427 engine (part 2) - RHS block

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Actually, that wouldn't surprise me, neither. But fortunately his house is right next to the shop.

Hmm, I haven't heard from him today, neither, so maybe his phone has now been disconnected. But I guess I need to call him tomorrow anyway. Seriously, though, I feel like I am then ASKING for bad news. Been more than once I called him or he called me and he told me he had bad news and just put off calling me, hating to have to tell me the news.

I just KNEW I shouldn't have cleaned out the spot in the garage....

well if you are feeling froggy, you can come clean out a spot in my garage, Lord knows I need to rearrange the garage and make it useful....

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

well if you are feeling froggy, you can come clean out a spot in my garage, Lord knows I need to rearrange the garage and make it useful....

Well, I've seen FAR too many garages filled to the brim and the vehicles parked outside because there isn't any room left in the garage for them to be parked there. I am bound and determined that is not going to happen with my garage. Especially since one reason I had it built was because rodents were tearing up all the wiring in the vehicles that were parked outside.

Of course, if the C5Z never comes home, then I'm sure that one bay will become a permanent storage area....

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Well, I've seen FAR too many garages filled to the brim and the vehicles parked outside because there isn't any room left in the garage for them to be parked there. I am bound and determined that is not going to happen with my garage. Especially since one reason I had it built was because rodents were tearing up all the wiring in the vehicles that were parked outside.

Of course, if the C5Z never comes home, then I'm sure that one bay will become a permanent storage area....

you know with as much as you have invested and the documentation you have i would insure it for a declared value. that way IF something were to "happen" to it then you would be able to get most of your money back.

with my Dodge truck i had full coverage on it. after talking with my agent, i found out if anything happened the max amount i would get would be about $6K from them. I have almost that much in just the transmission, not to mention the fuel system, motor work, compound turbo's, exhaust, paint and body, wheels and tires etc. I found out that with a declared value policy, i was able to get it insured for $15K and it saved me ~$100 a year in what my premiums cost me on regular full coverage.

It might be worth looking into, even if it is an extra$100 or so a year it is well worth knowing you will get the majority of the investment back instead of just a minute percentage.....

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

you know with as much as you have invested and the documentation you have i would insure it for a declared value. that way IF something were to "happen" to it then you would be able to get most of your money back.

with my Dodge truck i had full coverage on it. after talking with my agent, i found out if anything happened the max amount i would get would be about $6K from them. I have almost that much in just the transmission, not to mention the fuel system, motor work, compound turbo's, exhaust, paint and body, wheels and tires etc. I found out that with a declared value policy, i was able to get it insured for $15K and it saved me ~$100 a year in what my premiums cost me on regular full coverage.

It might be worth looking into, even if it is an extra$100 or so a year it is well worth knowing you will get the majority of the investment back instead of just a minute percentage.....

I dunno, that might get me into trouble. If they ASK me to detail the added value of the car to determine insurance, and I tell them what is in it, they may either make the premium VERY high, or else refuse to insure it at all. And if they DON'T do that on the front end, they may deny the claim after the fact based on those details.

I can't really say that I trust insurance companies at all.

[Rich Z]

I talked to Aaron today, and here's the scoop.

The starter died today. So that was replaced with a GM remanufactured unit. He replaced the coils with stock units. The ignition wires and plugs had already been previously replaced. On a hunch he checked the valve lash and found that the lash was way too tight, so he adjusted them to where they should be. He says the car runs extremely well now, much better than before....

But the blinking "service engine" light still shows up every now and again. He talked to a bunch of people about this issue, and the consensus seems to be that perhaps the error itself is bogus. The combination of solid motor mounts and super light flywheel/clutch/driveshaft combo may be allowing spurious vibrations to be misinterpreted by the system as being misfires. I'll have to look into how the system detects misfires, as I honestly don't know, but this sounds reasonable to me. He says that when the blinking light indicates misfires taking place, there is no perceptible indication of misfires actually taking place at all. So he may have been chasing his tail on that one for a bit.

While doing all this other stuff, he inadvertently left the turbo scavenge pump disconnected, so a small bit of oil got into the tubing when he cranked it up momentarily before realizing it, which he will clean out before I can pick up the car. All in all, he feels that the car is about 95 percent of being perfect. And that additional 5 percent just may not be practical to attain because of the entire custom nature of everything in that car. He says there is a slight stumble at low RPMs and when coming to a stop, the idle will hang at around 1300 rpm for a couple of seconds before dropping down to normal. I guess I'll have to see how this seems to me when I am driving the car. I'm sure everything about driving that car will be much different from what I was used to.

In any event, he is going to clean out those turbo pipes on Monday morning, take it for a last test drive, clean it up again, and (knock on wood) I should be able to pick the car up on Monday afternoon.

Have there ever been any recorded earthquakes in Thomasville, Georgia?

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Have there ever been any recorded earthquakes in Thomasville, Georgia?

Originally Posted by http://www.usa.com/thomasville-ga-natural-disasters-extremes.htm

Historical Earthquake Events

No historical earthquake events that had recorded magnitudes of 3.5 or above found in or near Thomasville, GA.

No historical earthquake events found in or near Thomasville, GA.

are you going to try to change history?

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

are you going to try to change history?

Well, the car was almost hit by lightning at Aaron's place, so I'm just wondering what else could happen. Meteor strike?

I don't believe for an instant that Murphy's Law is finished with me quite yet.

[C5Rick]

May this be the final Good Luck

[Rich Z]

Thanks, Rick.

I find myself laying awake at night worrying more about this now than I have in a long while. I guess I felt that everything up to my bringing it home was really out of my hands. I don't have a clue what Aaron is going to be charging me for working on my car for nearly 13 months. It's going to really suck to have to sell the car to put money back into the retirement fund, if it has to come to that. And I don't know how much of Harwood is now permanently embedded in my thoughts of that car. Might just be too many bad memories associated with it now.

All decisions that I will be facing myself. So I guess I'm just apprehensive about it now. Things are going to be in MY hands for MY decisions. Decisions that might just prove that I made a decision two years ago that resulted in my losing that car.

So it has me tossing and turning when I go to bed, thinking about it.

[Rich Z]

Well, it doesn't appear that my car will be ready today after all...

Guess I'll replace the video card in my PC instead this afternoon.