JKnight and Killer K.A.R.R.

Welcome and Thank You for visiting my web site!


First off, might as well introduce myself. My name is Joe n the lady beside me is my lovely fience Angela!


Now onto my Killer K.A.R.R. This is what it looked like after I got the car in 2002. It's an 1989 Pontiac TransAm. Chevy 305 TBI (Throttle Body Injection) V8 small block, 170 Hp @ 4,400 rpms & 255 Tq @ 2,400 rpms, with the GM 700-R4 automatic overdrive trany, 3.06-1st, 1.63-2nd, 1.00-3rd, 0.70-4th & 2.29-Reverse, gear ratios and an 2.73 gear open carrier rear  drum brake axle, and if I remember correctly rolling on stock 15 in wheels. Power mirrors, locks, windows & hatch release/pulldown motor. All black, inside and out with T-Tops n the normal flat spoiler. Nothing special, pretty much plain, but going to change all this!

After a few small modifications in 2003 I got this! Changed out the factory 15' wheels for the 82/83 14' Turbo Cast wheels, 15's too hard n cost way too much $$$ for me, so 14's are just fine. I also swapped out the Areo hood for the 82-84 FUNCTIONAL power bulge hood, works good too I might add! And added smoked plexi-glass over the turnsignals and installed a really cheap KR scanner and a homemade scanner bar with yellow lense. Looks pretty good I thought.

My next modification was adding this small 5 in black n white tv with a battery powered video game. At this point no real budget to do much, so determined, I did what I could at the time. I know one guy, who I won't name, was trash talking my KARR after seeing my "Home Made" mods, but I don't care!  I did what I could & I was enjoying myself. Isn't that whats the important part?! While can't see much of it, the whole dash is changing!  Honestly, sometimes, you do what you can, and if someone don't like it?  Who cares??!! My car NOT theirs!

The 2004 Knight Nationals back in August 04! I changed the nose for a 91/92 factory nose. Again gotta have my scanner! Not really any other changes got done. The other K.A.R.R. belongs to the guy who ran Knight Registries. My K.A.R.R. will somewhat resemble the finished one.

 

Ok, maybe there was a 2nd change back in 2004. I swapped out the factory "bubble style" as I call em tail lamps for the 82-84 factory style Tinted TransAm tail lamps.

Well, in Dec 04 my trany blew n has been sitting ever since.... Sadly...  Well since August 2004 I picked up a used fiberglass season 1/2 Knight nose and scanner, not installed, made by Advanced Designs in Automotive Technology.  Very well built and in the scanners case, with a yellow lense, quite bright! Here me n my wife started taking stuff off the car to do some restoration work, gotta waaaaaaay to go....

Here's the scanner I bought. It's build by ADIAT.

When I said it was bright with a yellow lense, I ment it! Though it's not a head on shot, It does show how bright it is.

 

Remember the part where I said about the dash changing??  I wasn't kidding. Main reason was some idiot broke into my car back in 03 n stole my damn cheap scanner control box, and in progress damaged the whole main dash assembly that EVERYthing bolts to... Ok. at this point I changed the factory steering wheel with a steering wheel from a Chevy S10. I cut the wheel down n painted it to look more like the Knight Rider gullwing. Again, doing what I can, and don't really care what others think. Don't like it?? Don't look at it! My point of view! My K.A.R.R. n doing what I am able to.

This is the "PERFICT TIME" to replace the heater core!! Strongly recommended since a friend told me a horror story that involved his heater core n his NEWLY installed n once very TAN TransAm carpet, that got dyed Anti-Freeze GREEN when the his heater core exploded......  Needless to say he was kinda pissed for some reason.... I would to.

Nose

WOW!.....  Never realized how long I've had this.  Almost 20 years now, needs some repair work thanks to life, but atleast it should be repairable.

 

This is the NEW dash assembly going into the car. It's from the 82-84 year cars, the only thing I am keeping from the original dash is the electronic speedometer instrument cluster, wiring and the driving lamp switch. I'd use a 82-84 driving light switch, providing they had that option, I have never heard of 82-84 cars having said option, so slight trim to the original driving light switch buttons n it "Kinda" fits, don't look right, but it fits. The reason for this change is I choose to add the factory rear windshieldwiper option. It's what i want, so I just made everything work in an older year dash. I have deleted the rear window defogging hatch for a non-defog hatch, so the defog circuit was also deleted, leaving ONLY the factoy switch n connector. I plan to make a new circuit changing the defog switch to operate my driving lamps, then will just change out the panel under the headlight switch.

The new dash has been installed, still gotta finish wiring, but it fits and looks good! The original car's dash wiring harness had been badly tangled up n wasn't easily repairable, was trying to do some rewiring and had to unwrap the harness, after a STUPID idea..... Keyword is stupid here, don't try n repair tangled harness by cutting, untangling & then soldering. Like I said BAAAAAAAAAD idea. LOL. Long story short, I needed a new dash harness. A very good friend of mine found a replacement! Thanks Mike!!! It's like 1-3 years newer, but so far only the radio harness different, and thats hardly an issue. Now comes the FUN part!!!

After ALL this time!!! I waited for this for awhile now! Rob Louisell's Season 2 dash he actually delivered it to my house inperson!! Thanks Rob for the dash & delivery. Louisell Enterprises though I don't think he's taking any more orders. Retiring. Though I changed it to fit my 7 in LCD screen. I still need to make a tv frame though. K.A.R.R. really staring to look like K.A.R.R. finally! I love it!

 

My wife had been working on some of the imperfections, not done, but I wanted it in! LOL. Slowly I am getting there!

I got these shipped from Jay Ohrberg, his lower console, switch pods and a gullwing. Seriously QUICK order to arrival! This was like 2 weeks from date of order to this pic. VERY impressive! I have to build the gullewing myself but that's ok, got some plans for it. One, since I got these real cheap, I plan on cutting the grips off of the front so the front plate is removeable, never did like the hole in the center of the gullwing,and the Knight head logo will be 1) The horn button & 2) Light up yellow!

Rob's 4th season upper console with some work done to it and painted black to match the rest of the parts. My friend Jeff got me the upperconsole, pods, lower console and the gullwing, I intend to pay him back with parts for his car in return for his kindness! Wouldn't have them without his help!!

Holding it all up to see how it looks, and I love what I see!!! Slowly getting K.A.R.R. done! I will be making my own dash n switch pod electronics. Pods will be 4th season & the dash will be of my own design. I gotta make it my own! LOL.


Now it's time to talk about future plans and idea's for my Killer K.A.R.R. as well as some misc pics! As you can see this car is 2-Tone. Black and Silver. After my wife had an idea. My paint job isn't Black and Silver anymore. Going to replace the Silver with something darker like a Charcoal Gray or Gun Metal Gray. I think it will make K.A.R.R. look sooooooo much more wicked cool!

First off my interior. I am thinking of Black carpet and going with Lt. Sand Gray interior plastic. Since K.A.R.R. in the show in season 3 had a 2-Tone Black n Silver, so I think my design will match the show's exterior look.

 Ok, I got an idea for the door panel and that was the results, minus the carpeted part of the door panel which I didn't get to doing, and I found some more Lt Sand Gray plastic, so there's the dash results of that. I deffinatly like the look of the 2-Tone interior.

Here's the dash while doing some filling n sanding. Got some done, but still needs alot of work!  When my wife mentioned painting K.A.R.R.'s Silver something darker, we decided that the fiberglass conversion parts inside will NOT be the usual Black, but the darker gray color on the outside, Tri-Tone Inteior!! This should be seriously bad when done! Can't wait to see it!

Well, I picked this TPI assembly from a shop down in TN for like $50 i think it was. The Accel 1,000 cfm SuperRam. Known by some as the "PizzaBox" cause of it's shape. I am concidering putting this on an 87+ year 350 chevy block, I like those year engines because they don't have the old 2-peice rear main oil seal that's known to leak eventually, and because they came with roller camshafts.

I had an idea to take my 305 n add a 3.75 stoke crank to it, and redesign the T.B.I. E.C.M. (Engine Control Management system with a scratch built unit. My design would run like 50 times faster then the GM computer & would be able to take sensor data readings constantly vs the GM's unit could only do one single thing at once, where my unit would run every part of the GM E.C.M. program at the same time endlessly. My theory is I could run the engine with better results since my computer was always getting sensor data! This project is proving harder then I thought, as I am having some issues identifying the GM E.C.M. hardware. Discontinuing for now or for good. If some day I manage to create this replacement E.C.M. future upgrades to the design will involve deleting the factory distributor and replacing it with 8 coils, just like the LS engines have, an O2 sensor per cyl or using 8 temperature probes to moniter each cyls Air/Fuel ratio, multiple engine driving programs (stock, econ, max hp, max tq etc) ,and creating individual cylinder timing options, so I can maximize the performance that each cylinder creates! I think it's a briliant idea.

This junk car was one I first bolted my nose onto. As you can see I also had the scanner installed and running. I miss driving my car so much...


Well, I said misc pics, so thats this section.  Ok, first off I don't drink so alc wasn't involved, and yes I know that this isn't my K.A.R.R. LOL I got bored my my old S-10 Blazer looked entertaining and since a fiberglass dash was waaaaay out of the question, no cash to get one, so I decided to try and make one, this is one of the only pics of this failed atempt at making one. I thought of making a dash to fit my S-Blazer. Thats why this dash is in there.

Pics of my factory installed dash.

This was a lower console I had made. Not the best looking, but was a fun n cheap way to help my project along.

A test of the scanner right after I got it.

Got my 2-tone interior idea from the seats in this bird. Kinda like it, but colors gotta be different.

 

I got these seats and the 14 in Turbo Cast wheels from my buddy Mike!

WheelsWheels

Used to have these 14 in. Wheels... Never did figure out who made em.  Liked the general look.  Might try for a similar set and maybe black chrome/chome look, just like those.  That or do this to a set of 16 in GTA wheels.  I know where a set is!


Thank you for checking out my Killer K.A.R.R. project! Please check back to see any thing new me n my fience have done to Killer K.A.R.R.!


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