Hi Rob,
How did you manage to buy a car all the way up in Washington state, when you live in Louisiana? Did you have it shipped down, or did you drive it down?
The best I can remember about when it was converted, is 1993, about 16 years ago. the only reason I remember that, is because I was going through a divorce at the time, and so was my friend Tim. We worked on his Alpine, to take our minds off of what we were going through. Something nice, to have an Alpine to work on to distract you.
The funniest thing that happened with that car, was that we had just connected everything up, but the car was still on ramps. We hadn't connected the exhaust yet, so the headers were open. We were in Tim's small garage, with the door closed. I was standing outside the car, bending over the front fender, handling the throttle. Tim was inside the car, going to turn the key so we could start it. I blipped the throttle a couple of times to get some gas into the manifold, then told Tim to hit it. Tim turned the key and there was an instantanious sound of an explosion.
BANG!! Tim, just as quickly turned off the key and asked "What was that??!! His eyes were as wide as saucers. I laughed so hard, because of the wide eyed terror I saw in his eyes. I told him it was the engine coming to life and was normal. It took a little bit for me to convince him to go ahead and turn the key again; he finally did and the engine instantly came to life. it was LOUD inside that small garage, but it was music to my ears. These little 2.8 V6's just want to run.
When the neighbors heard the comotion, they came over to see that we'd actually gotten it runing. The neighbors were gear heads and had told Tim, that I'd never get it to work. They ate their words that day.
There is just one thing that Tim did that I think you should change, and that was, he put glass packs on it, and you can hear it coming from 4 blocks away. it had that typical six cylinder glass pack bark. I would put turbo type mufflers on it to make it have a throatier sound.
I know you'll enjoy it as much as Tim did. Keep me up to date with what you are doing with it. OK?
Jose
Im in Louisiana near New orleans, so that would be a little too long of a commute for me. I do go up there every couple of years to visit relatives, but not too often. About 3 hours ago the guy got out of the car at the red light behind me, i thought he was gonna tell me i had a burned out taillight or something, but he saw the dual exhaust and asked if it was a tiger. This is a very fun car. I actually just got finished making door panels. Im hoping to get them put on by the end of this weekend. Do you remember about what year this car was converted? And would the tie rod from the new kit still work on this one?
