UPDATED 08 AUG 98 - Added "wierd" e-mail page
UPDATED 08 JUL 98 - Added a new link!
Announcement! I've received a lot of e-mail asking how my Chevette is doing, and it's occuring to me that most people don't realize that I don't own a chevette anymore! My dearly departed was sold after I found serious rust in floor pan, oh, about 6 or 7 years ago. The last I heard from the buyer, he was bummed that the speedo hit a pin at 85 mph, and would register any higher!
Anyhow, send me any Chevette stuff you might have, and I'll add what I can here, now on with the page:
Hello, my name is Tom, and I am a former Chevette owner. Never again will I own a car that is so simple, basic, cheap, and yet gets so much attention (no, not the thumbs up from passerby kind). This page is dedicated to the memory of that car, and also serves as a resource for Chevette information. Please e-mail me any additional information you may have, or if you can confirm or deny some of the rumors presented.
How did I become a Chevette Owner?
Let's go RACING Racing racing..
Making a Chevette go faster
Famous Chevettes
Links to other Chevette sites
Life after the Chevette
Back to my Home Page
Wierd e-mail I've received
It all started back when I was in college. I wanted to buy a car using the little money I had saved, my parents wanted me to get a reliable car for the long trip back and forth. They agreed to loan me the money to get something non-jalopy-ish. They also agreed to shop for it since, not having a car and not having much time, it was hard for me to go around looking.
What happened was they ended up buying me what has probably been the most unreliable car I have ever owned, a 1985 Pontiac 1000. The car looked good, was comfortable to ride in (actually had the most comfortable seats I've ever sat in), but its achilles heal was a computer controlled carberator. This caused it to ping, which caused me countless hours fiddling with the timing. To make matters worse, it would lose power on the highway, which felt like the distributor had slipped and retarded the timing too much. Many a time I could be seen on the side of an interstate re-setting my timing. It turns out that it probably wasn't the distributor, but a bum catalytic converter, which would cool off and unplug while I fiddled.
But get me around most of the time it did, in it's own sweet time. This was one slow car. I remember going on a donut run with a bunch of people in college, 4 people in my car, 4 in a near identical 1986 model, and 5 in a 4-banger mustang. I was stopped next to the other 1000 at a light, and behind the mustang. The light turns green, I floor it, the mustang pulls away, and we are left going neck and neck at a snails pace. I've even lost races to the lane merge with old ladies in volares.
Mind you, this did not stop me from entering the car in the local autocross. Despite the fact that it had no power, I did get some better tires, and managed to keep up with escorts and MG midgets. I also had a real good time
Somewhere around this time, I decided that this car needed a real good engine. I did manage to find out that Hooker makes engine swap kits, and not only did they make a kit for dropping a V6 into a Chevette, but they made headers for the combination too. Except the car couldn't have power steering or power brakes, and mine had both
After graduation, I went to work at Raytheon, and it turns out that a co-worker had a 1980 Chevette, with no power anything, and he was looking to get rid of it having just bought a new Accord. I took it off his hands for $500.
These two cars are night and day different. The old Chevette had a worn out suspension, less sound insulation, a more powerful engine (70 vs 65 horsepower), a four speed (did I mention that I didn't know how to drive a stick yet?), and about 300 lbs less weight to carry around. The biggest difference was at a red light, while the 1000 bogged every time, the Chevette could actually spin the tires on a regular basis.
Lack of power steering or brakes was another key factor. With an engine that stalled on a regular basis, you didn't worry about losing the asist (the steering and brakes were always heavy). For the first time in my life, I didn't wait until the passenger was nervous until I hit the brakes, that would take way too much effort to stop that late. Did I mention that the master cylinder was getting a bit iffy? This was a car where normal braking procedure was first to floor the pedel, and then do the actual stopping on the second pump (the first pump was sufficient about 90% of the time)
Want to have fun in the snow? Drive this car. Floor the gas around a corner, the back end fish tails, then push the clutch in, don't hit the brake, and let go of the wheel. Sit back and watch as the car counter steers itself out of the skid (no power steering remember? It acted like the front wheels of a shopping cart). Want more fun? Do as above, but don't just let go of the wheel, give it one good fling into the skid. Now you're fishtailing in the other direction.
Other great qualities about this car include automatic right of way. Anybody short of a jalopy Caprice will yield to you. Fit into the smallest parking places and don't worry about a ding (you wouldn't be able to pick out the new from the old). Skinny tires: You can dive into the company lot in a four wheel drift at rediculously low speeds. Going 5 over the posted limit on a windy road is actually exploring the car to its full potential.
This car has been autocrossed numerous times. With the four speed and ligher weight, it was a tad faster than the 1000, and a heck of a lot more educational. Have you ever been told not to hit the brakes while cornering? Tried that once, thought "I'm going just a wee bit to fast to get set up for the next corner, I'll just tap the breaks ever so slightly". Guess what? even in a Chevette, when all 4 tires are at 100% traction, tapping the breaks cause a major skid.
Ever hear of lift throttle over steer? A Chevette can do that too. I remember a sharp corner leading to a straight in an autocross at RPI. The corner was really 2 corners connected by a really short straight, so you took it as a varying radius curve. Well, when I entered the tight part on my first run at the cornering limit, and the abruptly lifted off the gas. Got really really sideways, and just was not in the attitude I needed to blast down that straight. On later runs, I tried gradually easing off on the gas, until by the last runs I was able to steer the back of the car with the gas pedal. This allowed me to get the car lined up with the straight before I got out of the corner, when you clear the last cone, punch it.
But enough war stories, Chevettes are classified in H stock by the SCCA, which is the slowest of the slow. There's also a novice class which I've run in, and Chevettes can do really well, here's why. In novice class, all cars are in the same class, and are given a handicap based on what class you would have run in if you weren't in novice class. As a result, even though I had the slowest actual times, my handicap raised me to 2nd out of 10 drivers. Had I been in regular H stock, I would have lost to a Fiesta and a Tercel (on Yokohama 008Rs).
*NEW* e-mail I've received about hot-rodding a Chevette, including first-hand experience with the Hooker swap kit!
The first big problem with a Chevette are tires sold at your local Dunkin Donuts. Okay, maybe 70 or few horses is another big problem, but tires are consumables, and thus easier to change. Stock size is 155/80R13. Contrary to what they say on the sidewalls, these tires can take pressures in the 45 psi range for short periods of time (ie autocrosses).
The easiest change to make is to get some speed rated 175/70R13s. This will make a big difference, and not affect ride quality too much. These tires also fit on the stock rims, and were listed at the tire place I went to as an optional tire for the car
But, to really get that responsive handling, go to a junkyard and get some 14" wheels. Chrysler happens to make a 14" steel wheel with the same bolt pattern and (if I remember correctly) the proper offset. On my 1980 I used a pair of these up front with 185/60R14 junkyard specials (Pirelli psomethings), and a discarded pair of 175/70R13 tires on the stock rims in the back. There was no interference problems up front, and in the back I don't know, I never tried. Also, I think Toyota MR2 rims (from the first generation car) might also work, but they cost like $70+ at a junkyard, versus $15 for the Chryslers.
I should also mention that both 175/70R13 and 185/60R14 sizes are also the same diameter as the stock 155/80R13.
Why did I put larger tires in the front? Chevettes understeer, badly. What I was trying to do was get tires with more or less the same footprint, but a higher profile in the rear, thus increasing the rear slip angle. Did it work? Hard to tell.. It wasn't a tail swapping beast, but when I let a friend autocross it, he did get the back end wagging in a slalom, smoked the tires accelerating in a corner (In a CHEVETTE!), and in general beat my time by a full second (in an autocross that's an eternity).
Coming soon!!!!
As of the late '80s / early '90s, Hooker made a swap kit for
dropping a Buick V-6 (115 - 200+ hp, depending on year and
modifications) into a Chevette. I got as far as having them
mail me the instructions to see what was involved, and I plan
to scan those in the near future!
From a 1987 ADAP catalog: Super Competition Engine Swap Components, Buick V-6, Chevette (76-83)
Front Frame Mounts (to be used with motor mounts) Part # 12620;
Transmission Mounts, Turbo 350 Powerglide, Part # 12620 (huh, was this
a typo?).
Prices I had gotten at the time: 73.99 for the motor mounts, 34.99 for the transmission.
Famous Chevettes
Like the animated .GIF? I did it because I could, then thought it looked kinda cheesy, then couldn't bear to delete my hard work. So as most of the web is cheesy anyway, there it is.
A lot of this is from my hazy memory, so any help in confirming the facts, or any bitmaps, would be appreciated
The Joie Chitwood show. This was a group of daredevil drivers which at one point drove Chevettes and Citations. I think their feature act was launching a Chevette, not off a jump ramp, but through a section of sewer pipe or something. If I remember correctly, there was a Chevy TV ad touting the Chevette as the official car of the Joey Chitwood thrill show. There was also a toy set, incliding the sewer pipe (mounted on a truck) and a couple of cars (I assume one would be a Chevette).
I think there was also an episode of C.H.I.P.S. which featured the Joey Chitwood show, and, as luck would have it, Ponch and Jon (wash my mouth out with soap for remembering character names on the show :-) ended up doing most of the stunts themselves as part of their job (one of them jumped a motor cycle through a sewer pipe that just happened to appear in front of them at the last minute). Anyhow, this episode might features Chevettes
One of the Smokey and the Bandit sequels also had a brief section where they burst onto a racetrack where the stunt show was performing. I distinctly remember seeing a Chevette up on two wheels
Get A Life featured an episode with a Chevette. Chris (that was his name, wasn't it?) was being upstaged by his cousin at a family re-union. The cousin's fruit stand was doing so well he could afford to buy a Chevette. There was some dialog to the effect of "Was it an '83?", "no, it's and '85", "OOOOHHH (said in awe)". Anyhow, this show aired around 1990, so it was basically showing the car as one that losers aspire to.
Beverly Hills 90210 has the best Chevette footage of all. The initial airing of the 2 hour premiere (pilot) featured an intro showing Brandon and Brenda riding to school in a Chevette. While credits flashed across the screen, they did all the artistic camera angles of the car (driver's shades viewed through rearview mirror, closeup of front tire while turning a corner, etc.). Finally, they arrive at their new school, park between cars like Mercedes and BMWs, and Brenda says "We need a raise in our allowance". Sadly, the Chevette intro is not shown in re-broadcasts of this episode, and in the next episode he had a Matador or something (Big, claptrap Ford).
This site, has some really flashy graphics, and lots of pictures.
Here's how to take the best advantage of rust repairs that never quite match the original color
A good picture and lots of other links here.
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