NJ Steves Pit Viper Revival

[njsteve]

Got all the plugs changed yesterday. It sure is fun trying to get your hands under/around the headers to reattach the spark plug terminals. I guess my hands got bigger with age.

Took her out for a spin today and she runs very crisply with the new plugs. Also rides really nicely on the new Michelins and my old polished rims. Very smooth and not as "hocky-puck on ice-ish" as the 28 year-old XGTZ's.

Today I also spent an hour pulling the sidepipe shields off because I heard the mufflers squeeking and the outlets moved when I went to jiggle them. Turns out that the large clamp holding the head pipe to the muffler had loosened since I last looked at them in 2000. The Borla XR-1 racing mufflers were installed when I put the headers on in 1999. Prior to that, I ran stock manifiolds with another set of XR-1s.

Back in the day I used the factory exhaust mount upgrade kit #4897970AA that was listed in the TSB from decades ago. My recept file shows I bought the kit in July, 1997 and it cost $26.97 at the time.

That kit was made available by Dodge because the 1992's and 1993's up to VIN #105 used two-piece exhaust manifolds and those crazy coil springs and shoulder washers & bolts to mount the exhaust directly to the frame. Gee what could be bad about that? Everybody likes to hear a V10 basso-profundo rumble with some high-pitched squeeky contralto to compliment it. Think about it: mounting an engine/trans to the chassis with rubber motor mounts and then solidly mounting the side pipes to the frame rails with spring-loaded brackets could only lead to loosening/breakage at the exhaust mounting points.

Just for trivia info, the 1993 cars prior to VIN #105 (this car is Vin #102, built in January 1993), were essentially continuations of the initial run of 1992s that were built up til the end of December, 1992. I had originally wanted a 1992 as a project car but the earliest that the New Mack assembly line could schedule the build on this car was in January which made it technically a 1993 model.

The early 1993's used the 1992 two-piece exhaust manifolds and the solid exhaust mounts with springs and bolts. After 1993 VIN #105 they went to the single piece manifolds with the flex pipe to attach the cat/muffler assembly and the upgraded/isolated hanger system.

The 1992's and early 1993's also had an external radio antenna, and a fully circular fuel filler hatch with a thumb cutout in the quarter panel instead of the filler cap.

The later 93's were updated with a windshield-mounted antenna and the new style fuel filler hatch lid with a thumb cutout in it and no indent in the quarter panel. From what I recall in conversations with the assembly line people, the fuel filler hatch/quarter panel and the windshield-mounted antenna were running changes on the line with no set VIN number start point. Other running changes included the moving of the battery box from underneath the trunk to the wheelwell, and the change in the number of air relief cutouts in the rear valance. These were things I found out during my tour at the Viper assembly plant when I watched my car getting built in Jan, 1993.

[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.