I've completed a life long dream and purchased an Astro at the end of July. Believe or not but I've been dreaming of buying an AWD Astro/Safari for the last 15 years, dropping in a V8, adding some boost, and creating a Super Sleeper to stomp unknowing muscle cars.
I bought it off of the 2nd owner who had it for the last 16 years. He garaged it it's entire life and it's immaculate (as far as WI cars go). Only a couple wart sized rust bubbles on the front side of the rear passenger fender, and some DIY paint weirdness on the driver side B pillar. Here's a ton of photos that I took the day that I picked it up...
Google Album: 2001 Chevy Astro 7-28-2018
Mechanically, it's it good shape. Besides a bad driver's side window motor and a MAF code, it seems really good.
It's pretty much been sitting in the garage for the last few weeks as I've putzed with it when I'm not working. So far I've cleaned the MAF, installed a K&N panel filter, replaced both window motors, the driver's side window switch, the headlight switch, the rear taillights, the front turn lights, front corner "lights", all of the exterior bulbs except for the headlight bulbs, and I put LEDs in the instrument cluster and an LED in the license plate light. Oh yeah, new wiper blades too. ;)
My first mods are going to make the stereo tolerable. I got 6.5" Infinity components for the front doors, 4x6" speakers for the rear pillars, and 6x9's for the rear dutch doors. I'm going to need to make some small adapters to fit the tweeters in the stock front door locations and I'll need to make spacers for the 4x6 speakers. Currently they bottom out on the rear HVAC ducts. I'm going to stick in a basic Sony single DIN headunit. I will help it out by using a compact Clarion amp for the front/pillar speakers and another to replace the stock amp for the rear doors. BTW, these Clarion amps are pretty slick. About the size of a chunk of 2x4.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=clarion+xc+a ... _sb_noss_2
I picked up a 2.2L S10 gauge cluster for the 7k tach. I did some fitment testing last night and it's going to be interesting. The bottom two screw holes line up and that's about it. Connector is completely wrong, lens is completely wrong, body is about 1/4" too wide. Yeah, it's going to take some work. I'm probably going to be lazy and shelve it until the LS swap happens.
Oh yeah, and I also got a set of 18" wheels from a 2018 Jeep Wrangler JK. The chrome ones with the granite inserts. They have 5 holes sort of similar to the stock wheels. I already had a set of 18" tires and I need the bigger wheels because I'm planning on a brake upgrade in the future.
My end goal is a mostly stock looking van with somewhere in the neighborhood of 700-800HP. My wallet is going to be the main limiter. I'd like to get it in to the low 11-second range in the 1/4. That would be one heck of a fun ride.
Thanks,
Ben
