That's What She Said

The past couple of weeks have seen slow and steady progress on the Camaro, but first some team announcements.

We have recruited the metal mashing talents of newcomer Curtis Williford to improve our driver pool to a grand total of 3 idiots who will strap themselves into this mechanized meatgrinder. Curtis also brings professional welding experience to the team which effectively relieves me of the duty of installing our roll cage. While my motto in life has been, "Safety Third," we now lessen our risk of parts of our cage falling off mid-race. I am informed by several parties that this is a good thing. Who are you sissys, OSHA? In other news my brother Dave Fassio has signed on as a crew member to help out with push starting. He is the only crew member which automatically volunteers him to be strapped on to the hood of our vehicle with a squeegee should we need windshield wipers or handed a length of rope and told to, "hang on," to provide us with an appropriate amount of counter-weight to reduce our oversteer. He also is slightly mechanically inclined which might come in handy when we need to extract The Lose's bumper from our grill. Welcome to the team gentlemen and no your deposits are not refundable.

Didi has been undergoing some major surgery in order to get herself into condition for the upcoming Goin' for Broken race in Fernley, NV. While I have been slacking on the taking of pictures to document our epic transformation of this sweet piece of GM engineering, I offer up a simple list of what we have accomplished the past couple of weeks:

• New spark plugs and spark plug wires
• Flushed and bled brake lines
  
• Removed stock exhaust manifolds
• Sawzall'd old exhaust out, put into backyard as a tribute to hillbillies
  
• Replaced rear brake shoes
• Drained rear differential, new gasket and gear oil
• Engine oil change and new filter

While we wait for the judges at 24 Hours of Lemons to grant our request to race in May, we are delaying our purchasing and installing of the roll cage, seat, harness, tires and personal safety equipment. With that being said however, there are some significant challenges that we face in getting this car going:

1. Sort out electrical system and mount necessary components securely in the cabin
2. Repair and install exhaust manifolds
3. Fabricate and install exhaust (either individual side dumps or y-pipe to side dump)
4. Fabricate and install dash
   
5. Install instrument cluster and electrical killswitch
6. Flush and bleed power steering system (engine needs to run to do this)
   
7. Flush and drain cooling system (engine needs to run to do this)
8. Fabricate cold(er) air intake (several options are being considered)
   
9. Diagnose and fix engine electrical problem (currently the engine doesn't want to fire up)

By no means is our work done and let us hope that in the coming weeks we can return our tires to the pavement and complete some sweet burnouts to leave us satisfied and smiling - that's what she said.