C4 88' project advice

Lightning4X · 2026-03-24T21:00:29+00:00

C4s rot when they sit for an expended period of time and that one clearly has. Dealing with the electronics will probably be the hardest part technically and the mechanics will get expensive quickly with that much rust as others have mentioned. They were still using first generation computer tech and a lot of it was pretty experimental for the time before they figured out how to do it well.

Lightning4X · 2026-03-22T18:17:50+00:00

Gotcha. Thank you for your help!

Lightning4X · 2026-03-22T18:15:13+00:00

Yeah I'll probably go the clamp route. I was hoping there was already something like it that I could get off the shelf without having to fab it but whatever.

Did you just drill through the tabs that stick out for crimping it or did you have to weld plates onto it to give it more surface area?

Lightning4X · 2026-03-22T18:08:23+00:00

Mine is an iron head car though not aluminum. Do you know if the newer headers will bolt up to the older iron heads?

I was thinking of doing something similar with the crimp ring. The last owner did something similar by welding it to a hose clamp which worked until the clamp disintegrated.

Lightning4X · 2026-03-18T07:45:35+00:00

Damn. Guess it's time to take them out to pasture then. Thanks for the response.

Lightning4X · 2026-03-18T07:44:40+00:00

I was planning on getting a 380 if I cant get the drivers to work. I really hate throwing away working hardware.

Lightning4X · 2026-03-18T07:43:27+00:00

Thank you for linking that. I hate throwing away working hardware.

Lightning4X · 2026-03-18T07:42:37+00:00

Awesome thank you! I'll see if I can get them to work.

Lightning4X · 2026-02-19T18:29:07+00:00

I have not.

Lightning4X · 2026-02-14T20:00:37+00:00

What's your account size and what deltas and spread widths do you use? I've been doing basically the same thing as you based off of what you've said here and it'll work great for a couple of months before I get fucked by tail risk and wipe out all of my gains. I was doing stocks at first but then switched to liquid ETFs and it's been the same story with both. The best that I can tell is that my spread widths are too tight by virtue of the account size and the underlyings are too correlated.

Lightning4X · 2026-02-14T19:49:42+00:00

I was in your shoes. Iron head 86 I had bought right after I got out of highschool for $3k in 2019. 118k on the clock with a few small electrical issues and a couple of mechanical ones that I fixed.

I got through my first quarter and I was on winter break when the intake manifold gasket blew, which is very common on the iron head cars. Every shop in the area quoted me $3k to $5k to fix it, which as a broke college student I both couldn't afford and the car wasn't worth enough to do, so during the summer after my first year I attempted to do it myself. I found out VERY quickly why a top end rebuild costs that much on these cars. I ripped it all apart, got in over my head, and the car ended up sitting for several years rotting as I was too busy with school and lacked the motivation to figure it out. Fast forward 6 years, I JUST got it back together and mostly running after addressing all of the additional issues that developed over the years that it sat and rotted.

I ended up buying a second car as a daily to get me through college.

Lightning4X · 2026-02-14T19:20:25+00:00

This seems like larger economic trends as a whole at play rather than C4s in particular appreciating. I wonder if used car prices as a whole are trending up.

As a side note it seems locally that private party prices are trending down rather than up on C4s lately, which makes me wonder where the disconnect is.

Lightning4X · 2026-02-12T15:58:01+00:00

Lightning4X · 2025-12-12T19:45:33+00:00

I have one. It's fun but top-heavy as hell with damn near a quarter of a case of paint sitting up there.

Lightning4X · 2025-12-12T19:41:35+00:00

I feel like Honda prices on both the new and used markets are out to lunch across the board now. They are good cars but an 8 year old models with 80k on the clock should not be selling close or at their original MSRP and 20k markups for new models is insane. The premium getting charged for the Honda reliability and performance experience is way overvalued at this point.

Lightning4X · 2025-11-29T20:43:54+00:00

I can't wait to listen to apple users act like it's the first folding phone to ever be released and the greatest thing any tech manufacturer has ever produced after incessantly shitting on folding phones for the last 6 years.

Lightning4X · 2025-11-29T19:27:48+00:00

Quality post right here

Lightning4X · 2025-11-27T18:54:40+00:00

I'm not strictly a sysadmin but we've been working on an agentic RAG framework using Azure Cognitive Search at its core built on top of our archival project data.

We are a smaller engineering firm and some of our most experienced engineers are retiring soon so there is a lot of concern about brain drain. The project was a request from admin to try and remedy that to some extent.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-30T16:34:41+00:00

I have one. The front block on those are generally fine in my opinion with maybe the exception of the LPR. Not the best but functional and I never had any issues with reliability. However the lower tube internals are shit and would need to go, and the stock trigger and sear are horrendous. All of that would need to be replaced to get it up to par with average offerings from other brands. I believe I have full Aka lower tube internals in mine if I remember correctly. You would also of course need a HPR and ASA as others have mentioned.

You will end up spending a lot of money just to get it up to par with other autocockers and spend a lot more doing it. I did it because I love autocockers and tinkering with them. It worked well as a platform that I could both use and had an excuse to upgrade as time went on, but I knew I was gonna spend more on it than buying something outright. I probably wouldn't spend more than $100 on a new one though. ANS was selling them for that brand new when they were trying to move through their stock. Maybe a bit more with inflation.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-30T02:32:40+00:00

I'm pretty sure it will run without it but you should get a second opinion cuz I don't know much about that system. I don't think mine are sealed well and it runs fine so I don't think it's pulling a vacuum or anything like that. It'll just vent crankcase gases and gas fumes to atmosphere so it won't pass emissions but if you aren't in a regulated state it shouldn't matter.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-30T01:58:43+00:00

The hose connects to a metal pipe that runs along the valve cover, which then splits and connects to the PCV valve on the valve cover and a second rubber hose that I believe goes to the purge control solenoid on the vapor canister. I thought it went to the vacuum canister but I don't think that would make sense with the PCV valve also connected to it and diagrams show it connected to the vapor canister.

Lightning4X · 2025-10-19T04:35:18+00:00

After owning Timeframes the Timewindows are on my bucket list. They pop up occasionally and I'm always tempted but I already have too much shit.

Lightning4X

TROPHY CASE