A
Anonymous
Guest
In my wild a crazy youth, one of my activities was 'improving' cars. By this, I mean basically making them go faster. I started out with an old morris 1000; rebuilt the motor and, although it ran very well, it did not run very fast.. 0-60 in who knows how long. So, in my teens, a bunch of us, on weekends, got together and made hot rods. Eddie Waldrup was the guy whose dad had the cool shop and tools so we met up at his place to 'tinker' This was great fun when we were youger.. especially when after stuffing a 409 into a '53 ford, Eddie wound it up and proceded to grenade the transmission on our local drag strip [Highway 14 right in front of the golf course].
As I got older, university, job, family got moved to the front of the list but the knowledge and desire to 'tinker' never really left. I played with a few vehicles but the constraints of the time meant that any serious work on cars wes deferred. At one point, I had 10 vehicles in various staes of disrepair going. I do not know how, or why, my wife put up with me.
At length, I got a BMW, 2002.; A very nice car in its own right. Handled like a dream, pretty good pickup, and a fairly nice family vehicle. Still, it lacked a certain something.....speed and torque. So, I decided to give it a transplant. But not with some old sissy, German motor.. Oh No.. I went the whole hog. Got a Chevy 350 LT1 [from a vette], a Ford Toploader trans, 9 inch ford rear end. and proceeded to shoehorn all of this extra horsepower into that tiny little space. Actually, with a little work, [beefed up suspension, better brakes, etc] you could not even tell that there was anything different about the car. I repainted it, and then went for a drive.
Man o man; did that little beast howl. I had so much fun beating IROCs, mustangs, even a porsche. Never even got a ticket with that car though, and to this day I still wonder why. I was driving in town in Victoria one afternoon, and an IROC comes up beside me at a red light. This was too good to pass up. By unspoken agreement, the drag was on. I beat this car handily but the IROC driver pulled in behind and signalled me to pull over. He wanted to know whet I had done to the car.. so I told him. Was it for sale? "No', I said, but he made such a case to buy it, I named a price that I felt certain was absurd, $10,000.00. "Done" he says, and an hour later he arrives at my house, money in hand. I guess I should have asked more, but hey I bought a more sensible family car. The BMW did not last too long in the other fellows hands though. Shortly after he got it, he wrapped it around a tree. He walked away unhurt but the car was toast.
Still have plans for my "63 Galaxie convertible though <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="
"> <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="">
All the best
M
As I got older, university, job, family got moved to the front of the list but the knowledge and desire to 'tinker' never really left. I played with a few vehicles but the constraints of the time meant that any serious work on cars wes deferred. At one point, I had 10 vehicles in various staes of disrepair going. I do not know how, or why, my wife put up with me.
At length, I got a BMW, 2002.; A very nice car in its own right. Handled like a dream, pretty good pickup, and a fairly nice family vehicle. Still, it lacked a certain something.....speed and torque. So, I decided to give it a transplant. But not with some old sissy, German motor.. Oh No.. I went the whole hog. Got a Chevy 350 LT1 [from a vette], a Ford Toploader trans, 9 inch ford rear end. and proceeded to shoehorn all of this extra horsepower into that tiny little space. Actually, with a little work, [beefed up suspension, better brakes, etc] you could not even tell that there was anything different about the car. I repainted it, and then went for a drive.
Man o man; did that little beast howl. I had so much fun beating IROCs, mustangs, even a porsche. Never even got a ticket with that car though, and to this day I still wonder why. I was driving in town in Victoria one afternoon, and an IROC comes up beside me at a red light. This was too good to pass up. By unspoken agreement, the drag was on. I beat this car handily but the IROC driver pulled in behind and signalled me to pull over. He wanted to know whet I had done to the car.. so I told him. Was it for sale? "No', I said, but he made such a case to buy it, I named a price that I felt certain was absurd, $10,000.00. "Done" he says, and an hour later he arrives at my house, money in hand. I guess I should have asked more, but hey I bought a more sensible family car. The BMW did not last too long in the other fellows hands though. Shortly after he got it, he wrapped it around a tree. He walked away unhurt but the car was toast.
Still have plans for my "63 Galaxie convertible though <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="
"> <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="">All the best
M