saudivette
Clueless In Sandland
Hi Merlin, welcome to VetteMOD :hi:
Glad to see you're on the mend after your prang :thumbs:
Glad to see you're on the mend after your prang :thumbs:
New member from CF
- Thread starter killervette666
- Start date
HEY STEVE!!
Welcome to the motley crew of the Flying Dutchmen....
Sorry about that wreck, WTF happened?? looks like you got rolled and slammed on the top pretty bad....I have a good friend here, used to be into vettes, he drives a H2 now....
so you have any long term permanent injuries, or you mostly OK now???
2000 hp....snicker.....:flash::hissyfit::yahoo:
hope this build goes better than the last one, but you knowing more now, should make decisions better and easier....
WTF you going to use for a freeking DRIVE TRAIN....???
:beer::beer:
Gene! How the heck are you man? :drink:
Funny you should call this the motley crew. I was thinking the same thing as I read through some of the posts deciding whether to sign up or not. The more I read, the more I realized I would be right at home here. Thanks for having me
There are SO many things I would have done differently but as I re-think the car and study what we did, I have to say that there are a lot of things I would keep exactly the same too. Everyone called the car a wide body. I never understood that. It is the bone stock 74 body. All we did was swap out the front end with a Daytona bumper. We then added some tire flares. The only reason we had to add the back flares was because of the law. Tires can't stick out past the wheel well so I really had no choice. I worked really hard to keep most things as close to stock where we could. If you look at pics of the interior, other than the Recaros and a few mods like the silk screened gauges, it was stock Corvette all the way. Granted a lot of things had to be changed functionally but I always had my eye towards the Stingray look and trying hard not to molest it too badly.
As for the accident, there's no other way to put it. The Hummer saved my life. That thing was a frigging tank. At the time I had a lot of other cars - and for whatever reason, that day I took the truck in to town because I had to pick up some packages. So I'm driving home minding my own business when all of the sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw a Ford Ranger go veering off to the right. Mind you we were on a 8 line highway outside of Seattle (I-90) and the speed limit out there by my house is 75 mph so radical maneuvers of any kind at that speed usually don’t end well.
Next I know, here she comes whipping back at me. It is like the whole thing happened in slow motion. Granted the Hummer is pretty powerful but at that speed, it just doesn’t have any top end or pickup. I hit the gas as hard as I could but WHAM! She hit me right on the rear passenger quarter panel. You can see in one of the pics where she hit me. Next thing I know, the force of the collision was sending us both into a concrete barrier. I had been in the fast lane on cruise control when she hit. Next thing you know, the Hummer tires are so big that it literally started climbing the concrete barrier! The force of us going airborne and her continuing to ram into our back quarter panel resulted in a perfect Hollywood stunt. We were so high in the air that witnesses thought we were going over the side – which was about a 500 foot drop down the side of a mountain.
Next thing I know, we’re upside down in flight – then WHAM!!!!! I don’t remember anything about the landing. Probably a good thing. Next thing I know, I came back into consciousness by the sound of the frigging asphalt 3 inches from my head. It’s really hard to explain what that sound is like. If you combine 100 people scratching their nails on a chalkboard, another 100 Fran Dreschers whining at top volume – then multiply that by another 100 you might be getting close. It seemed like FOREVER and all I remember thinking was THANK GOD. I survived somehow.
Finally after what seemed like an eternity, we came to a rest. As loud as the sound of the pavement was through the sunroof upside down, the silence after was even more deafening. All I could think about was that great – here I survived this harrowing wreck – and now there is probably some gas tanker behind me in a full power slide unable to stop and about to crush me like a beer can.
…little did I know we were a full quarter of a mile away from the accident scene!
So here I was, upside down – smashed into this crushed shell of a vehicle. If you can believe it, the frigging engine was still running upside down!! I tell you, those things are tanks. People may not like them because they aren’t considered “green”, but that truck has saved so many lives since I owned it. I used to go out in the heaviest of snowstorms and pull stuck people out of the snow all the time. There’s no other vehicle I would rather be in when things go wrong.
So I managed to shut the engine off – then all of the sudden, here comes the gas leaking out of the fuel lines and right onto my lap. I’m big time claustrophobic and now I started to panic. I was literally stuck from all sides. The roof was smashed in. The doors were smashed in – and all my packages I had just picked up had me pinned in. Worst of all, I couldn’t get the seat belt off. As luck would have it, just that winter a friend of mine had bought me a glass breaker seat belt cutter tool. I was able to manage to reach into the glove box upside down, dig it out and get out of there in time. I HIGHLY recommend everyone buy one of these tools for every car in your family. Buy a few extra for your friends too. God forbid you ever get in a wreck like this or go over a bridge, this little plastic and metal tool could be the difference between you posting here for years to come – or not. Think ahead. It could save your life.
OK, back to work for me. Need to rebuild my empire again one step at a time. SIGH.. Gets frustrating to have to have worked so hard for SO long – then start over at my age but as they say on the left coast, “it is what it is”. At least I have the chance to rebuild. Damn sure beats being dead. I suffer a whole host of problems – and probably will my whole life. I have to sleep with a respirator, have to take gobs and gobs of medicines to stay functional but thank goodness, my ability to remember numbers and write systems is coming back strong. It’s amazing what the body and soul can endure.
More later as I rebuild the site. Thanks everyone. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Steve
P.S. Hopefully Tom over at Tom's Differentials can come up with some kind of titanium IRS for me! LOL.. Here we go again!!!
DJ Dep
refugee from the other place
Geez Steve...I read about that accident with my jaw hanging open. Can you imagine what would have happened if you WERE driving one of those "green" cars? :amazed:
Just a thought, and it's pretty early to be thinking about it, but what about using a solid rear axle instead of IRS? Technology has advanced to the point where a solid axle has become quite streetable. And it can handle pretty much any amount of horsepower you can make. Unless you are going to be doing a LOT of road course/twisty driving, the IRS really isn't needed, nor is it the optimum design for tons of horsepower to the pavement.
Just a thought, and it's pretty early to be thinking about it, but what about using a solid rear axle instead of IRS? Technology has advanced to the point where a solid axle has become quite streetable. And it can handle pretty much any amount of horsepower you can make. Unless you are going to be doing a LOT of road course/twisty driving, the IRS really isn't needed, nor is it the optimum design for tons of horsepower to the pavement.
mrvette
Phantom of the Opera
HEY STEVE!!
Welcome to the motley crew of the Flying Dutchmen....
Sorry about that wreck, WTF happened?? looks like you got rolled and slammed on the top pretty bad....I have a good friend here, used to be into vettes, he drives a H2 now....
so you have any long term permanent injuries, or you mostly OK now???
2000 hp....snicker.....:flash:
hope this build goes better than the last one, but you knowing more now, should make decisions better and easier....
WTF you going to use for a freeking DRIVE TRAIN....???
:beer::beer:
Gene! How the heck are you man? :drink:
:drink: eh, I"m ok, working on a class C motor home that's 40 years old....
one of them wifey poo honey dew projects....tried painting the vette just over a years ago....:ill: lets just say I better at other things.....to put it mildly....I see you in Florida now....where?? OPark is in the SW corner of Jax Clay co. here has about tripled on population in the last dozen years....
:drink:
