Brief History - this is the first car I ever purchased when I was 15 years old. I chose it because it looked different than any car I had seen before an was markedly different than the performance cars of the 80's, mainly the Camaros and Mustangs - hell, I couldn't even afford those. I bought my X-11 from a used car lot in 1992 for $1800. It was black on black with a Muncie 4 speed, factory sport suspension and a full gauge cluster - it had just enough muscle car appeal for me. I drove my X-11 all through high school and during my first duty station in the Air Force, this is how I started learning to work on cars = I just couldn't afford to pay to have anything fixed! All during these years I really enjoyed driving the X, but felt it needed something in the performance department. In the mid 90's I got stationed in Europe and put my X in storage for about 6 years. During this time I also started saving so I could "do something" to the X when I returned stateside.
It wasn't until I returned from Europe and started searching for inspiration that I realized what a unique car I actually had and found the ChevyCitationsForever group on Yahoo. I found Tyre on the forum and the performance oriented engine swaps he was doing in Citations, so naturally I sought him out. I met up with him and drove his Cadillac 4.9L V8 X-11 & instantly realize - I HAVE TO GET ONE OF THESE !!! Tyre eventually got out of the Citation world, but not before I got just enough information and help to complete a swap of my own. My initial effort resulted in a car that was ballz of fun to drive and would embarrass most "Performance" cars on the road. One other result that I was glad to find was the 32 MPG it gets on the highway! Now that is of course when my right foot is on it's best behavior. I racked up about 15,000 miles on my swap before I collapsed a lifter on the #1 cylinder - this of course, was in no way connected to the racing I was doing in Charleston, SC at the time. I pulled the injector connector for the #1 and drove the 800 miles home on 7 cylinders.
The timing of the mechanical problems was not very good at all - I had just bought a house so cash for fixing my ride was in very short supply. Unfortunately she ended up sitting for over a year while I planned what I would do and managed to find the money for it. I realize I could have done a simple repair and had it back on the road, but the bug had bitten me again - I was thinking I wanted performance! I know - such a greedy bastard. The justification to myself was simple - in the HotRod world it is pretty much sacrilege to take apart a bone stock V8 and NOT do any performance parts. This brings us to the restoration, in addition to the mechanical needs my car is quickly nearing the 3 decades old mark so the paint & body are in dire need of attention. The last influencing factor was my level of satisfaction on the initial engine swap - it was my first attempt at any automotive or mechanical project of this scale and some things make it obvious it was a novice effort, leaving several items I would like done better. So the result is that I embarked on a complete restoration with performance upgrades and modifications. Now just over a year and a half from starting, my X-11 is going to the body shop completely stripped down for it's full make over. Details of the work is below.....
** A special shout out - Master Yoda, aka - Super D has been outstanding in supporting the cause - It was GREATLY appreciated !!!
Questions or comments ?? Let me know = V8X11@comcast.net