Saying 'sup' from 'south of the border' (Toledo)

[WMCC Gary]

Enjoy the site.

[killa89trans]

welcome to mifbody

[Fenix]

First off, thanks or all the warm welcomes.

The car is Maple Red Metallic (aka WA408G in GMenese) but there's an interesting story as to why it looks 'purple-pink' First owner ran a light and got smacked by some chick on the right side. ****ed up the core support and the insurance job was piss poor. Shop didn't bother ordering the factory color and just mixed something close and shot the whole front half of the car to 'blend it'. Turns out instead of red garnet flake, they used white pearl. So from a deep red, this thing goes purple. I found this out because of the race wreck.

As for the drag racing story: Well I'll blame inexperience, lack of professionalism on the part of Milan Dragstrip, and learning to 'say no' to that need for one more run on a shit day. It was April 2nd, opening day at Milan so I decided to plop the 15 bucks to run the car after a long boring winter of using it as my DD. First 5-6 runs were good, but around run 7 or 8 the conditions went south quickly.

Needless to say around run 7 the track should have been shut down. BUT Milan wanted the cash, so they let the people tempt fate hoping the ones who didn't know better (me) would stick around.

Well I did. SLPDave invited me to head up for some drinks with some of the SLP guys just pulling their cars out of storage and I foolishly declined. I staged for run #9 and spun through 1st. It hooked mid through 2nd gear and by 3rd I was pushing 80. As a rook I kept going but the other racers staging were calling for the tower to shut down at this point (sleet.. if you could believe it) but they refused as I was already running..

This was what I learned after the fact when at that same moment I lost traction on the left side and the right kicked out. I basically slid across both lanes and barely missed the other car (Fox body). Nose scrapped along the wall and slowed it down to around 60 where it turned into a whip and slammed the passengers side into the wall. The whole side was pretty much destroyed and the frame bent. Rear quarter caved, spoiler cracked, door skin more or less separated from the rest of the door (minus the internal crash bar). Also hit so hard my fat ass broke the f'kin seat! No glass broke though..

They hauled it off, dumped me and the car in the tech staging lot and I called for a pickup.


















It took me at least 4 months to finally get it back on the road but I still need to take it back in and get it redone again. I spent way too much fixing it though (it broke 5 figures) but the car at the time only had 33K miles on it. I owed a loan on it too, so I couldn't walk away, not from a barely driven LS1. In the end mods will have to wait until I can get it totally stripped and rebuilt ala frame off resto. The car means a lot to me so there's another reason for not walking right there.

Probably going to wind up changing out the plant and trans for a LSX block built to 455SD specs in LSX form. Mate it to a TR6060, probably some 12 bolt or something to handle the power, and make it a show vehicle (total interior gutting too) with a great deal of punch. Internal chassis reinforcements done as well while it's getting the frame done to handle the potential power boost (overbuild basically). Am I going to run it again? God no. If I had another 4th gen to run.. I'd run that.

HOWEVER, I'm dirt poor right now so I just drive it as is.. whiny rear end, *****y trans, and gimpy lookin. My inspiration though is one car that Dave had told me won Autorama after being within 2 dollars or some figure like that from being totaled. The repairs and paint wound up making it a winner; so if someone can do that.. why the hell can't I?

[Swat]

Welcome!

[meissen]

Yikes, lots of work but in the end I think it's worth it. My car was in an accident a few years ago and the insurance company did total the vehicle. I wouldn't say my car is show car quality, but they're definitely able to be brought back from the dead.