I couldn't reach all of the headlight mounting bolts with the front bumper still on... so off it came.

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I'm doing a little cleaning while it is off, as well as replacing the rubber cooling system hoses while they're so much easier to access. The small radiator bleeder hose appears to have been leaking, so it needed it bad... but I haven't ruled out that the fitting in the radiator isn't properly sealing either, so I might pull that out and throw some Loctite High Temp Thread Sealer on it (or maybe teflon tape would be better? Will research applicability of each).

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I had planned to install all new tie rods, ball joints, and polyurethane CAB's... but didn't get around to doing that. I took it slow when removing the front bumper (first time; didn't want to booger it up) and that sucked up a lot of time. The humidity also felt high on Saturday; combined with the mid-90's temps and I think I burned myself out a bit (I need better airflow in my garage; 1 shop fan isn't cutting it), as I didn't feel like doing much of anything on Sunday - that combined with it taking much longer than anticipated to tune my Cobalt for the new ID1050X injectors that I installed.

I think I met your car 9 years ago with maybe the 2nd owner? It had a Gotham plate on it and the owner lived in Taylor. I actually thought he still owned the car today so maybe two people in Texas did the same treatment. . Picture from a car show back in 2012.

Two different cars. Gotham has a Batmobile wrap, wing, diffuser and splitter.

As an FYI, the Gotham car is now a Martini car. He had it re-wrapped to look like a Martini Racing livery. Looked quite good. Posted in the Viper Owners Group on Facebook a week or so ago.

[usmcfieldmp]

July 1-5, 2021

I finished replacing the radiator bleed hose and reassembled the front end of the car. Topped off the water in the overflow tank and the main reservoir.

Investigated my oil leak, as well - rear pan area. Not sure if it's pan bolt related, RMS related, or the cam cover that's above the RMS (I've seen other state that this was their issue). Initial inspection shows that the oil pan gasket is aluminum and has RTV in the corners. I pulled a couple of the pan bolts and the threads were dry. Pulled the inspection cover and the back of the flywheel was dry, but couldn't find my mirror to get a good look behind the flywheel.

Used my MityVac and some attachments to flush my clutch fluid, then drained the transmission fluid. It looked pretty good, but had a weird color; a little bit of sediment right at the very end of the drain. Refilled with Motul Multi-ATF.

Rolled back to my differential, and absolutely could not get the fill plug out. 10mm was too big, and whatever SAE size I could get to fit, would only slide into the hex about an 1/8", so I didn't try to open it TOO hard. I might try going to Lowe's and picking up a 3/8" drive Allen in the right SAE size, then hammer that in and give it another try. My diff has definitely been opened before though. Orange sealer and a drain plug. After struggling to crack the fill plug, I did an inspection. Bushings don't look terrible, couldn't make out the etchings on the bottom, and I have a seal leak from the driver's side output - doesn't look like I've lost a lot of fluid though. My initial five minutes worth of internet investigation tells me that the whole housing will likely need to come out (for ease of work, probably doesn't HAVE to come out), as getting the axle stubs out requires removing some bolts/clips on the inside? I'll double check this later. If that's the case... I might as well swap to something like a 3.55 rear end. I'll scout my options soon enough. I have Motul Competition Gear 75W140 ready to go back in, but have been having my doubts about it, due to the necessity of needing the LSD friction modifier. The Motul is supposed to have it included, but at what ratio? Will investigate.

Buttoned the car up after that, charged the A/C, and drove it to Austin and back over the weekend (~400 miles). It rained a lot along the way, but the car did fine. I was still the person driving the fastest on the interstate... and in the right lane, at that... I-35 is a shit show. The Motul seems to shift much smoother, especially when cold. The car lost no coolant along the way too, so I'm pretty sure I've finally found/solved my coolant leak issue. Also, the A/C definitely works well now, so that was a welcome relief.

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Upcoming tasks are to replace the control arm bushings, ball joints, and end links. Texas Track Works for the full alignment and corner balance. Then to figure out what I'm going to do with the differential and its leaky seal. Oh, and figure out my oil leak. Fingers crossed, that'll be the end of my initial maintenance investment.

[GTS Dean]

The pinion seal gets hot pretty quickly and can fail. Happened to me at TWS mid-summer when I was sharing the car with a good friend running a group down from me in the Red group.