Last Friday I had a Corsa catback exhaust system and Random Technology high flow cats installed on my GTS Viper. The reasoning behind doing this was three-fold:

1. The new Corsa exhaust looks way better
2. The new exhaust sounds way better, and is much louder. It’s a V10, it should be loud!
3. Performance gains The new setup should have added about 25-30 horsepower to the wheels. That should give the Viper about 410whp (estimated), which is about 475hp to the crank (estimated).

Since video blogging is the new thing lately, I made a little video showing you the before and after…as well as my buddy’s Viper which has a full exhaust system (including the headers). Enjoy!

The weather on Saturday cleared up to become a perfect day in the afternoon, so Jason and I decided to take the Vipers out for a little drive around the town. I took some video so you can see how the new Viper looks. Interestingly enough I found the video got an honors on YouTube, as it was the #7 most popular video the day I posted it in the autos section. Somebody even noticed I was wearing my SmashMyViper.com t-shirt (that I haven’t worn in about a year).

Another part of the reason I wanted to make it was because John Chow was raving about his little Flip camera…and I just didn’t get it. While I realize it takes 2 gigs of video, basically everything digital camera takes good quality video as well. Why carry around two things, when you can do it in one? So just to prove it, I created this video using my Canon Powershot SD900 digital camera, and quickly editing it using Windows Movie Maker.

Back in May I wrote an article on how to get paid to drive a Dodge Viper for free for the summer. While I ended up having the car for quite a bit more time then just the summer, I still got paid to drive it I officially sold the car a few weeks ago (which is why I picked up the Corvette), and without getting into any actual numbers, I can say that after buying the car, paying all of the taxes registration, title, gas, insurance, etc…I ended up with about $1,000 profit. Who wouldn’t take a Dodge Viper supercar for 6 months or so, and get paid $1,000 to do so?

I will say this though, I only put about 1,500 miles on the car, but it was a blast! Even though I made $1,000, the new owner still got a decent deal on a pristine 94 Viper with only 16,300 miles on it. If you play your cards right, you could technically do this with any car (although it is a lot of work sometimes).

Now that I’ve had some time with the Vette, I’m actually starting to miss the Viper. While the Viper was on my list of dream cars to own one day, my actual dream Viper is a 96-97 blue GTS (hard-top) with white stripes. I’ve recently put the Corvette up for sale (no hardcore selling, but if it sells, I’ll sell it), and hope to profit about $1,000-$3,000 on it. For a 97 with only 36,000 miles on it, I should have no problem getting $500-$1,000 more than I paid at the minimum. Once that’s sold, I think I will start to seriously look for my dream Viper (They normally range in the $40,000-$50,000 range), and hopefully pick one up. I’ve already starting my search, but I don’t want to jump on anything until the Vette is gone.

The main differences between the Viper I had an the GTS I want are the following:

• The color/stripes! This is my dream Viper combo
• 450hp compared the 94 which had 400hp
• Much nicer/updated interior. Let’s just say the 94 Viper interior needs some work…although it was cool back in 94
• Much more practical. With actual windows and a button for the doors, it’s a much more practical car. Although who cares about practicality with a Viper?
• The hood scoops! This 2nd generation Viper has a hood scoop and two gills on the hood. It makes it look much more aggressive in my opinion.
• The back of the GTS is just way sexier. I love the way everything is molded into the back, and am actually not too big of a fan of the rear of the RT/10.
• The RT/10 I had was convertible, which I will definitely miss
• The 1st generation Viper that I had, had side pipes. This means that the exhaust pipes came out of the side of the car…a very exotic thing. The GTS has the exhaust come out of the middle of the back of the car. While it still looks cool, side pipes were neat.
• There are a bunch of other differences, but the above are the major ones that affect me

A used 1st generation/2nd generation Viper is a great supercar to get if you can afford it. The car does not depreciate very much at this point in time. So if you want to drive a car that turns every head, and is a blast to drive, but don’t want to spend too much money over time…the Viper is your answer. There are a couple new reasons why the value of the Viper will either depreciate at an even slower rate, or may even go up.

There is a very good chance the 2011 will be the last year that Dodge makes a Viper. Dodge has already stopped making a lot of the parts for older Vipers, and there is some word that they will stop all together in 2011. My thoughts are that this should help out the value of Vipers already out there. That and the fact that they are so rare already will help out with keeping the price you paid up there. Remember, there are more Corvettes made and sold in one year than Vipers have ever been made since they started in 1993.