[Double Venom]

Jack,

I feel your pain fella! IF CR's used just half the ideas that their dedicated and knowing customers have come up with they would, without a doubt have the best engineered car on the road.

You know that fancy aluminum Griffin radiator they now supply with the kits..that's actually a design we came up with in our shop. We ended up "signing" off this design to CR's so they could buy them from Griffin. That only took 5 years to convince them! Better radiator, looks cool and drops right in place. AND it was about $100.00 cheaper for them to buy.

The heater / defroster box? Thank you very much! That was a full 4 year project to get them to change. Again, it was cheaper than what they had been buying, 1000% easier to install and it even worked! Plus it didn't take up any passanger foot well area.

Want to talk about the new and improved frame! Now that only took about three years to talk them into that one!

Then there's Don. I have no idea how many hundreds if not thousands of hours he has donated to them! I mean right up to the point of going to the "factory" and doing his own R&D to make the cars better, including the motor mounts!

I know Don and I practically beat them over the head about their door alignments. Not only describing, drawing blue prints and actually showing them how to make it better with less than $1.50 investment per car!

Let's go the steering column route. Chevette's are great columns...25 years ago! Now if you find them the parts are so worn out, reguilding them is almost useless. Can you do an IDIT column like you did? Certainly, pricey but they work. They also don't have all the features in them requiring extra wiring and / or switches.

We came up with our column about 4 years ago. Offered it to them at a ridiculous price, sent them schematics, and even sent them a column to inspect. After much demanding we finally got the column back 9 months later, half assembeled and totaled. They took it apart apparently to see how it was made and couldn't even get it back together again!

Terry Amway, out of Michigan designed a full body mount system for the car. Never saw it, but from what I understand it mounted the body on rubber mounts, much like a new car. I know he spent hundreds of dollars on it, then turned it over to CR's to test. This of course was all done at their prodding. From what I understand all this free R&D went into the same file as your mount research.

Next one that comes to mind is a simple 3x3 piece of 3/16's angle iron +/- 29 7/8's long, welded between the rear frame rails inline with the "jack screws." So cheap, and so effective...for a four point seat belt. Costs in material? Less than $2.50 a car, time for the welder to install - 90 seconds per car, including prep time.

The lists go on and on. Welcome to the club fella. You have some damned good company.

I really feel for guys like Pete and Razz at the factory. They know, and they try but it all falls on deaf ears. I know that Pete got his butt in a ringer more than once trying to force some improvements through. You know you can only ask "Mom and Dad" for something so many times before they send you to your room!

The funny thing about this, "we" still win. You gotta admit, it is one helluva car to begin with! Then with guys like you and Don, and Terry and tons of others who have come up with great ideas, the cars will continue to improve, not only in handleing, and ride, but safety too!

Whew...needed to get that off my chest for some time!
DV