This is what brotherhood looks like: two idiots with sockets, dreams and no sense of self-preservation.
Photography by James Wood
It started like most of my worst ideas do: sitting in the garage, staring at the empty engine bay of my RX-7, sipping cold coffee and letting Marketplace get the best of me.
I told myself I’d take my time. Be smart. Build the right motor for the right reasons.
Cue: LY6.
Six liters of truck-born fury. Iron block. Rectangular-port heads. A cousin to the L92 that nobody talks about at Thanksgiving but still makes 400 horses on a bad day. Perfect for a track rat like my FC.
One problem: It was in Philly. I was in Amelia Island, Florida. And my buddy with tools, space and the patience to help me not die during a rebuild? He was in Cape Cod. So naturally I traded my sport coat from the concours for a packed duffel and some ratchet straps, then hit the road.
I rolled out just after sunrise in my ol’ reliable 6.0L F-350. It’s basically the mechanical equivalent of your uncle with a bad knee and a back brace who’s still down to help you move a couch.
The check-engine light came on somewhere around Charleston and never left. It was comforting, honestly. Like an old friend.
I hit the Philly outskirts after about 14 hours of QuikTrip PB&Js, a handful of Zyns, wristwatch podcasts and willpower. I met Arnold, the guy selling the LY6 at a junkyard, near the water.
The engine was strapped to a wood pallet, leaking a wee bit of oil and maybe sporting some regret.
“Ran when pulled,” he said, which we all know is junkyard code for “might explode on start-up.”
I gave him $800, strapped it down like a stolen ATM, and left the parking lot with an extra 500 pounds of horsepower-shaped optimism.
With the LY6 secured and only lightly dripping in the bed of the truck, I set my sights on Enhanced Auto Fab in Cape Cod. The goal? Rebuild the engine with my best friend–Tyler, one of the few people on Earth who understands both my passion for sketchy builds and my complete disregard for timelines.
The drive up I-95 was brutal. Rain. Traffic. Toll booths that wanted more money than I paid for my last set of tires. Somewhere in Connecticut, I hit a pothole so deep I think I briefly visited another dimension.
But when I finally pulled into his driveway, sleep-deprived and smelling like a junkyard, I was greeted with the warm glow of a garage light, two Long Drinks and a forklift lovingly named Forkie. We love Forkie; she’d get the LY6 unloaded from the back of the F-350.
This is what brotherhood looks like: two idiots with sockets, dreams and no sense of self-preservation.
We got to work the next morning, fueled by Cumby’s coffee and the kind of motivation only bad decisions can bring. The LY6 looked even worse under bright lights.
Rust–rust everywhere.
Oil thick enough to be classified as asphalt.
Cylinder 7 had a broken valve spring and slight witness mark on the piston–something we still don’t talk about.
We stripped it to the block, inspecting everything like archaeologists uncovering a cursed tomb. But somehow, it was all usable. Crank was clean. Cylinder walls had a wee bit of crosshatch left. Nothing a dingle ball hone can’t handle.
We broke the golden rule of junkyard LS engines by looking at the bearings. To our surprise, all the bearings looked as good as the new ones sitting in a package on the bench.
Heads were surprisingly solid sans the broken valve spring. We chucked the valve into the lathe. It was true, so we put it back in the head and kept going.
We cleaned, honed, scrubbed, replaced, gapped and torqued. Parts flew in from Summit, RockAuto and Texas Speed like Christmas every day.
Cam swap? Of course.
Springs, lifters, trays and a new timing chain because I like some peace of mind. Every night ended with Long Drink, pizza and the kind of garage talk that cures the soul.
After three days, two near-arguments and some long nights, we dropped that rebuilt LY6 onto the pallet. She looked brand-new. Better than new. She looked right. A born-again motor with one mission: Turn that RX-7 into a rolling thunderstorm.
I strapped down the LY6 one more time and pointed the Ford down south again, dreams of dyno pulls and apexes swirling in my head. The RX-7 was waiting patiently back in New Jersey, empty but hopeful. And now, finally, it has a heart big enough to scare the neighbors.
This trip wasn’t logical. It wasn’t efficient. It wasn’t even particularly safe.
But it was unforgettable. Because there’s something about dragging a junkyard engine across the country with your hopes and dreams that makes you believe anything’s possible.
This is what brotherhood looks like: two idiots with sockets, dreams and no sense of self-preservation.
Yay!
Oh, this is good.
Reading this made me feel like I was hanging out with my own gearhead friends while wrenching on something questionable and absurd, right down to the Cumby's iced coffee. I'm diggin' it. Carry on, good sir.
This trip wasn’t logical. It wasn’t efficient. It wasn’t even particularly safe.
But it was unforgettable.
berkeley yeah.
Yeah, a fun read.
And, as they say, more to come.
Ok! Let's have your pothole jokes. That pothole was so deep I I think I saw the Titanic! That pothole was so deep it had an Event Horizon! That pothole was so deep I thought I was in a cult! That pothole was so deep it answered questions I didn't ask! That pothole was so deep I saw the devil's laundry room! That pothole was so deep......
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Cumbies coffee is life!!
In reply to James Wood :
Reading about it, now I'm craving coffee.
In reply to Paris Van Gorder :
right?! I'm always craving coffee.
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