In reply to Cotton :
914 is my Dad's loooong term project. He's had it for many years and recently started getting re-focused on getting a Porsche 6 cylinder in it. He recently sent me a video of the engine running on a stand, so he's making progress!
So I took Thursday and Friday off of work to hit a track day at Roebling Road on Friday. Anytime I'm in Savannah, I take a detour out onto Hutchinson Island to do a loop on the racetrack there. It's been turned into a public roadway and meanders through a golf course. But today, unbeknown to me, it's actually being used as a racetrack for an HSR event! Today is practice day and entry was free!! I found another guy wandering around who had a cooler of beer! Made it a super fun afternoon!
I got to check another track off the list. Roebling Road is a beautiful course nestled into a wooded neighborhood near Savannah. It was a cool, crisp morning that turned into a perfect afternoon at about 75 degrees. The group I ran with is called Open Throttle. There were 3 C6 Grand Sports, a mustang, a wrx, and me. Talk about open track day! There were no run groups, just pull on to pit lane and run whenever you feel like it. Turn 1 was my favorite - decreasing radius turn at the end of the main straight where you could carry lots of speed in and let the turn scrub off momentum before the 2nd inside apex. Great day!
I wanna be you when I grow up!
What a cool day!
I've been doing some Ranger stuff lately. First I picked up a $500 Ranger to bring out to the "Redneck Mud Park" for the weekend. its a ridiculous gathering of Good 'Ol Boys for a long weekend. Some of the machines out there are quite impressive, but I don't really want to bury my good truck in mud and generally mess it up. So, enter the $500 Ranger to take the weekend's abuse. It ran and drove well before and after the event, so I was able to flip it for a lil profit too!
And the blue Ranger developed a transmission issue that needed addressing before I could move forward with the extended front beams. With the truck in 1st gear and beginning to accelerate, the shifter would pop out of gear with great violence, force, and horrible noise. It happened several times and each time I thought the transmission guts were going to be laying on the ground underneath. Rebuilding transmissions is out of my realm of comfort, so I dropped it off at the local transmission shop. They took their sweet time, but got it done. The shop found many worn parts inside but the main culprit was a worn first gear. I got it back last week and have been making some progress on the beams. The old ones are out and new ones are in! I've got a few more hours of work to get it buttoned up.
Stock beams:
Long Beams:
That's going to be so awesome! You're making me really want one of these little trucks setup just like that.
Making progress! I’m digging where the wheel sits in relation to the flared fender!
A lot has been going on lately! Unfortunately, I was sick last weekend and missed this year's Woodsman Cup motorcycle race - I'm pretty bummed about that. But these other items are helping ease the pain. I've finally got the extended beam install wrapped up. Extended brake lines are $15 pieces for a full sized Chevy truck rather than the $150 aftermarket units marketed for the application. I set the toe and camber by eyeball while trying to compensate for the truck being on jackstands and suspension being at full droop. The truck will get a real alignment, but I was pretty close! I also added some limit straps that are not pictured. Rebuilt Ranger calipers cost $18 each and new brake pads are about $25! Lol!
I'm loving how it looks! I think the added leverage of the longer beams brought the front ride height down an inch or so. And if my understanding of Physics is correct (I received the "Mr Physics" award in my AP Physics class), the front effective spring rate should be lower and the ride a little softer in the front.
My wife and I have been hunting for a perfect new house for about a year and a half now. There are a couple of areas in Bradenton that have lots of 1+ acres and are still within reasonable distance to downtown and the beach areas. If you go way out east, you can find big plots all day long, but we want to have some space and still be close to work and the action. The properties that fit this description don't come up for sale often, and when they do, they get snatched up quickly and usually for cash offers over the list price!
But...we recently got lucky! A friend of mine listed a small house on 2 acres with a 3 car detached garage in the desired area! I only knew it was his based on one of the listing photos showing his old Corvette. The property had 19 in-person viewings in 2 days! We put in an offer within a day of it being listed and 2 days later we were under contract! My wife wants a pond in hte backyard and I need the dirt for the berms and rollers for my backyard dirt track!
The previous home owner and I met back when I had an e30 track car. He's got a collection of e30 M3s!
Of course, I'll ned something other than a push mower to keep this place trimmed, so the plan is to pull a towable deck mower with this Mule. The mule will also be used for ripping around the backyard track and for misc camping excursions.
Life is good!
Just read all 11 pages - thanks for going back and updating the photos, there is so much awesome in this thread! I can't believe that ranger started out as a $1200 truck. 
Life is good indeed, and it seems it'll only get better with your new house/property purchase. Keep up the good work! 
Its been nearly 2 years since our last Chump race (in Atlanta) and we were pumped to get back into it with our new e85 setup. The car was fast and, man, is it a lot more fun making passes than being passed!
But things only went well for about 4 of the 10 hours. The chump team consists of 5 guys, who like most people, have busy lives separate from the Chump race series. As a result, we rarely get to test the car, if at all before a race. At our first pit stop, it was apparent that we had at least a couple of small oil leaks. We decided we'd check the oil at any opportunity and top it off and keep racing. This worked alright through 3-1/2 hours, when I climbed in. I got about 8 decent laps in before the car started losing power. I brought it in to find that whoever added oil last did not put the oil cap back on. The oil pressure and temp gauges never gave me any indication of problems, only the lack of power caught my attention. The car was down at least 2 quarts of oil and did not want to start again. We attempted a few push starts without success and with some ugly noises. So, we packed it up admitting defeat :(
Once at home, the indicators are not good
Major bummer. So rather than dwell on that, I decided to go jump the Ranger over the train tracks. :)
So I am about to buy a '99 Ranger from my dad and no going to lie your Ranger is kind of inspiring me to run some rallycross with it.
In reply to 93EXCivic :
Do it! Major fun!
I’ve spent just about all of my “free time” moving for the last 2 weeks. The new house is awesome but the to-do list is long! I did have a chance to bring the Ranger out to a rallyx test and tune. She performed great but I really need to do something to quicken up the steering. I’m sawing back and forth like a lunatic to keep it straight.
Obviously one one of the top priorities at the new house is getting the garage squared away! I painted the walls white for better lighting characteristics and vacuumed up about 5 pounds of dirt off the floor. I don’t think it had been swept since it was built in ‘63. More lighting to come. The garage is an odd 3 car configuration with only a single door off-centered. Someday a large steel garage will be erected to house more E36 M3. But it’s a major upgrade from my single-car garage!
Doin stuff in the new big back yard.
It is so cool to have some space to do whatever you want! The front half of the container will be used for storage of lawn tools and stuff. In the back half, I’m going to cut some doors and windows and make a backyard bar with an Irish and tiki bar theme - think dark green paint and dark wood inside and sand and palms outside.
In reply to Lof8 :
So jealous man. Loving the property. Just a heads up. Many years ago my dad stored a few cars in storage containers. TONS of humidity gets trapped in those things. It really hurt the cars in ways we didn't expect. Just a thought depending on what you are planning to store.
In reply to B13Birk :
Thanks for the warning. I won’t be putting anything of significant value in there and it will be opened frequently and decently ventilated.
The first rallyx of the season was a great success! The truck is incredibly fun to drive. I really think I had the most fun of anyone out there. I need to quicken the steering ratio and I’m pretty sure that by widening the truck, I’ve hurt it’s rallyx performance. Its not as nimble as it used to be, as evidenced by my 6 cones, but it’s a frickin riot to slam the loud pedal and hang on! Im really looking forward to events at the FIRM, which are more stage-rally-like and less SCCA-like. They are very wide open and not many cones to dodge. I think the truck will really shine there
They Chevy got a couple of mentions in the magazine!
...and the free set of General Tires I won at the Challenge. 37” x 13.5” x 20”. Lol.
Lol, those are huge!
2002maniac said:Lol, those are huge!
and expensive! ;)
I’ve had very little time to play with the cars lately. The to-do list at the new house is taking all of my time!
Local facebook marketplace had a free racecar...Lawn art? Roll cage donor for one of those “stock 200 lap enduros”? Dirt jump for the bikes? The possibilities are endless :)
Garage/workshop has fresh paint and lighting. On the hunt for a welder after years of telling myself, “I’ll learn someday”.
Awesome.
Time for an update I think.
Petrolburner said:Time for an update I think.
:) I don’t have much in the way of car updates, it’s still all house stuff. Although I did sign up for a track day at the Firm 3/30. Not sure yet if I’ll take the red miata or (acquiring tomorrow from B13Birk) 2.4 powered Neon. Also this year's Challenge car!
The house is getting a new roof and while the wood was off, we replaced the nearly 50 year old ducts and insulation. The container bar is progressing. Recently hired a friend to tag it with “Bermingham,” which is a name my friend came up with to play on motocross “Berms”.
The attic space is quite small and has nearly zero access from inside the house, so it was now or never for this work. I was hoping to to see new ducts in there since the house interior has recently been renovated. But not so lucky. $$
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