Good morning, Dream Team!
Friday post? WTH is going on in Noblesville? Well I'll tell you. Pull up a chair and sit a spell with ol' Chris...
This last week was a mix of highs and lows. I've been a little un-motivated, but I'm doing my best to get stuff done anyway.
Some two years ago, on a wet weekend, I manufactured a bulletproof rear shield disguised as a solid decklid grille. It was poorly received despite my persistence that it just filled some time and allowed my hands to work while I was at several other impasses at the same time. It looked like this.
This poor guy was destined for the scrap bin, but did a decent job of keeping detritus from getting into the bay until that time. Between this thread and IG, my car gets a decent amount of exposure and an extremely generous person reached out to me to see if I would be interested in a more purposeful, and significantly better looking grille. Then this happened.
I am beyond stoked with the way this looks and very grate-ful to Florian of SpadesCustomz for this grille. It's presently off the car as I need to lower the rain hats 6-10mm to keep bank 2 off the grille. Thanks again, Flo!
I was shopping shift knobs last week as I was growing tired of trying to shift the car by gripping the end of the shift-lever. It's not terribly comfortable, and a bit awkward as my hands are not small. 917 knobs seem to be all the rage, but I think are no bueno for my build as they're absurdly expensive for what they are, and the wood knob would just look out of place. I had spent over an hour googling 'shift knob' and various similar searches when I came across the WEVO SL knob. It fit the ethos of this project with it being light weight, black, and poked full of holes. Alas, it's a hundred bucks. So I put it on the list and kept searching. Kelly (my wife) comes in and asks to see what I'm up to. I explain I'm looking for a shift knob for my silly car and show her what I've found. There were they myriad 917 knobs, a naked lady knob, the WEVO SL, and some other more universal bits. She immediately asked why I didn't just go with the WEVO SL. I expressed that the $100 was better spent elsewhere and she was like, "Oh. Hang on a minute." She came back with her credit card and said to make it happen; She'd take care of it. So this happened yesterday.
She's gotta be just the best wife ever. She always does what she can to make all my dreams come true. I'd be living on someone's couch or out of a 90s VW gti were it not for her. None of my other big builds would have happened without her support. (generally emotional/moral) I'm a lucky duck for sure.
Somewhere between the decklid grille and the shift knob was Wednesday. I took a half-day and chipped away slightly at the calibration on my car and took it for a drive. I dropped in at the shop I used to work at to say hey and they all gave me a ration of isht about the safari ride height and then decided we needed to put it on the scales...you know...for science.
Not too bad for an all-steel car with a lead-acid battery, the IBs, and a full tank of fuel. As the build moves forward, I have more plans to remove weight. But the top three things on my list are to get real tires on the CCWs, lower it, and to get the calibration sorted so I can drive it on the road more confidently. Anyone who street-tunes by themselves is a madman. IDK how you do it. I need to phone a friend, or look into logging and then tuning offline. (probably the latter over the former)
Hope everyone has a great weekend.