Now that the body mods are finally finished and the car is back on the road I hope to have a summer filled with car show, events and miles and miles of fun. Of course me being me I will no doubt think of something else to upgrade. After all isn't that what hot rodding is all about? But hopefully the next project will not take eight months!

        There should be some local shows and events coming up soon but my first road trip will be back to Mississippi to see my buddy Mario and attend the LeBlanc Nissan car show.

        Now that I have done all this major body work the insurance I had with my old company is looking even more lame. All along my insurance has been cheap because the company based the coverage on blue book value which I am sure would be next to nothing if the car were totaled or stolen. I have just signed up with Grundy Worldwide and set the value of the car at 15K. Guess what? Its actually cheaper than what I had before, amazing. Of course there are a few restrictions but nothing that will affect the way I use the car.

        After all the sanding, primering and painting the windshield wiper mechanism seems to have taken a hit. Not that Datsun wipers are really efficient but they now seem even worse. I am headed out of town soon so I pulled the stock wiper assembly out, cleaned it up and greased all the moving joints. It helped some but the whole thing lacks true efficiency.

        This past weekend was the LeBlanc Nissan car show in Mississippi. I took the car to get gas on Thursday and the starter sounded like it was about to give up the ghost. I had noticed some weirdness with it earlier but that seemed to go away, yeah like these things ever "just go away". But with no time to change out the starter I decided to go and hope for the best. As it turned out there were a few anxious moments where the starter just clicked but eventually it always started. Looks like the infamous heat soaking GM starters are known for. I picked up a new starter and installed it after I got home. The show was fun but the turn out wasn't what it had been the previous years. There were only 8 of the 240z, 280z and 300z variety and 14 of the newer 350Z and 370Z. I didn't win anything, a really awesome restored 280Z rightfully took our bracket. But I got a lot of compliments on the car. The only down side of the trip was Mario and I both getting nailed by a local city cop for doing 89 in a 70 on I-10. Damn!! My first ticket in 25 years. I blame Mario, after all he was leading!

        After installing the new starter and the heat wrap I did some research on the infamous GM starter heat soak issue. Turns out it isn't a starter problem but a solenoid problem. Apparently the solenoid starts requiring more current as it gets hot from header heat and the system drops voltage due to the resistive wiring GM uses in its circuits. The solution, believe it or not, is to use a firewall mounted Ford remote solenoid. You use the existing GM solenoid wire (purple wire) to activate the Ford solenoid. You leave the bat terminal on the starter hooked to the battery positive terminal and using a heavy gauge wire, at least an 8 guage, connect the battery to the input side of the Ford solenoid. The output of the Ford solenoid is then connecter to the "s" terminal on the GM solenoid using another 8 guage wire. That way you get a full +12v to the GM solenoid, problem solved. I made a bracket to mount Ford solenoid just in front of the battery. In addition to this modification I wrapped the exhaust pipe that runs under the starter with header wrap. I hope this will help keep some of the heat off the starter. The old starter wrap I had is pretty much shot due to being removed and reinstalled several time, I will get a new one for extra protection.

        Ever get the feeling you live under a dark cloud? Now I realize this really nothing, just pisses me off. I went to a Caffeine and Octane meeting today. After parking I reached down to pop the hood and the hood release knob disintegrated in my hand. Fortunately there was enough left to operate the release. One of the guys on HybridZ sells some very cool looking billet stuff, one of them is a hood release knob so I ordered one of those.

        Even a blind hog............ I went to a car show on May 29th and actually walked away with a trophy, 15th out of about 50 cars. I was shocked, even though others told me I should get something. My car is hardly show quality. Yeah its different and draws a lot of attention but compared to some of the rides that attend these shows its pretty lame. But it made me feel good and I'll take it. Of course now I feel like I need to do some more detail work on the car, LOL.

        Several people have stated that the Taurus radiator fan many of us are using can draw as much as 60A at start up. I never debated that but I have been using a 40A relay for over 17K miles. But statistics are statistics and the NC contact on the high speed relay finally burned up and I lost all fan operation. I was able to swap the low speed and high speed relays and get home. I have purchased a 80A relay and installed it using the low speed computer control to only run the high seed winding of the fan. I see no reason to use the two speed capability of the fan. Hopefully this one will last longer.

        With the mechanics and body about as far as I am going to take them I decided to upgrade my sound system. The stereo I have now is very basic and the speakers are very lame and 20 years old. I picked up a set of 6.5 Kickers for the rear and 4.0 Kickers for the front (kick panel space is limited) and will build some enclosures for them. The rear speakers will sit just ahead of the rear wheel wells and have a slight upward position. Once again I will use my new found fiberglass skills to construct the enclosures. I was able to use the existing kick panel I had made for the passenger side as a mold, but had to start from scratch on the driver's side. For the front speaker mounts I found a CD stack holder is a perfect fit for the 4 inch speaker mold.

        Trophies? We don't need no stickin' trophies. Well, its kind of like saying this is more HP than I will ever need, it just doesn't hold true for very long. I had been to a few car shows just to get public opinion and that ego boost you get when people like what you have done with your car. But I really never expected to win anything. But when I did it was quite a rush. I found myself taking a little more time cleaning the car before shows and what do you know I won again, and then at what I thought was a rather high caliber event I once again was awarded a trophy! Damn, its getting addictive. I still don't believe it when they call my name, my car is no show car for sure. It must be the "wow factor" of seeing a small Japanese sportscar with a Corvette engine and some major custom work. Whatever it is I'm having fun knowing all my hard work is appreciated by fellow car nuts.

        After building my new engine I never really addressed the cam change in the PCM. The engine runs fine, strong and gets 18-24 mpg. But I decided to get a tune to take full advantage of the LT4 hot cam kit. I contacted LT1 PCM Tuning in Cincinnati about a tune. He will do it several ways, send them your PCM or if you have the software to program the PCM you email him your present tune and fill out am on-line form and he will send you a new tune to your specs. I picked the later method. After you upload the new tune you capture a few runs using DataMaster software and send those to LT1 PCM Tuning. Once he receives your first log, and verify things look good, then he can send you two calibration images to begin fine-tuning your timing/fueling tables, both at part-throttle and WOT. During our conversations about the tune and my issue with not shifting at WOT he thought he had a fix. Unfortunately that fix did not work. It might just be that I expected to see a noticeable difference but I really do think I could feel the car pull stronger all the way through the RPM range. I did a few runs and several issues became evident. Number one was the WOT shift issue. Number two, my injectors are running at 80% which is too high. He recommends getting 30 lb injectors. He also suggested getting a LT4 knock sensor module to eliminate the possibility of false knocks to the headers and roller rockers. I have ordered the injectors and knock sensor. He did send me a new program which has solved the WOT shifting issue, basically it short shifts 2nd gear like I had before.

        A very weird thing happened to the car last weekend. I got out and noticed the interior lights did not come on when I opened the door. I checked the fuse and sure enough it was blown. Connected to that fuse are the LED kick panel lights, the dome light which is still the old Camaro light using one of those weird festoon bulbs and the two accessory plugs I use for the GPS and charging my cell phone. After changing the fuse it all seemed to be working again. Hmmmm, these things just don't go away. I was right, next time I opened the door.....no lights. After an exhaustive investigation involving many blown fuses I discovered for some unknown reason that festoon bulb was the culprit. It would light but after a minute or so the fuse would blow. I pulled it out and replaced it with a LED substitute and all is good.

        I was looking at a custom wide body Corvette at one of the many cars shows I attend and noticed he had a cool looking license plate frame that incorporated backup lights. I never put backup lights in the Z so I asked where he got them. He told me he got them from VLEDS.com. They come in chrome, black chrome and satin black, I got the black chrome. I had to do a little modification to my taillight panel to get the frame to fit, but that is something I have wanted to do since I first built the panel.

        Kudos to GM for building the LT1 engine with a cam driven water pump. Fifty miles from home at 75 mph my alternator decided to self destruct. I noticed the voltmeter was sitting at 8 volts and knew right away I had lost the belt. No worries I carry a spare belt, just in case. Unfortunately not only was the belt gone the pulley on the alternator was loose. I tightened the nut holding the pulley and installed the new belt but it was obvious from the horrible grinding noise the front bearing in the alternator was gone. Not really knowing where I was it took me a while to find a auto parts store and then trips to two other stores before finding a store that had the alternator in stock. Thankfully I had a fairly new battery but I drove around 20 miles so I had to be close to battery death. I swapped in the new alternator and continued on to my destination arrived two hours late but at least I was not sitting on the side of the road!

        As 2011 comes to an end I look back and reflect on the car. After the exhaustive 5 lug wheel swap which morphed into an eight month total body modification the car was back on the road in April. The spring and summer were filled with car shows and cruise-in events. I was pleasantly surprised with the awards and acceptance I got at all these events. I am still amazed when they call my name for a trophy. I will admit the trophies are cool but really the comradery from fellow gearheads is what keeps me going. Hitting six events in a four day weekend probably means I have become a bit obsessed! Sometimes due to the logistics of the shows I have put over 300 miles on the car in just one weekend. But driving the car was the main reason for building it in the first place, the rest is just bonus. Of course I could have done without that $169 speeding ticket in Louisiana!! There have been a few setbacks like the blown starter, fan relay and alternator but with just a tick over 12,0000 miles on the new engine I am not complaining. Overall these were minor and the car is averaging 18.8 MPH for these 12,0000 miles. I sure can't complain about that for a car that is this fast. I added a few things to the car over the summer like new speakers, a kick-ass license plate frame with backup lights and some polished and chrome goodies for under the hood. I also got a PCM tune for the engine which is still in the fine tuning stage. But it did make a big difference in the performance. So as 2012 approaches I am looking forward to more of the same and wondering what ideas I will have for upgrades. Maybe a new console, carpet and a stereo upgrade, we'll see.