1988 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z from North America - Comments

This Daytona Shelby Z was purchased by me from a local salvage yard. Everything was wrong with it, It was an absolute mess. That's to be expected from 151K hard driven miles, and a stint in the junk yard. The car is currently undergoing a full restoration, and is completely disassembled. I am rebuilding everything to new specifications. I am rebuilding / upgrading a 2.2 Turbo II from a donor car to 20 PSI boost and 300HP status just for good measure. The good thing is I found no rust holes anywhere on the body, even the floors were solid.

I owned a Daytona Shelby Z that I bought brand new back in 1988. I really loved it, However I had to sell it in 1992. This one is its replacement. I loved the first one and will never sell this one.

The Daytona Shelby Z with the inter cooled turbo ll and 5 speed is pretty darn fast. Even with a stock unmodified Turbo II it surprises many V8 cars at the stoplights.

The interior and enthusiast bucket seat for the driver make it possible for you to taylor fit the seat just the way you like it.

Good thing is there were a lot of base model daytonas made, and many of the parts interchange, like glass, interior trims and sheet metal parts.

Plastic interior trim pieces are cheesy and break easily, especially the hatch area plastic panels. Good thing theres many base model donor cars to get trim pieces off of.

Shelby Z specific parts can be expensive and hard to find new. You may want to hit the salvage yards and pack rat spare parts for one of these cars if you decide to buy one.

There is a small aftermarket for these cars since it is a niche market vehicle. Most of these places that cater to these turbo mopars can be found on the net.

There are many clubs around the country dedicated to turbo Mopars, including the Daytona Shelby Z.

The interior of the 1988 Shelby Z is very well laid out, and very comfortable. It looks as modern to Me today as it did back in 1988.

The rear seats however are only usable for small children, and the rear cargo plastics creak and squeak. I plan on fixing this by using foam backed tape at all the overlapping plastic panels in the hatch area to quiet this problem down.

I have no intentions of ever selling this car.

I am in the process of buying a fixer upper 88 Shelby Z, So to have someone speak nicely of them is good. I am also a former owner of a 87 turbo daytona who regrets selling it.

I now own 2 1988 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z's. I drove 1354 miles one way to pick one up. My first one had an accident with a busted fuel line that will take days of combing over junkyards to find all the pieces to put it back together, but my newer one is rocking and rolling down street. The guy I bought it from just replaced thr turbo in it about 2,000 miles ago and I've had it boosted up to 10. They are very nice cars. I like the interior of the 90, but the body of the 88.

I have a 1988 Shelby Z loaded T-top car. I bought in 97' for $450.00 from a lady who couldn't afford to replace the SMEC (single module engine control), which at the time was around $850.00 plus labour.

Other than that problem, the car was flawless. I couldn't let it go to the auto wrecker, so I bought the car as is. I took the SMEC out, cleaned the two connectors (24 and 60 pin) and reinstalled it. The car ran, but poorly. I took it to a friend that worked at a local Mopar dealer and we discovered a faulty dual pickup hall effect sensor was to blame for the poor running condition. Ordered up the new part (from Mopar list for $90.00 got it for cost+ $45.00). Then went to the muffler shop, upsized to 2.5", removed the cat and resonator and dumps through a Dynomax, increased boost by 5psi, now 14psi. Ran the 1/4 11.6 sec @ 116 mph. on ZR225/50R15 street tires, this car is smokin' fast. I plan on doing some work to the waste gate to make 20 - 21 lbs of boost. Should be making around 360 hp. Look out Corvette, here I come.