Allen's Man Eating Mako Shark!

Netscape Enhanced - Updated: 12/24/99

Allen's 1969 Corvette Mako Shark.
I am the second owner of this L46 350c.i./350HP numbers matching car. I have the original sales paperwork and registration dated 8/69, along with the Proteco-plate and other assorted documentation, including 2 copies of the original '69 sales brochure.

The car was traded in to Raines Chevrolet in Mt. View, CA by the now elderly first owner towards a Tahoe. The car was in very rough shape. Unusually, Raines decided to let their wrenches and body shop guys have the car as a project.

The original owner had installed some sort of fuel injection on the car (not C.A.R.B. legal and apparently not particularly well installed). Raines mechanics pulled the old fuel injection setup off the car and installed a new Q-jet and an Edlebrock intake manifold. That's about all the mechanical work that was done to the car.

Extensive work was done to the body however - it has a very nicely done paint job (save for a few rough areas around the rocker panels) as well as repairing some cracks in the rear quarter panels and a (very sloppy) repair of the battery box.

Since this was my first Vette, I naturally paid entirely too much for the car. The engine lasted perhaps 100 miles before it died (yes I was pissed, but so it goes) - you can read the details of my first overhaul attempt here.

Sadly, as is all too often the case, the first rebuild only uncovered more serious (and expensive) problems in the car. Once the heads were tightened up and the motor made real compression, the bottom end of the engine let go, spitting out raw oil from tail pipes.

Turns out someone (the original owner or Raines) had poured in a bunch of ring seal goo. That held (and gave good compression checks) until I fired up the engine with new oil and new heads.

That lead to me finally saying to hell with all this noise - I pulled the engine and tranny and sent the worn out engine to Mike Blackstone for a serious no BS overhaul into a 488HP 383 stroker.

I then had the car flat bedded over to Dave Herlinger's Corvette Repair in Mt. View CA., near NASA Ames-Research to have the rest of the car completely "Restified".

This of course ruined any "collector" value the car had, but I don't give a hoot, I want a fast, classic, hotrod to smoke the Ford boys with, not some museum piece for waxing and comparing radiator hose date codes at car shows.

I've also written up a fairly technical bit on why I made certain parts choices for the engine build. Included are the engine's dyno and cam card numbers for those folks interested in such things.

I've asked Dave to install a F41 gymkhana suspension into the car - all the stock suspension parts are either shot beyond repair (springs &ct for example), or not up to handling the high torque of the rebuilt motor (U-joints etc...) as I will be racing this car, particularly in autocross events and some drag racing.

If I get really bold, I may do a bit of road racing in the car as well, as I think the Vette is far more suited for that than my Camaro.

I'll keep updating this page as work on the car progresses. Stay tuned!

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