Noizemaker
Active Member
Hi all!
Yesterday I stepped off into what for me was the great unknown. The land of torsion bars, leaf springs, and carburetors. I was googling for something akin to "how to add seatbelts so I don't DIE IN A HORRIBLE MESS!" when I found a link to here. Figured i'd better register, introduce myself, and start doing a whole hell of a lot of reading.
So yeah, a little about me. I'm a car guy by both profession and hobby. I got lucky though and found a way to be a car guy that didn't involve busting knuckles on cars Monday through Friday, which left my weekends open to bust them on my own projects. I work for a video game studio as a subject matter expert, essentially being paid to be a car guy.
My garage has been through a lot of cars the last few years, but the one standout is my other Mopar. I've got a constant project 1999 Neon ACR that has a Mexican Stratus 2.4 liter, SRT4 trans, Turbonetics turbo, and about three bolts on the car i've never turned on my own. Hasn't run in 6 years, but I love tinkering on it. I had a Miata for about 10 years, along with a WRX, and S2000, and then finally a Lotus Elise. My friends always made fun of me for finding increasingly useless cars, that just kept getting smaller and smaller.
Last week I sold the Elise... and for the life of me, couldn't figure out what I wanted to replace it with. Working where I do, I've gotten really jaded about cars, and NOTHING was revving my motor. I drove a few cars.... new GTO, some BMWs, little of this, etc... and nothing was doing it for me. I was getting concerned. As a car guy, I SHOULD WANT AWESOME CARS! Just wasn't clicking.
...except for this one car on Craigslist. A little ol' Valiant. Flat blue. just begging for a new home. For weeks I stared at it. "Should I call? Should I not? I'll email." Never got a reply to my email... finally I called. I went, I looked, I bought.
So yeah. Mr-Sports-Car has his first cruiser.
In the space of a week, I went from this:
to this:
Apparently i'm a man of extremes. Go figure. I gave the man a fat wad of cash, and down the freeway I went, no seatbelts, old gas and all!
So yeah, the new toy is in actuality my new Daily Driver. Wish me luck. I have a feeling we'll see a lot of me around here as I figure out which end is up and learn the dark arts of carburetion!
At some point I'll finish the Neon, and once it's done maybe then I'll start playing with the Valiant. For now though, it's got 2 projects on deck.
1: Seatbelts. I have a set of street rod lap belts waiting to go in. I just need to figure out where they bolt down under my carpet.
2: Stereo. My god do I need tunes! Don't worry, i'm not cutting up the dash or putting some god awful flashy radio under the dash. I'm going stealth style. Amplifier to an MP3 player. No radio at all!
If you're interested in seeing more of the car, I've got pics up at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/m.laverty/WentOutForMoreMilk#
...and if you go up a level you can see all my other projects (Neon, Miata, S2k, Lotus, etc...).
Anyhow, I've prattled on too long. Time to do some research. See y'all around!
-Matt
Yesterday I stepped off into what for me was the great unknown. The land of torsion bars, leaf springs, and carburetors. I was googling for something akin to "how to add seatbelts so I don't DIE IN A HORRIBLE MESS!" when I found a link to here. Figured i'd better register, introduce myself, and start doing a whole hell of a lot of reading.
So yeah, a little about me. I'm a car guy by both profession and hobby. I got lucky though and found a way to be a car guy that didn't involve busting knuckles on cars Monday through Friday, which left my weekends open to bust them on my own projects. I work for a video game studio as a subject matter expert, essentially being paid to be a car guy.
My garage has been through a lot of cars the last few years, but the one standout is my other Mopar. I've got a constant project 1999 Neon ACR that has a Mexican Stratus 2.4 liter, SRT4 trans, Turbonetics turbo, and about three bolts on the car i've never turned on my own. Hasn't run in 6 years, but I love tinkering on it. I had a Miata for about 10 years, along with a WRX, and S2000, and then finally a Lotus Elise. My friends always made fun of me for finding increasingly useless cars, that just kept getting smaller and smaller.
Last week I sold the Elise... and for the life of me, couldn't figure out what I wanted to replace it with. Working where I do, I've gotten really jaded about cars, and NOTHING was revving my motor. I drove a few cars.... new GTO, some BMWs, little of this, etc... and nothing was doing it for me. I was getting concerned. As a car guy, I SHOULD WANT AWESOME CARS! Just wasn't clicking.
...except for this one car on Craigslist. A little ol' Valiant. Flat blue. just begging for a new home. For weeks I stared at it. "Should I call? Should I not? I'll email." Never got a reply to my email... finally I called. I went, I looked, I bought.
So yeah. Mr-Sports-Car has his first cruiser.
In the space of a week, I went from this:
to this:
Apparently i'm a man of extremes. Go figure. I gave the man a fat wad of cash, and down the freeway I went, no seatbelts, old gas and all!
So yeah, the new toy is in actuality my new Daily Driver. Wish me luck. I have a feeling we'll see a lot of me around here as I figure out which end is up and learn the dark arts of carburetion!
At some point I'll finish the Neon, and once it's done maybe then I'll start playing with the Valiant. For now though, it's got 2 projects on deck.
1: Seatbelts. I have a set of street rod lap belts waiting to go in. I just need to figure out where they bolt down under my carpet.
2: Stereo. My god do I need tunes! Don't worry, i'm not cutting up the dash or putting some god awful flashy radio under the dash. I'm going stealth style. Amplifier to an MP3 player. No radio at all!
If you're interested in seeing more of the car, I've got pics up at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/m.laverty/WentOutForMoreMilk#
...and if you go up a level you can see all my other projects (Neon, Miata, S2k, Lotus, etc...).
Anyhow, I've prattled on too long. Time to do some research. See y'all around!
-Matt
