[78Macho]

It wasn't long after Joe had the engine running in the car that it was time to take it for a drive. Keep in mind, he started with an engine that had nothing attached or installed and a bunch of boxes with brackets, nuts, bolts etc... nothing labeled! Today, the engine compartment looks like the day it came off the lot in Arizona. Joe called me up on a Sunday afternoon and said, hey Jim, you better come over! He had been out terrorizing his neighborhood with #202! There were tire marks on the street! His description was that it was "wicked fast"! He had temporarily hung the cats under the car so it was louder than with the complete exhaust. While it ran awesome, it was smoking quite a bit. It turned out the original Rayjay had a bad seal and it was leaking oil. We did some research on rebuilding the turbo charger. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of luck in finding parts or a business to do the rebuild. In the mean time, an exact match showed up on e-bay that had been purchased and never installed. Best of all, it was for sale by a local vendor here in Kansas City. I won the auction and picked the new unit up 2 days later! By now the car was back at my house and I swapped out the original unit for the new one. Then I had my son follow me to a local muffler shop to have the exhaust completed. My first time to drive #202! The new system consists of a pair of NOS pancake GM catalytic converters (this is how #202 was originally because I have the original cats) that go into pipes out back, completed by new side splitter tips!

I am working on a list of projects this winter that include refinishing the trunk, getting the lighting system functional, getting the e-brake (rear disc axle) functional, and then finishing the dash wiring, stereo installation. The car was painted in the early 90's but moved from garage to garage and getting bumped and scraped along the way. I have hopes of refinishing the body next summer!

Thanks for interest!