NJ Steves Pit Viper Revival

[njsteve]

Some details of the aforementioned idiosynchracies of the early 1993 cars.

[njsteve]

Back in 1999 was the last time I had my 93 on a dyno. It put out 404 hp and 471 lbft of torque with SVS headers and Borla XR1 mufflers on a chassis dyno. The prior exhaust was the two-piece stock manifolds and no cats, with 3" Borla XR1 mufflers.

While the overall power output numbers were similar, there were improvements in the lower range with the headers. Compare the red line (with headers) to the blue line (with factory manifolds). I guess it shows how well the factory two-piece manifolds flowed: overall they were only 2 horsepower and 11 pounds of torque, less than the headers!!!

I attached the original dyno sheet (ignore the green line and the "new computer" comment: that related to the dyno shop's laptop computer which crashed and altered the existing data files and correction factor)

[njsteve]

Over the weekend I was moving all the old Viper rims and tires into the basement and cleaning up and sorting various Viper stuff. I found my box of slide albums from when I worked at Mopar Muscle Magazine back in 1990 to 94: I located the looseleaf notebooks full of the pages and pages of slides taken during my visit to the New Mack Assembly Plant in January, 1993. Hundreds of slides. Now I have to figure out a way to scan them into digital form. Anyone recommend a particular scanner device for this? I may have several hundred slides to do.

During the tour of the plant they told me not to shoot certain things (upcoming model stuff) but gave me free reign for others. For example, I shot a lot of photos of just racks and bins of parts so future restorers could know the exact finishes/dcals that were present at the time the cars were built.

[njsteve]

One of the interesting issues that has popped up in the Viper community is the VIN #105 cutoff point for the two-piece to one-piece exhaust manifolds.

Here are the pages from the December, 1995 parts book. See the notations on part #6, manifolds. Interesting to see that the left and right manifold are the same part for either side for 92 and early 93, just the lower extension was different.

Different intake manifolds, too, based on the same VIN break.

[njsteve]

Holy Crapoly, I wound up falling down a rabbit hole, here. I just did a random search of prior listed 1993's on Bring a Trailer, ebay, google, etc. I found 35 of them ranging from Vin 55 (a January 93 built, heavily modified, Hennessey car) to VIN 1040 (which is 15 cars from the last 93 VIN#1055) of the total 1,043 cars built in 1993.

It seems that Dodge obviously did not build the cars in VIN order. (something I now remember from seeing cars on the line).

I made a spread sheet with all sorts of variables, including one or two-piece manifolds, fender or windshield mounted antenna, notched fuel filler lid or quarter panel, "Viper" or "R/T-10" labeled calipers, yellow mark on the temp gauge or not, battery under the trunk or fender. I also noted the date of manufacture from the door tag when available in the listing.

How is this for crazyness: the earliest one-piece manifold I found was VIN 500 built in July 1993. And the latest two-piece manifold car was 903 built in May 1993.

So it looks like there was a jumble of various previously VIN-assigned cars with high numbers/low numbers being built in random order during the model year - maybe due to defects or parts availability? Who knows, but here is what I found:

Do you notice the interesting trends? The carry-over 1992 style, two-piece exhaust manifold/frame-mounted mufflers are always present in conjunction with a fender-mounted antenna, trunk mounted battery, and round fuel filler lid with the thumb depression in the quarter panel.

[njsteve]

By the way, in case you're wondering why anyone would care about this crazy minutiae, I guess I am into weird details.

I imagine the 1960's assembly lines were the same way. People 50 years later are trying to document whether a car was legitimately made during a specific batch of builds (such as COPO orders). Well, here is a semi-recent example (if you can consider 30 years ago, recent).

Also for some reason there is a big premium being paid by Viper enthusiasts for "Antenna Cars" which are the 1992s and the early 1993's which have the fender mounted antenna. And, which according to the Chrysler parts records, were thought to all be vin #105 and below, but I guess I just stumbled across an anomaly that conforms they could be any VIN up through the entire production sequence of 1043 cars, only that they had to have been built between January and May 1993.

[njsteve]

Voila! Someone on the Viper website found this original 1993 newsletter entry from Dodge that explains the VIN anomoly - VINs were preassigned and they built them in geographicly based batches so the could ship them 6 at a time to specific regions. So there you have it!

[njsteve]

I decided to move on to the next maintenance project on my old car: the sagging headliner. This hardtop has been on the car since back in late 1994 or so.

In early 1994 we did some of the preliminary high speed testing of the upcoming accessory hardtop with a mockup that Dodge supplied us with. The unit they sent us was a very heavy, solid fiberglass version of what later became the factory optional unit. Sadly, I had to send the "heavy" top back after we used it for several months of racing. It really helped the aerodynamics of the car at the time and I was sad to see it go. That prototype hardtop was smooth underneath and had no headliner at all.

Eventually I was able to get a regular production hardtop from the guys at Dodge to replace it and had it painted to match the car. That's the top you see in these photos.

The headliner started sagging last year (or that's when I actually noticed it). I was wondering how the thing is actually attached since the later versions use some push pins around the perimeter. This one is simply glued into place around the edges and in the center and that's all that keeps it up there. It uses an ABS plastic form that is approximately 42"x25". The headliner is spray glued to it and wrapped underneath. With some gentle prying it came off very easily as the green adhesive holding it to the underside of the top was very brittle with age.

After ripping off the fabric, I spent around an hour removing the nasty foam residue. It was just powder and actually scrubbed off by hand leaving all that headliner adhesive remaining on the ABS. Then came the hard work. The best stuff to remove that adhesive is actually 3M Headliner Adhesive Cleaner/Remover #08987. Spray it on a small section at a time and let it soak, then scrub with a rough cloth. It rolls the residue up into little balls like rubber cement and then you can brush it away. This stuff seems to be the least aggressive type of solvent and works specificaly on headliner adhesive versus using something like lacquer thinner which is very aggressive and can damage the plastic material itself.

I have ordered a yard of automotive-grade, black headliner material which should be in this week sometime. (fingers crossed)

[njsteve]

Both sides of the headliner insert before cleaning.

[njsteve]

And here's how she looks topless. That roof has been on there for over 26+ years, now.