$2015 Challenge entry - 88 Accord LXi

lol. that might be perfect. Waiting on word from my FIL on boating on Lake Wylie that weekend. :P. I'm off for four days. 3-6 Out of Town = OOT.

Hmmm I wonder why the passenger front fender is 1" higher than the drivers side.

Is it body or suspension.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Is it body or suspension.

Suspension. But I have checked nothing including tire pressure.

No pictures just now, but I spent the evening cutting up old truck exhaust pieces to make an Accord exhaust. I got a cast off elbow, bought one elbow, and bought a new catalytic converter. I'll update with budget and pics within the next few days. I welded nothing tonight anyway, just mocked everything up.

Mockup:

New official budget (Catalytic converter, one purchased elbow, leftover truck parts at FMV $5 (tried and failed to sell at garage sale at that price))

$777.66

New "real" (including tools and drinks and such) budget

$876.47

I used the paper to draw the old exhaust before it went to the scrap yard. It has worked well so far. I even cut off the old hangers to reuse.

You should have incorporated a "test pipe" so you can pull the cat at the challenge and not have it in the budget.

But, really, you're doing very well already on budget!

What size is that? 2" or 2.25"?

beans wrote: What size is that? 2" or 2.25"?

2.25" because that's what I have. All from tunatruck back when I actually bought a decent dual exhaust for it. Tunatruck will be getting a single 3" so the pipe was just waste.

2002maniac wrote: You should have incorporated a "test pipe" so you can pull the cat at the challenge and not have it in the budget. But, really, you're doing very well already on budget!

Thanks!!

I would have done exactly that but I didn't want to take the "actual" budget hit of buying two more flanges. Plus I'm nearly out of straight pipes.

Anyway, as you point out, the budget is pretty safe. Make no mistake, this car will not perform very well but I just want it running And driving reliably for under that budget.

Tuna wife is having heartache over the household budget though. The challenge is at risk. I have to make some money quickly.

Exhaust all tacked together and ready for a trail fit soon.

tuna55 wrote: The challenge is at risk. I have to make some money quickly.

Exhaust looks good!

lol AT bgkast.

No OT tuna? we hit a slow period here which made us look closer at our budget. I started getting heartburn when I realized just how overbudget and reliant on OT we were...

I've had my irons in the fire for a major job change for a year and a half now. three interviews last year, then out of the blue one 3 weeks ago. I thought all was well. then silence from the company again....

Random. You going to Cars and Coffee tomorrow?

In reply to Mad_Ratel:

Can't get OT here. I am considering a night job of some form, but that's tough with my time constraints.

Forgot about C&C. Maybe. Will check with Tunawife.

In reply to tuna55:

Done. I figured the handle was an obvious giveaway.

" Since Brit cars are really more like parts traveling in close formation"

Ha Ha!

tuna55 wrote: In reply to Mad_Ratel: Can't get OT here. I am considering a night job of some form, but that's tough with my time constraints. Forgot about C&C. Maybe. Will check with Tunawife.

This may sound low but Carmax was happy to hire me as a weekend only cleaner/car fetcher when I was in college. Sat/sun is when they move the most cars around so they need people that are only interested in weekend work. It sucks but I was able to make a good 10 bucks an hour running cars around/washing them.

On the $$$ matter? For a couple of years I restored MGB shells for people. $30/hour put a fair number of tools in my shop. I have seen your skills and you could play the game. I quit because the line was getting too long and I already have a FT job.

I don't like doing mechanical work for friends, but when the local shops want almost $600 an axle to do disc brakes, I have been known to step in and save friends $$ and put a quick $100 in my pocket.

A $10\hour pt job is going to be taxed at your max tax bracket, so you would be lucky to get what, $7 in your pocket?

Another option is gardening, indoor gardening to be specific.

Definately, Heck your metal working skills probably could get you some decent part time welding skills.

Heck, if I recall correctly you work as an engineer at a fab shop. see if you can get welding certified? those guys make BANK.

I work in place with a fab shop, but it's inaccessible to me. It has a lot of toys which I can't use. I have a dyno here capable of half a million horsepower, if that gives you a clue, but I can't check it out unless non secret stuff is in there.

I can't really use my garage for anything as it's quite busy in there. Tunawife is really worried about doing mechanic work, in the case that something goes wrong. How would you handle that if there was an issue? If it's a friend, I just do it for free.

Carmax isn't a bad deal, but I really only want night stuff. Tunawife is trying to get me some tutoring stuff.

In other news, the exhaust fits pretty well. I have to make a few small modifications, but it's going to work. I'll weld it all together and throw it on next time.

I did have a moment where I realized that I need to make another cut and put a flange in.

And then I realized that I didnd't need to do that at all, but I had already made the cut.

Oh well, I needed welding practice.

tuna55 wrote:

2002maniac wrote: You should have incorporated a "test pipe" so you can pull the cat at the challenge and not have it in the budget. But, really, you're doing very well already on budget!

Thanks!! I would have done exactly that but I didn't want to take the "actual" budget hit of buying two more flanges. Plus I'm nearly out of straight pipes. Anyway, as you point out, the budget is pretty safe. Make no mistake, this car will not perform very well but I just want it running And driving reliably for under that budget. Tuna wife is having heartache over the household budget though. The challenge is at risk. I have to make some money quickly.

Also, the 5 horsepower (maybe) that I could gain by straight-piping the muffler and catalytic converter are not worth the added aggravation of adding flanges everywhere. This is a street car, after all, first. By a mile.

Check out Lowe's. I know a lot of part timers/cashiers in my store that make $10/hr+ and get up to 25 hours a week. Right now we're open until 10PM and usually scheduled until 11. Weekends can get kind of rough and may get scheduled until midnight though. I've seriously been thinking about dropping down to part time to go to school full time starting in January just because I know I'd be able to switch to a store closer to home(my round trip commute is 40 miles, the other store is a 3 mile round trip) and I'd go from making a little over $14 an hour/40 hours a week to $11 an hour/25 hours a week and barely feel the impact on my wallet after factoring in gas costs, tuition reimbursement, etc.

I worked at Homedepot, gosh, 10 years ago for the samish rates... I lost so much weight being a lumber guy. (running around etc.) It is quite frankly amazing how many people will ask for 30 bags of concrete and just stand there to watch you load it...

My wife worked in the yard section for a summer. Best shape she's ever been in. Mostly b/c full grown men would watch her 110 lb but load up bags of gravel for them... (still pisses me off to this day.)