Anyway I knew when I woke up at 5:30am I’d be hurling all day, and hurl I did. I’ve barely left my bed, though I think I’m dehydrated enough that a trip to CVS to rock some purple sprite PediaLyte is in order.

Thanks to everyone lurking on AIM today.

Last night I installed the coilovers. The Nissan suspension was really easy to work with, I had all four wheels done in under 2 1/2 hours, at 9:45pm. The big problem was figuring out how to set ride height on the front wheels, though. I thought I was out of the woods, but didn’t finish until 1:15am. I had no internet access at the house, the instructions that came with the coilovers have no photos or diagrams and are written entirely in Japanese.

The ride is so stiff it’s some straight neck-snapping shit. On a smooth highway it’s fine, but on a bumpy road (with no interior, mind you) the car rattles and feels like it’s going to come apart. The window rattles in the door housing something fierce.

But even without the new sway bars installed and no strut bars at all, the handling with these is so fucking absurd I can’t even explain it. It’s an entirely different animal, I hit the Tollway on the way home and the car stuck to the road on all the windy parts without budging an inch. Even going quite fast, it was smooth as ever. Riding on rails, indeed.

The work I have done has all been related to gutting the interior, which has been a colossal pain in the ass. The carpet was easy, but that soundproofing shit was a nightmare. It’s basically hardened tar.

I started out with a straight up hammer and chisel, and went to town. But after reading forums, I found an easier way to do the larger areas. 40-50 pounds of dry ice later, I was able to rapidly drop the temperature of the metal and soundproofing so that it shattered with a quick hit of the chisel. I then spent quite a number of hours taking a high speed angle grinder to the metal, and found out the virtue of earplugs.

But I got a phone call yesterday morning, and the engine has arrived in Dallas.

I also got another phone call two days ago from my mother, and out of nowhere there is an offer on the house (which has the three car garage I’m doing all of this in). The sale is going to close on Feb 23rd. This means I have 18 days to do an entire engine and transmission swap, paint the entire car inside and out, redo all the suspension and interior, and take care of electronics like the alarm, etc and get all an entire cabinet full of tools and a 33 gallon air compressor out of there into my apartment.

I don’t know how I manage to wind up with everything becoming time sensitive, maybe that’s just life. But needless to say, the next 3 weeks is going to be interesting. I don’t even have all the parts yet.

I’ll be taking and posting pics, whether it’s here or elsewhere.

After things went weird Thursday and Friday, I finally was able to start disassembling the Honda on Saturday afternoon. I had to push off showing the car until Sunday. To say that it was a disaster and that 1 day to undo all the changes I made was insufficient would be a sever understatement.

However, it sold. I got 7K for it, which was 2K less than I wanted. But honestly, I thought hard while I was standing in front of the guy watching him go over the car. I knew that if I held onto it to try to get more (and fix the shoddy job I had to do), it would turn into a huge nightmare. I just wanted to be rid of it.

My stress level through the whole thing was through the roof. I was lacking in tools, and wound up having to teach myself a bunch as no one was around. I redid the entire suspension including dis/reassembling the shocks and springs, which I hadn’t done before.

Anyway, pics of the process are here

There’s been a bit of snow on two separate occasions since Thanksgiving, so everything is still covered. I’ll be upstate for awhile, but will hopefully hook up with friends for New Years Eve (depending on who will be around). I also got a recent email from some other high school friends who have been looking for me for years. Thank God for classmates.com I guess? I’ll be seeing them as well.

I slept in today for the first time in awhile. Since my mom is not exactly young anymore and my sister is recovering from shoulder surgery, they weren’t able to get a Christmas tree until I got here. We went this morning and picked through what was left in the lots. Trees are cheaper here to begin with (since they’re grown right down the street), but we wound up with a straight up Charlie Brown, $19.99, last minute special.

Anyway, I went to pick up the beater last night, and got it “running”. I’m at a loss for words to describe what an incredible piece of shit this poor car is. There is no power steering and barely any brakes. I’ve already changed out gaskets to stop gasoline from shooting in the air and oil from leaking out the front of the engine (I’m not kidding, either).

Last night after finally getting the car home, blowing smoke the whole time, I was able to start taking it apart. One of the studs that holds the exhaust manifold on is sheared, so there is an exhaust leak (which is where the horrible smell is coming from). I took off everything from the exhaust manifold down, the catalytic converter and exhaust are going straight in the garbage.