1990 Chevy Cavalier Z24
This is my 1990 Chevy Cavalier Z24. It is a 3.1L V6 automatic, with air, cruise, tilt,
power windows, power door locks, and has 120,000 miles on it. It is black with gray ground effects, luggage rack, and raised white letter tires (even though you can't tell
by the picture).
I haven't made too many mods to it yet, but I am slowly chipping away at it as I have time and money. One mod I have done is to install a K&N Air Filter.
This is HIGHLY recommended to anyone who owns this style cav with the cowl-inducted air intake. I could definitely feel the increase in power after
freeing up some of the air restriction. Another mod I have done is to add tinting to the back side windows.
As you can see by the above picture, I have added some driving lights. I bought them from JC Whitney, and they are 55W halogen lights, part number 89AU0410N. They just fit into the holes in the front. In fact, it is so tight, the mounting bracket included with the kit doesn't work without some minor modifications. I had to drill holes in the vertical bracket shown in the picture above. This will allow the upper mounting plate to sit flush with the light, and allow the whole assembly to slide into the opening. It doesn't allow for much movement to aim the lights, but I use them for decoration only, so I have them pointed low.
The kit also includes a switch and wiring for you to wire up to the console. They might be alright, but I didn't want a cheesy oddball switch on the console in my car, so I wired it up to the parking light switch. WARNING! Do not run the lights directly off of the switch, as it is not rated to handle the amps the driving lights need. Run the power through a relay, and control the relay through the parking light switch. The relay is a 30 Amp fan relay from off of a cavalier parts car that I have. It mounted nicely beside the washer fluid reservoir. The other picture shows the location of the wire from the parking light switch. I tapped into the brown wire on the back drivers side in the engine compartment. I finished off all of the wiring with some nice loom tubing.
Another mod that I have done is the wooden Z24 emblem I added to the console. This one was quite a bit of work. It is walnut and cherry venier over a walnut backer board. The walnut outside of the chevy emblem is stained with walnut stain, the chevy emblem is plain cherry venier. The lettering is cherry as well, and was stained with a deep red acrylic paint. All of the venier was attached to the backer board with high strength spray adhesive, and the whole thing was coated with 5 coats of high gloss polyurethane. The unit is mounted to the console through two holes in the plastic cover plate where the ashtray used to be. There are two small short dowels glued to the backer board, and speed nuts on the dowels hold it to the cover plate.
The latest mod is a replacement window power switch. I got tired of replacing the stock switches in the console, and after the third one broke, I decided to make my own. My first attempt used a piece of plastic to mount the switches in the original switch plate. It worked for a while, but it was never really really nice. Then I decided to make an aluminum switch plate and replaced the whole thing. That is what you see in the picture. I designed the piece on my PC, and I used a small milling machine to shape the aluminum. This was my first attempt at running a mill, so it took me a few weeks to get it done. You can't really tell from the picture, but it has a brushed finish that I put on using a heavy-duty scotchbrite pad. I then used a non-yellowing acrylic clear coat paint to protect it.
The underside has a small circuit board that holds two relays. The switches wire to the board, and the relay contacts wire directly to the old wire harness from the original switches. The switch plate is held in just like the original switch plate, with a lip on the front that catches under the plastic, and a spring clip in the back that snaps over the rear plastic.