1985 Chevrolet Citation X11 from North America - Comments
20th Apr 2019, 02:58
I owned a 1985 X11 with the F41 suspension, decals were unique. It had the lettering on the sides of the car, rear of the car, and on the dash with 2 ghost letters behind the main ones; each letter was of a different color, red, white and blue; it also had decals on the hood (not metal) - they said 2.8 fuel injection. The car was red, interior was blue/gray and black with red trim; each car had the trim on the seats to match the body's outside color.
Specs for my car was .97 in the G pad, with a 136mph top speed (per GM); they said the only cars GM made that were rated faster were the IROC Camaro and the Corvette.
It was fast and handled well. I was told by GM that with the F41 that there were only 5 built.
Engine had a unique exhaust rumble, very race car sound. Was loud but not bad; you could talk to someone in the car in a normal voice.
It had no leaks and it never used any oil. When I sold it there were over 199,000 miles on it, motor and transmission were still strong and even the original CV joints were still in it and were still tight. It would still light up the tires from a stop, and it never showed any sign of torque steer that you would find from front wheel drive cars. And it always accelerated in a straight line.
I was real good at doing all the maintenance of the engine, transmission and CV joints, though after each transmission oil change I found that you would have to drive the car around the block to get the oil into every part of the transmission, and then top it off; if you didn't, it would miss shifts; I had one shop trained on doing this for me.
The steering was tight, almost too tight; it took some learning on how to keep it between lines of the road. I had a couple of people at different times try to drive it and they found it difficult to keep between lines of the road; they also found they needed to really focus on the speed so they would not end up getting into trouble with the cops; yes it loved to go fast.
One time I had it going fast enough that the 85mph speedometer was pegged and the RPM was just under redline; later I figured out I was doing about 125mph. I found that the faster the car went, the more the car felt like it was hugging the ground better and better and never tried to float. Also when I decide to not go any faster, I did try to see if it still had power so I gave it a little more pedal and then backed off; yes it still had more to give, just I didn't want to go faster any more.
A bad thing about the car was at 50,000 miles I took it Goodyear to get the alignment checked; they messed it up by trying to use the stock measurements of a regular Citation; they wanted to add lots of shims to do this, so I had them put it back to where it had been and then went to the GM dealership for them to do it. The alignment was unique as it was set up for a flat road and not a curved one; GM never advertised the specs for this car to the shops.
Other issue I had was, being it had the F41 suspension, to get shocks I had to order them from Chevrolet, as no shock manufacturer listed them. It took 5 weeks to get them, and then I had to find someone to install them.
Paint was the only other issue I had; it was marked as having what they called water based paint (first year I was told they used it); at 2 years the paint developed little black lines going from left to right all over the entire body; GM ended up repainting it under warranty (wonderful EPA requirement for this paint).
Sad ending to this story is that I sold it to a kid, he was 19; first thing he did was remove the decals, and about 4 weeks after he got it he lost control of it on the off ramp of the freeway and smashed the front end up so the bumper was into both tires; the car was totaled and then scrapped.
20th Apr 2019, 02:58
I owned a 1985 X11 with the F41 suspension, decals were unique. It had the lettering on the sides of the car, rear of the car, and on the dash with 2 ghost letters behind the main ones; each letter was of a different color, red, white and blue; it also had decals on the hood (not metal) - they said 2.8 fuel injection. The car was red, interior was blue/gray and black with red trim; each car had the trim on the seats to match the body's outside color.
Specs for my car was .97 in the G pad, with a 136mph top speed (per GM); they said the only cars GM made that were rated faster were the IROC Camaro and the Corvette.
It was fast and handled well. I was told by GM that with the F41 that there were only 5 built.
Engine had a unique exhaust rumble, very race car sound. Was loud but not bad; you could talk to someone in the car in a normal voice.
It had no leaks and it never used any oil. When I sold it there were over 199,000 miles on it, motor and transmission were still strong and even the original CV joints were still in it and were still tight. It would still light up the tires from a stop, and it never showed any sign of torque steer that you would find from front wheel drive cars. And it always accelerated in a straight line.
I was real good at doing all the maintenance of the engine, transmission and CV joints, though after each transmission oil change I found that you would have to drive the car around the block to get the oil into every part of the transmission, and then top it off; if you didn't, it would miss shifts; I had one shop trained on doing this for me.
The steering was tight, almost too tight; it took some learning on how to keep it between lines of the road. I had a couple of people at different times try to drive it and they found it difficult to keep between lines of the road; they also found they needed to really focus on the speed so they would not end up getting into trouble with the cops; yes it loved to go fast.
One time I had it going fast enough that the 85mph speedometer was pegged and the RPM was just under redline; later I figured out I was doing about 125mph. I found that the faster the car went, the more the car felt like it was hugging the ground better and better and never tried to float. Also when I decide to not go any faster, I did try to see if it still had power so I gave it a little more pedal and then backed off; yes it still had more to give, just I didn't want to go faster any more.
A bad thing about the car was at 50,000 miles I took it Goodyear to get the alignment checked; they messed it up by trying to use the stock measurements of a regular Citation; they wanted to add lots of shims to do this, so I had them put it back to where it had been and then went to the GM dealership for them to do it. The alignment was unique as it was set up for a flat road and not a curved one; GM never advertised the specs for this car to the shops.
Other issue I had was, being it had the F41 suspension, to get shocks I had to order them from Chevrolet, as no shock manufacturer listed them. It took 5 weeks to get them, and then I had to find someone to install them.
Paint was the only other issue I had; it was marked as having what they called water based paint (first year I was told they used it); at 2 years the paint developed little black lines going from left to right all over the entire body; GM ended up repainting it under warranty (wonderful EPA requirement for this paint).
Sad ending to this story is that I sold it to a kid, he was 19; first thing he did was remove the decals, and about 4 weeks after he got it he lost control of it on the off ramp of the freeway and smashed the front end up so the bumper was into both tires; the car was totaled and then scrapped.