It's been awhile since I've added anything here. In the past month or so alot has actually gone on though. I guess I'll start in chronological order to make it easiest for me to remember.
At the very beginning of July I got an e-mail from our local SCCA Region that were were going to be entered into a parade in a small little town near one of the members and that if I wanted to I could bring my car for the parade and a carshow afterwards. I figured if nothing else this would be a great time to get some face time for my various sponsors so we cleaned the outside down and headed out for a leisurely cruise through the town.
Upon arrival though I noticed that a small issue that's been bugging my car since the beginning of the year had grown much worse. My valve seals have been leaking a little bit at idle since late last year, last time I did an engine rebuild I didn't have a valve spring compressor tool, nor the money to buy one so I just left them laying in a box figuring I'd get to them later on. By the time I'd arrived at the parade it was obvious that my valve seals were no longer amongst the living. With pungent blue smoke rolling out the back of the car during the parade I was a favorite of the kids, and most likely despised by the parents. Oh well, parades are for the children and they loved the new look of the car with many of them yelling out "That one's my favorite" and "Oooh look at that racecar".
After nearly killing my friend with smoke in the car behind me we finally made it through downtown and over to the carshow area. We pulled in with 10 cars, 8 of which were imports, and as far as I could tell were the only non-american cars there. I don't know what categories they were giving awards for, but I don't think a single one of us got an award with our imports. Not really surprised though as my car is anything but a show car. We did however manage to win an award in the actual parade itself in the "Classic Car" category which I found extremely odd as the oldest car we had was an 85 Civic, but whatever.
Fast forward another two weeks and I'm in the garage with Andy Moraitis and Corey Standord, two local buddy's and dsmtuners, doing a valve seal job on the talon in the middle of the season. I'd lost nearly a full quart of oil idling around the parade and I didn't want this to pose a problem later on so the decision was made to repair them mid-season. This is like an olympic athlete having open heart surgery right before the Olympics. Not the best decision, but it had to be done. After breaking the valve spring compressor the night before and re-welding it, then losing a valve keeper somewhere down by the steering rack I managed to get the car back up and running. She's not moved much since then but I plan to put some miles on her and try to repair my dual stage boost controller.
On a more personal note Kendal and I have finally decided to get off our asses (or maybe just off my ass) and set a date for our wedding and begin the planning stages. Sometime next year I'll finally be able to enjoy the sweet rewards of reduced insurance due to being married , not that there aren't some other benefits as well. We've been engaged now for something like 3 years which is hilarious when we look back at it. Well that's it from me for now, til next time I suppose, keep her shiny side up and the boost needle pegged .