Introduction and looking for opinions

Jon Martin

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Hello VCA,

My name is Jon Martin. I've been researching for a little while, watching craigslist for about a month and finally registered here a while ago. I find this forum interesting, because I come from forums where people have very short funds.
Forums where most people are DIY builders and fabricators. Here it seems the viper is attainable for many walks of life. Many people here have money and can pay other people to build cars. Some people here have enough money to
buy and maintain a Viper. Then there are others who seem to be complete DIY, and DIY as cheap as they can (which is fine, it's their car), and some of it is very well done.

I'm the type that can afford to buy a Gen2 or 3 and maintain it, then DIY some fabrication in the future. I do my own TIG welding and build all my own engines, blah blah blah. That being said, I'll cut to the chase. I find myself torn between
the Gen2 and 3. Are there any of you guys who have gotten one and wish they had gotten the other? I want the lowest mileage one I can afford, but at the same time, don't want to feel guilty for driving it, so I also find myself torn on low
mileage or higher. There are some gen 3's out there clocking over 100k for $25k or less. Other than typical high mileage problems like wear, are there any issues? My budget will be between 30-40k. 40k would be max and leave me not doing
anything to the car other than driving it for probably another year.

Or, I could buy a (dare I say) SALVAGE TITLE with lower mileage for the 25k price range. I've done the reading and know the crowd is about 50/50 on buying salvage. But that would leave me room to do some mods this next winter.

It's funny, cause I re read my post and I already know the answer to my questions. The answer is "It's your money, ********. Do what you want to do". So I guess I'm just trying to break the ice, introduce myself and maybe get a little insight
and conversation going.

EDIT: Sorry for making it look like 100 two sentence paragraphs. I kept hitting return, cause one line seemed to go on forever...
 
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Steve-Indy

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Stock Gen III will out perform stock Gen II...especially in the braking arena. 2006 is only year for Gen III coupe. To me, the rest has to do with personal taste and planned use. I think you will find Viper owners are a fun group. Suggest you contact local club...possibly get a line on a known, solid car which is safer than Craig's list in my opinion.
 

TalonTSi90

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I thought for mod-ability the Gen II was the easiest, especially when it comes to superchargers, because Roe and the Gen III's being locked down in the ECU? On the price, Gen III's are dropping like rocks, some sub-20's ive seen, unless they arent disclosing the salvage title.
 
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Jon Martin

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What is Roe? I thought that was a tuning company, as I've seen ROE supercharges on gen II's. And sub $20k!!! I've been stalking Craigslist and now Autotrader and the lowest I have seen was 24k for an 03 with 120,*** miles. It didn't last long. There's now a Salvage 03 on Craig's for 27,500. And that the lowest right now. Salvage doesn't really scare me as long as I can find out why it was rebuilt. I'm more interested in bang for my buck, be it quality condition or performance mods.
 

TalonTSi90

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What is Roe? I thought that was a tuning company, as I've seen ROE supercharges on gen II's. And sub $20k!!! I've been stalking Craigslist and now Autotrader and the lowest I have seen was 24k for an 03 with 120,*** miles. It didn't last long. There's now a Salvage 03 on Craig's for 27,500. And that the lowest right now. Salvage doesn't really scare me as long as I can find out why it was rebuilt. I'm more interested in bang for my buck, be it quality condition or performance mods.

Roeracing.com, superchargers, tuning and other stuff.
 

MoparMap

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I thought for mod-ability the Gen II was the easiest, especially when it comes to superchargers, because Roe and the Gen III's being locked down in the ECU? On the price, Gen III's are dropping like rocks, some sub-20's ive seen, unless they arent disclosing the salvage title.

Gen IIIs still have an open ECU (or at least are tunable via an SCT) as I got one with my car when I bought it. I believe they are actually still more or less the same as a gen II ECU (JTEC in Chrysler lingo).

As far as what you should get, the kind of driving you like to do might make a difference. I think the Gen 3 is a pretty comfortable car and was when the interior started to get a little more attention. A gen 2 is way better than a gen 1 in the interior department, but still a bit rough around the edges. The brakes on a gen 3 for sure are excellent compared to the earlier models, but if you just want to cruise around and have fun they may not be as much of a priority as if you want to track it.

My gen 3 has 104,000 miles on it and it hasn't skipped a beat. It's had some of the usual issues that come up (leaking oil and power steering lines), but otherwise it has been pretty rock solid. Replaced the shocks as I suspected they were leaking as well but I also wanted to upgrade to some adjustability. I think my power steering pump gave up after my last track day, but that was easy enough to replace.
 
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Jon Martin

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MoparMap, that is more or less what I am gathering the more I read. I seems these cars are very well built. Sure they have issues that pop up like the motor mounts or power steering, but that is insignificant in the car world. As far as the type of driving I do, it would mostly be just tooling around town, maybe go to the drag strip or a road coarse once or twice a year. Probably not the drag strip though. I already have a car for that and with an average DA of 7,000ft, I really don't want to be disappointed in my viper.
That's another reason I'm looking at modding it. While these cars are quick, when you put them up in the altitude of Denver, they become just...meh. A stock second Gen up at Bandimere speedway will run low 14's or high 13's at best. Altitude has these cars putting down horsepower in the 2xx range. It's kinda sad. So while there are guys that slap on Paxton superchargers and get a 700hp beast, I'll slap one on and get a car that will perform marginally better than stock LOL.


Edit: Man... Trying to get used to the way you type on this forum. It'll just let me run one line out as far as I want. Then it makes it look like one cluster of a paragraph...
 
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TalonTSi90

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Gen IIIs still have an open ECU (or at least are tunable via an SCT) as I got one with my car when I bought it. I believe they are actually still more or less the same as a gen II ECU (JTEC in Chrysler lingo).

As far as what you should get, the kind of driving you like to do might make a difference. I think the Gen 3 is a pretty comfortable car and was when the interior started to get a little more attention. A gen 2 is way better than a gen 1 in the interior department, but still a bit rough around the edges. The brakes on a gen 3 for sure are excellent compared to the earlier models, but if you just want to cruise around and have fun they may not be as much of a priority as if you want to track it.

My gen 3 has 104,000 miles on it and it hasn't skipped a beat. It's had some of the usual issues that come up (leaking oil and power steering lines), but otherwise it has been pretty rock solid. Replaced the shocks as I suspected they were leaking as well but I also wanted to upgrade to some adjustability. I think my power steering pump gave up after my last track day, but that was easy enough to replace.

Well crap....now i have more reading to do :(

GEN III's are only verts or coupes, no GTS correct?
 

TalonTSi90

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What is Roe? I thought that was a tuning company, as I've seen ROE supercharges on gen II's. And sub $20k!!! I've been stalking Craigslist and now Autotrader and the lowest I have seen was 24k for an 03 with 120,*** miles. It didn't last long. There's now a Salvage 03 on Craig's for 27,500. And that the lowest right now. Salvage doesn't really scare me as long as I can find out why it was rebuilt. I'm more interested in bang for my buck, be it quality condition or performance mods.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2006...ash=item1c7875eca1:g:lNQAAOSwMtxXvkcj&vxp=mtr
 

MoparMap

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MoparMap, that is more or less what I am gathering the more I read. I seems these cars are very well built. Sure they have issues that pop up like the motor mounts or power steering, but that is insignificant in the car world. As far as the type of driving I do, it would mostly be just tooling around town, maybe go to the drag strip or a road coarse once or twice a year. Probably not the drag strip though. I already have a car for that and with an average DA of 7,000ft, I really don't want to be disappointed in my viper.
That's another reason I'm looking at modding it. While these cars are quick, when you put them up in the altitude of Denver, they become just...meh. A stock second Gen up at Bandimere speedway will run low 14's or high 13's at best. Altitude has these cars putting down horsepower in the 2xx range. It's kinda sad. So while there are guys that slap on Paxton superchargers and get a 700hp beast, I'll slap one on and get a car that will perform marginally better than stock LOL.


Edit: Man... Trying to get used to the way you type on this forum. It'll just let me run one line out as far as I want. Then it makes it look like one cluster of a paragraph...

Yeah, they changed the word wrap and formatting so it caught me off guard too. If you do the advanced reply option I think you can preview the post before it goes live to see how it formats it.

You might see if you can get rides or drives in both gens to see what you like. I focused on a gen 3 because I wanted a dead pedal and a little better interior since I daily drive mine. I've driven my mom's gen 1 several times and it's a blast and fun in its own way, but the gen 3 is so much better in so many ways. I think the gen 2 is probably right between the two. Performance similar to a gen 1 and comfort between the gen 1 and 3. What fits you best though is what you like best. I know many prefer the looks of the earlier gens. My favorite Viper is mine, lol. Doesn't matter what gen, how much power, what color, etc, it's just the one that's mine =P.

Well crap....now i have more reading to do :(

GEN III's are only verts or coupes, no GTS correct?

Yeah, though really for the most part gen III's are verts. They made the coupes the last year (2006), but they're pretty limited in supply. Do you mean ACR instead of GTS? The GTS moniker was basically just the name for the gen 2 coupe as I understand it, not really anything more than that. The gen 2 had the ACR option, but it didn't show up again until gen IV for the newer stuff.
 

TalonTSi90

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Yeah, they changed the word wrap and formatting so it caught me off guard too. If you do the advanced reply option I think you can preview the post before it goes live to see how it formats it.

You might see if you can get rides or drives in both gens to see what you like. I focused on a gen 3 because I wanted a dead pedal and a little better interior since I daily drive mine. I've driven my mom's gen 1 several times and it's a blast and fun in its own way, but the gen 3 is so much better in so many ways. I think the gen 2 is probably right between the two. Performance similar to a gen 1 and comfort between the gen 1 and 3. What fits you best though is what you like best. I know many prefer the looks of the earlier gens. My favorite Viper is mine, lol. Doesn't matter what gen, how much power, what color, etc, it's just the one that's mine =P.



Yeah, though really for the most part gen III's are verts. They made the coupes the last year (2006), but they're pretty limited in supply. Do you mean ACR instead of GTS? The GTS moniker was basically just the name for the gen 2 coupe as I understand it, not really anything more than that. The gen 2 had the ACR option, but it didn't show up again until gen IV for the newer stuff.

No, GTS=Coupe, i get it now. Didnt know they waited till 06, no wonder i cant find them easily lol. Mine would be a DD coupled with my motorcycle and an inclement weather car (if i can wrangle it), inclement meaning, snow or ice and really bad rain.
 

MoparMap

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No, GTS=Coupe, i get it now. Didnt know they waited till 06, no wonder i cant find them easily lol. Mine would be a DD coupled with my motorcycle and an inclement weather car (if i can wrangle it), inclement meaning, snow or ice and really bad rain.

Not 100% sure, but I was under the impression that all gen 3 coupes were a special edition that was blue with the white double stripes. Might be totally wrong, but that's about the only way I remember ever seeing them. I was toying with the idea of a gen 3 ACR style conversion so you could have the more easily tuned motor, but now that the gen 4 ECU has gotten some tuning ability that's more of a moot point.

Mine is a great DD for my commute. It's a nice empty highway to a small town at hours with very little traffic and not much town driving, so it gets to stretch its legs pretty well. It actually does great in even pouring rain with the right tires. I drove mine home through quite a bit of rain and have driven to work through some heavy stuff with my Pilot SuperSports, though when the tread gets a little shallow they aren't nearly as secure. Snow on the road is about the only things that keeps me off of it.
 

TalonTSi90

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Not 100% sure, but I was under the impression that all gen 3 coupes were a special edition that was blue with the white double stripes. Might be totally wrong, but that's about the only way I remember ever seeing them. I was toying with the idea of a gen 3 ACR style conversion so you could have the more easily tuned motor, but now that the gen 4 ECU has gotten some tuning ability that's more of a moot point.

Mine is a great DD for my commute. It's a nice empty highway to a small town at hours with very little traffic and not much town driving, so it gets to stretch its legs pretty well. It actually does great in even pouring rain with the right tires. I drove mine home through quite a bit of rain and have driven to work through some heavy stuff with my Pilot SuperSports, though when the tread gets a little shallow they aren't nearly as secure. Snow on the road is about the only things that keeps me off of it.

We get a decent amount of rain and not much snow (first snow is today if that says anything) and my Mazda 6 has a hard time not spinning in the cool wet, so i cant imagine a car with 2-3 times the torque... And im seeing a lot of colors in the coupes.
 
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Jon Martin

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Not 100% sure, but I was under the impression that all gen 3 coupes were a special edition that was blue with the white double stripes. Might be totally wrong, but that's about the only way I remember ever seeing them.

I don't believe that is the case, as I have seen many coupes that are NOT blue with double white stripes in my searching. Either that or they've all been painted, which I doubt. There's a supercharged black one right now, but they are very vague on how it is set up. That drives me crazy. You're selling a unique car for many thousands of dollars that lots of out of state buyers are looking at. Please be as descriptive as possible and take the time to post good quality pictures. I also think I am leaning heavily toward the Gen 3's. I know myself and I'm more of a performance and function over fashion type of person.
 

TalonTSi90

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That drives me crazy. You're selling a unique car for many thousands of dollars that lots of out of state buyers are looking at. Please be as descriptive as possible and take the time to post good quality pictures.

No kidding!! This even goes for cell phones, why sell a high end phone and use an image you got from google? To me, how the engine bay looks is more important than the interior, it tells the true story. Ok, so you didnt drive in muddy boots or knife the leather, but never washed under the hood, ever??
 

MoparMap

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Okay, figured I was probably wrong on the coupe color thing. Haven't looked at them much and guess I should have just looked at the IVR to see what production numbers were. I think they split it down to paint codes too, so you can get an idea how rare any option is. Probably has a breakdown of how many coupes were made in 06.
 

TalonTSi90

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Okay, figured I was probably wrong on the coupe color thing. Haven't looked at them much and guess I should have just looked at the IVR to see what production numbers were. I think they split it down to paint codes too, so you can get an idea how rare any option is. Probably has a breakdown of how many coupes were made in 06.

I keep forgetting about the IVR for cases like this.
 

Bill Pemberton Woodhouse

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One comment concerning Gen IIs easier to mod is a bit off as way more Gen IIIs were supercharged than Gen IIs . Woodhouse Motorsports Division did close to 250 SCs on Gen IIIs alone. There are a lot more parts readily available at this time also so that needs to be kept in consideration.
 

TalonTSi90

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One comment concerning Gen IIs easier to mod is a bit off as way more Gen IIIs were supercharged than Gen IIs . Woodhouse Motorsports Division did close to 250 SCs on Gen IIIs alone. There are a lot more parts readily available at this time also so that needs to be kept in consideration.

How many of those busted a crank snout? Just curious is all.
 
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Jon Martin

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Maybe I just don't know how to search on this forum, but it's proving difficult to find info. Looking for "Broken Crank" "Crank snout broken", and can't find a whole lot. I was also trying to search for the gen 3 body part composition. Like what parts are fiberglass, carbon fiber, plastic, aluminum and steel. I did manage to come across a guy trying to justify his Paxton Novi tune dipping into the 12:1 AFR range though. LOL

EDIT: Found it...
http://forums.viperclub.org/threads/619968-Viper-Body-Panel-Material(s)?highlight=body+composition
 

TalonTSi90

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I think Jeff told me to search for Paxton. I found a lot of threads regarding it, one reason I'm leaning to Gen II and Roe.
 
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Jon Martin

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Man... There's a 96RT-10 for sale within an hour of my house, has a ROE supercharger on it with multiple tunes that come with it. Been for sale for over a month asking 29,500 and hasn't updated or budged on the price. I'm still confused on the 96 area though. I don't know if they are gen 1 or 2. It has the slide windows, (which I don't like) and the 3 piece removable hard top.
 

TalonTSi90

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While ill admit I didnt know the Gen II RT's had roll up windows, I did know that the crossover for most wasn't till 97, despite the GTS being the official kick off for Gen II's.
 

MoparMap

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Man... There's a 96RT-10 for sale within an hour of my house, has a ROE supercharger on it with multiple tunes that come with it. Been for sale for over a month asking 29,500 and hasn't updated or budged on the price. I'm still confused on the 96 area though. I don't know if they are gen 1 or 2. It has the slide windows, (which I don't like) and the 3 piece removable hard top.

I believe that's the infamous "gen 1.5". It was something like a gen 2 body with a gen 1 drivetrain or the other way around. I think they were trying to use up remaining gen 1 body parts so they still had a few roadsters with side exhaust as "gen 2" cars. This is only what I can remember from reading stuff on the forums over the years, but I know they were a funny combination of parts.
 

TalonTSi90

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I believe that's the infamous "gen 1.5". It was something like a gen 2 body with a gen 1 drivetrain or the other way around. I think they were trying to use up remaining gen 1 body parts so they still had a few roadsters with side exhaust as "gen 2" cars. This is only what I can remember from reading stuff on the forums over the years, but I know they were a funny combination of parts.

"The last 300 Sidepipes" cars i think?
 

MoparMap

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"The last 300 Sidepipes" cars i think?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I think the engine computer was a weird mix too. Like a gen 2 engine and sensor locations, but a gen 1 ECU or something like that. May be completely wrong on that one though.
 

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I believe a gen 2 started with the 96 gts, and the rt10 was a gen 2 at 97 and on.....
 

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Y'all, don't forget about the IVR button on our website, or Viper Jeff's Viper Registry (www.viperregistry.com). You can see the years and builds, and other information here.
 
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