not yet. the horror story goes about like this:

Saturday: start by removing the factory turbo back, no problem. a couple of bolts connecting the dp to the turbo were a pain in the rear, but not too bad. got the i/c out without too much trouble. i had a hell of a time finding the coolant drain, so i didn't get the turbo off saturday. i had a late start, and didn't figure it was that big a deal.

sunday: found the coolant drain, and made a massive mess while draining the coolant. two hours of cleanup later, i get the turbo, and finally the up-pipe out. then the nightmare starts. it turns out that the helix up-pipe didn't come with studs, which i didn't notice until about 5pm sunday night. tried pulling the studs from the stock pipe, all but one came out. that last one was siezed in there. no ammount of liquid wrench or banging on a box end with a hammer would get it out. gave up at about 8pm.

monday: car is in pieces, and can't be driven obviously. i got new studs from stage, but it took most of the day because my bike wouldn't start monday morning, and i had to tear it down and clean the carbs. between that and checking out a kennel for my dog, the day was shot.

today: go to install the studs, but i find out that two of the threaded holes in the helix up-pipe are munged up. it looks like they cut the threads, and then welded the flange on the pipe and got slag in the threads. as such, i can't thread the studs into two of the holes. since the car isn't put together, i walked to home depot to fine a tap to clean the threads with. of course, home depot doesn't have a 10x1.25 tap, and there aren't any other hardware stores within walking distance. so, my sister found one at the OSH by where she and my Mom live, and they're going to drop it off this evening sometime. assuming that i get the threads cleaned up okay, i'm hoping that the rest of the install won't involve any more trips to get parts or tools. i swear that Murphy sat in my garage drinking beer all weekend, because literally everything that could possibly have gone wrong did. i'm never installing a new up-pipe again ever.

 

oh yeah, and i left a couple of things out. Sunday my g/f stopped by all bent out of shape. she was out of town for a wedding all weekend, which is part of the reason that i chose this weekend to do the install. she isn't real patient when it comes to mechanical things, and tends to like the cross thread bolts and consider it helping. anyway, she called like four or five times in addition to stopping by, and we argued every single time. between tat and the problems i ran into with the car, i didn't get much done.

last night, she called all pissed off at me since i was busy trying to get my damn car put back together and picked a fight with me. to make a long story short, i didn't get anything done on the car last night because i was too busy breaking up with her. fun stuff huh?

 

oh Don. sorry to hear about all that. Sounds like a hell of a crappy time. Hopefully the rest of the week will go better. I'd you'll be able to take your girlfriend out somewhere nice to spend quality time with her.

 

nope, she and i are done. too many problems, too much work. it's a good thing to have happen, it just could have come at a better time.

oh yeah, the car is back together again

 

new thread for 2004 here https://www.i-club.com/forums/showth...threadid=38535 since i just couldn't wait!

 

Well, now it can only get better. The whole world of dating awaits. Go get em tiger.

 

I was still hoping to keep something going in the Bay Area section too. So i may still do another WRC thread.

 

yeah, the whole world of dating awaits. whether that's a good or bad thing is probably somewhat debateable.

yeah, i thought about starting it here in the bay area forum but decided against it. i kinda figured that there might be people who watch the WRC pretty regularly, but who don't read the bay area forum. anyway, you know me, i'll respond to just about any thread about the WRC...

 

There's a whole bunch of girls looking for partners

Don't worry

 

yeah, i know. thanks for the encouragment. being single and meeting women is like riding a bike, you just have to remember how...