HouseofSpeed
Hangin' and Bangin'
- Joined
- May 27, 2001
- Messages
- 203
Well.....after a LOOOOOONG time in the making, I built a fire in the beast and it cranked on the first hit. Only to have the MAF die in short order.....but it is alive and only in need of some minor refinement.
I have not shared my tale of woe with many in regards to my car, but now is a good time to reflect on the long journey that it has been.
I have long been a TR/GN/TTA fan, and had owned a couple of Buicks when I found the TTA that I currently own (#597) in the fall of 2000. At the time I worked at Hennessey Motorsports (of Viper fame) and made arrangements to pick up my car when I would be out of town on a shop trip. I live in Houston and the car was in Louisville, KY.....picked the car up in Indy at the tail end of a trade show with plans to drive it back to Houston, so that meant a one-way plane ride and hopes that the car would make it safely back to Houston.
You can probably see where this is going by now.....two of my co-workers decided to ride back with me, so we pick up the car ditch the rental and make some last minute rounds in Indy. The car was cosmetically challenged and had 114K miles on the clock but had a lot of good parts and new parts on it (trans was new, as were the suspenion components front and rear). I rolled into the throttle once on the way to drop off the rental and it popped back...making me think, HMMMM...maybe this was a bad idea.
Long story short..its the first of December, snow storm coming from KY to IN and the car loses the timing chain getting on 65 S heading toward Louisville....I have now owned the car for a couple of hours and driven it maybe 30 miles. Am stuck on the roadside with my coworkers and a car full of luggage...and it starts to snow. Luckily one of my buddies is from just outside of Louisville and he has some friends come to help...they can't make it til the following day and we finally get a wrecker to take us down the road to a motel (drop the car in a parking spot and said screw it)...BUT that was only after we sat for 3 hours on the side of the road.
We get the car to KY and I pull an all-nighter swapping chain sets...get the cam sensor close enough to fire....and behold, a ton of bent valves that will keep the car from bringing me back to Houston. So we fly home and I leave my car at my friend's parent's house.....it doesn't make it to Houston for 4 months. When the car arrives, I had already decided to do the engine, swap turbos, do a fuel system, port the heads, found a FMIC and big radiator, etc. Car goes under the knife and remains there til now.
I planned on having it running several times before now...but always found something else I needed to replace or tweak before I felt "complete". The roller rocker conversion was one of those things...and then I decided to have a set of billet valve covers made....and the list goes on and on.
But, it is officially up and running...will try to finish the little stuff this week so I can actually drive it. The biggest irony is that I paid the car off just this month...so I got to drive it for 30 miles and pay on it for 3 years to get to this point. LOL
I have not shared my tale of woe with many in regards to my car, but now is a good time to reflect on the long journey that it has been.
I have long been a TR/GN/TTA fan, and had owned a couple of Buicks when I found the TTA that I currently own (#597) in the fall of 2000. At the time I worked at Hennessey Motorsports (of Viper fame) and made arrangements to pick up my car when I would be out of town on a shop trip. I live in Houston and the car was in Louisville, KY.....picked the car up in Indy at the tail end of a trade show with plans to drive it back to Houston, so that meant a one-way plane ride and hopes that the car would make it safely back to Houston.
You can probably see where this is going by now.....two of my co-workers decided to ride back with me, so we pick up the car ditch the rental and make some last minute rounds in Indy. The car was cosmetically challenged and had 114K miles on the clock but had a lot of good parts and new parts on it (trans was new, as were the suspenion components front and rear). I rolled into the throttle once on the way to drop off the rental and it popped back...making me think, HMMMM...maybe this was a bad idea.
Long story short..its the first of December, snow storm coming from KY to IN and the car loses the timing chain getting on 65 S heading toward Louisville....I have now owned the car for a couple of hours and driven it maybe 30 miles. Am stuck on the roadside with my coworkers and a car full of luggage...and it starts to snow. Luckily one of my buddies is from just outside of Louisville and he has some friends come to help...they can't make it til the following day and we finally get a wrecker to take us down the road to a motel (drop the car in a parking spot and said screw it)...BUT that was only after we sat for 3 hours on the side of the road.
We get the car to KY and I pull an all-nighter swapping chain sets...get the cam sensor close enough to fire....and behold, a ton of bent valves that will keep the car from bringing me back to Houston. So we fly home and I leave my car at my friend's parent's house.....it doesn't make it to Houston for 4 months. When the car arrives, I had already decided to do the engine, swap turbos, do a fuel system, port the heads, found a FMIC and big radiator, etc. Car goes under the knife and remains there til now.
I planned on having it running several times before now...but always found something else I needed to replace or tweak before I felt "complete". The roller rocker conversion was one of those things...and then I decided to have a set of billet valve covers made....and the list goes on and on.
But, it is officially up and running...will try to finish the little stuff this week so I can actually drive it. The biggest irony is that I paid the car off just this month...so I got to drive it for 30 miles and pay on it for 3 years to get to this point. LOL
