10 years ago today I purchased my Trans Am. I was the ripe old age of 16 and didn't even have a license yet due to state laws requiring 16yrs + 6mo to get your full license. The deal with my parents at the time was I could buy anything I wanted as my first car as long as I could independently afford to buy, fix, gas, register, etc. it, a tall order on a high school teenager's lifeguard salary. Clearly the best course of action was to follow my childhood dream and buy a 2nd gen Trans Am like was on Smokey and the Bandit. So that's what I did.

When I determined I had enough cash to buy a car, I printed out every craigslist ad for 2nd gen F-bodies within a 250mi radius of where I lived. Sorted them by cost vs benefit and went calling around negotiating until I found something that would work. Here's the photo of my car from from the sales ad:
Ended up working out a deal with a redneck woman named Missy who lived in transitional housing in a bad part of New Albany, Indiana to buy her running and driving 1981 Trans Am for $2500. She was selling it because it used too much gas and wanted to "upgrade" to an early 90s V6 Camaro. Being in school at the time, my dad went down to do a test drive and bring it back if it met his standards.


The car was powered by a 1978 Chevy 350 and a th350 3-spd automatic, it sounded awesome with rusted out Flowmaster 40 series mufflers running through true dual pipes.

The interior was a shit show of 4th gen F-body bucket seats, a severely broken steering column, a center console with blown out speakers cut into it and some sort of GM window switch from the 90s, an absurdly cracked dash, tattered base model camaro door panels, an Autozone special Grant GT steering wheel. One door was electric window the other had a crank window. The body was painted purple in Missy's back yard by her boyfriend "Bubba" (that's what she called him, no joke) and friend Don, a shitty paint job with mosquito bodies under the clear coat and a very clear evidence of body filler throughout. The shaker was glued to the hood since the original engine was long gone.

Of course the moment we got it off the trailer the car broke and wouldn't run so I couldn't drive it. The broken steering column above had some sort of internal fault and the key wouldn't turn and you could move the thing in all directions like an airplane yoke. Not a bad start when this is the your first day of ownership:
First order of business after purchase was getting it in good enough shape to be my daily driver. I had to make it to the school and back every day which meant it needed to be reliable, I lived in the midwest which means the heater needed to work (it never really did though), and I was a teenage boy so I had to make it in my mind appealing to girls of course. I made a parts run to a massive 2nd gen F-body dismantler I found on craigslist and he cut me some great deals since who doesn't have a heart for a 16 year old into muscle cars?
Out came the 4th gen buckets and in went some base model black vinyl seats out of a late 2nd gen, the towels are there to protect my legs in the hot sun. Note the black and gold stripe velour rear seats, a 1981 only interior option that is so rare that they don't reproduce the fabric today. Also out came the dash for HVAC repairs. A new (used) steering wheel out of a tan late firebird went in as well, it was cheap and looked way better than the Grant GT garbage Missy installed. That wheel is still in the car today but spray painted black. I also threw a dash cap on to cover the cracks, for the $100 that cost it's held up well. The center console was replaced with one from a different car and the window switch changed to a factory piece. The guy also sold me a new steering column that wasn't messed up so I could actually get the car running. While everything was out new carpet was installed too since it was relatively cheap and didn't smell like Missy's Marlboros.

Over time I learned more and more about the car and F-bodies in general. Turns out I had accidentally purchased a relatively rare version of Trans Am. My car was originally a black and gold painted Special Edition that had a turbo 301 motor, they only made 2500 or so of these cars. Learning that made me happy since I had accidentally bought essentially the 1981 version of the smokey and the bandit car. The summer going into my senior year I decided to take on a restoration/improvement project and it's safe to say that snowballed a bit...

I ripped the 350/350 combo out of the car and bought a dirt cheap Pontiac 400 motor from a '76 LeMans and 700r4 4-speed automatic out of a 90s Caprice. Also note the change to black deluxe velour seats, I got tired of burning my thighs on the vinyl. Being an absolute dumbass I installed what I was told were matching 6x heads that had had some machine work done and this was the biggest mistake I have ever made with the car. The heads were not matching, one was a 6x-4 and another was a 6x-8 which had different compression ratios. They were also machined wrong and the geometry was screwed up causing an incredible vacuum leak. Parts are/were so expensive for Pontiac motors that I coudln't afford to properly fix or replace the bad parts.
Got that package installed and running in a few months. I learned so much in that process but didn't realize at the time how much I had yet to learn. Mistakes I made building that motor haunted the car for 7 years until I did my LS swap last year. Hard starts, poor idle, overheating issues, etc. were the norm.

I then began body work since having a purple Trans Am isn't cool when you could be rolling around in a black and gold stickered out car. There was so much rust, hail damage, crash damage, 70s GM panel messups, etc. I think being so poor I had to learn to do bodywork myself is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. The skills I learned doing all the sanding, welding, sanding, bondoing, sanding, panel fitting, sanding, priming, and sanding have been incredibly useful in my life since for both automotive and non automotive work.

My entry application to engineering college was entirely based around how working on the car drove me to want to be an engineer because the problem solving and figuring out why things on the car were designed the way they were and how they worked was basically who I had become as a person. Here's a montage of 6 months of work.
Then in typical Motortrend Channel fashion, I got the car back from the paint booth and completely reassembled in one night so I could drive it to my high school car club's autoshow the next morning.
I got the decals installed just before college began and then the car effectively sat unused for four years of engineering school, only getting started every few months when I went home.

Talking about my adventures with the car along with all the cool stuff I did in college landed me an automotive engineering job with an automotive engineering salary after I graduated. As far as the car was concerned that's the best thing that has happened to it. The car got driven a ton more and even went to a car show for the first time since senior year of high school. Oh yeah I put on e46 M3 CSL reps at some point because the original snowflakes were getting ratty and had 12 year old tires, I've since outgrown them and want to go back to some wide snowflakes soon.

I blew up the 700r4 on the way home from work one day and had to make my usually 30 minute commute with only 1st and 2nd gear. Luckily, my new at the time friend @K-Roll-PorscheTamer allowed me to sucker him into doing a manual swap in his driveway. Took a couple days but after that the car had its shitty Pontiac 400 backed up by a super T-10 4-speed.

After a while longer I got tired of the Pontiac 400s issues and during the worst of Covid I temporarily moved back to my hometown and did an LS swap, all documented on the hyphen. Still has the ST-10 4-speed.
9 years after that first paragraph up above and I decided the best way to get ready for my wedding was a suspension rebuild. So last year the car finally had its original suspension and steering parts replaced after 150k+ miles of service.

So here we are today, a full decade later into a project car that unintentionally has steered me down my current life path from college degree choice into my full time adult career and has given me endless practical skills and taught me more about problem solving than any textbook could. After a decade of storage in less than ideal conditions, my willingness to treat the car as a daily and not a garage queen, and an ever present mindset of "just keep the dang thing running and driving" things are starting to need attention. The paint is starting to bubble in places, there are plenty of scratches, the panel gaps have gotten worse, the interior made of all second-hand parts is getting ratty, and I've never even thought to open the rear diff to do a fluid change... I have a feeling this project will never be done and will continue to evolve, just like me.

I’ll take better photos and post whole story tomorrow because the seller was a “Character.” But I now own a 1993 Corvette Convertible 40th Anniversary Edition. It’s in broadly good shape for 30 years of use in the Midwest with only a few issues I will likely address. I won’t say the price I paid until the flip is complete since I paid likely more than some of you would pay for a C4 but I feel I got a solid decent amount below market for the quality deal and I should be able to make a couple grand profit after enjoying corvette ownership for a bit.

Biggest pluses are the interior is nice under the grime with only wear on the drivers bolster. The factory soft top is in fantastic shape and the factory color matched hard top is in mint condition (and yes I have the factory brackets!). The car has a new battery and 2021 date tires on all four corners. I have no service info but it appears the Optispark, plug wires, and plugs were all relatively recently replaced. At the least it has no caution lights, the gauges are all happy, and it starts and pulls great. The transmission is fantastic and makes no bad noises or feelings, though the clutch has a way quicker take up than I am use to in my trans am. Factory radio also works as expected but the antenna has a slight bend preventing it from retracting fully. Body and paint are also great for the age.

Biggest issue are the front brakes aren’t working. There doesn’t appear to be a fluid leak on first inspection. I think the issue might be related to air in the ABS system. When you step on the brakes you get a softish pedal, the Service ABS and Service Stability lights pop on (only when on brakes), you get no grabbing from the fronts, and you can feel the abs trying to pulse. Rears brakes seem fine. Time to hit up CorvetteForum for a fix unless @ITA97 has a thought based on my symptoms alone.

Secondary issues are some torn factory ball joints and rusted shocks though there is no slop or noise from the suspension. The LT1 has a few small oil drips visible but nothing concerning and I’m told it’s fairly standard for the engine. Like every C4 the weather stripping is cracked. The keyless entry doesn’t work but I have a suspicion none of them do anymore with it being a new for 1993 feature. There’s a single half dollar sized rust hole along the front floor area that’ll be a quick patch if I even care. Oh and the AC vents all work like they should but it blows warm. The passenger mirror and lower fender trim are broken but the previous owner has replacement parts at the body shop right now getting painted to match and will mail them to me.

What should this project be named? Any ideas? Also my Canyon is getting 16mpg towing this thing! That’s awesome in my book.

After consulting the Oppo peanut gallery on where I should move since rents where I’m at in metro Detroit are sky rocketing and despite saving for years being priced out of quality housing, I flew down to Greenville, SC on the recommendations of @e90m3, @ash78, and @LimitedTimeOnly. My goal was to drive around and get the vibe of the area for a few days and pick out a few suburbs that I could have a realtor find me homes to review with a goal of buying in September.

After a couple days of driving through countless neighborhoods, I happened at to find a home in an incredibly cute neighborhood in the country that had just come on market the day before for an asking price that I found decently below area comps. I called the listing agent and had a proper walk though.

One thing led to another and I went from casually looking at towns/neighborhoods to touring a house, securing financing pre-approval, negotiating with the seller, and agreeing to terms and pricing (coming solidly under asking price), and being on contract for the home all within the last 36hrs. Now that the house is on contract the real fun begins with banks, lawyers, inspectors, and anyone else who wants to take money from me.

The home is 4-bed, 2.5-bath, it was built in 2014, it is almost 2100sqft, and from my initial walk through the only real issues are purely cosmetic. It is 20 min to downtown Greenville, 20min to Clemson University, and 25 min to the mountains so it’s in a nice central and growing location. It’s on a nice 0.6 acre lot with a huge side and back yard, behind the home is a small horse run, and the neighbor on the side of the home that has the large side yard has a whole row of mature pine trees and natural forest hiding their house from view. It also has a nice large covered porch that’ll be easy to screen in facing the horse run and forest land.

Inside needs a little cosmetic help, the sellers moved out and never bothered to paint or fill any holes or even wash the walls or floors. All stuff that is super easy to do but works well in my favor for negotiations. Disappointed they took all the curtains and rods too which is really unusual.

Both the kitchen and master bath have some standard builder-grade furnishings that you’d expect at my price point. If the sale doesn’t hit any unexpected snags before move-in I plan to tile the master bath to eliminate the shit vinyl and perhaps tile in a shower replacing the fiberglass inset. Soon after move in I intend to build screen panels to screen in the porch to keep bugs out.

Maybe a year down the road convert the electric to stove to a gas stove, there’s already a gas line near the kitchen for the gas fireplace accessible from the crawl space and the stove is on an outside wall so installing a range vent should be fairly straightforward. Later I’d replace the laminate counters, sink, and remainder of the original appliances as funds become available. Everything in the kitchen is functional as is, but I am a snob and don’t dig the current look or quality and since I cook a ton a quality kitchen very important to me.

Oppo question, any recommendations on garage floor covering? I’m thinking about buying the rust oleum garage epoxy kit and doing that before move-in. Sucks that the house is only a two car, but if we end up staying here long term I’d have plenty of land and a relaxed enough HOA to build a detached garage/shop.

Of course it wasn’t all serious work, I had time to be a tourist so here are some pics I took!

But he does have a nice carpet for his Caprice. After two years of a pandemic cutting into me meeting people in Detroit, it’s nice to meet another oppo in real life. Even if it is just wrenching in a junkyard. @KITT222

With my time owning the corvette. Finally sold it today to a boomer couple that will be perfect stereotypes. The husband even showed up in an old navy t shirt, white new balances, long gym socks, and jorts. You just can’t make that stuff up. I took a small loss but what can you do when you need a car gone and every seller wants a show car for totaled Nissan Versa prices and not a 95k mi manual transmission driver. I basically ended up paying $100/mo to drive a corvette convertible for the summer, I’ve spent more money on worse!

Had my 2000 Yukon Denali listed for two weeks, got a couple of bites and finally sold it this afternoon. On Oppos suggestions I asked waaaay more than I felt the truck was worth at $7400, I was going to ask $5700. Sold today for $5900 so buyer felt like they got a great deal and I got a chance to own a GMT400 and learn new skills like bullet hole repair with color match rattle cans, differential fluid changes, airbag replacement, interior detailing, troubleshooting basic BCM functions, and I got to crawl around junkyards which is always fun. Profit will probably go to the house buying fund, even though I really want a convertible for the summer.

For those that are interested here’s my total expense list:

Initial Purchase: $2,300
Used takeoff Goodyear Tires: $516.59
Tire Installation: $106.84
Oil & Filter: $22.48
New Door Handle: $32.14
Paint & Clear & Light Bulbs: $38.00
Radio Antenna: $10.69
4x4 Switch: $30.50
Spare wheel/tire and misc trim: $67.43
Registration/Tax/Plate: $285.00
Diff leak: 30.49
Keyless remote: $14.04
Power steering fluid: $5.99
————
Total expense: $3460.19
Sales price: $5900.00
Profit: $2439.81

I built a shaker scoop bracket today so I could attach the shaker to my LS engine rather than taking the easy way out and bolting the scoop to the hood. It took far longer and was much more difficult than I was expecting. The heads are not symmetric side to side so it wasn’t as simple as making a simple arch and bolting the scoop down, the engine and scoop are both at slight angles which made it very annoying to align.

I ended up doing some welding to attach 3/4” steel legs to the steel ring that’s factory riveted to the scoop. Those legs are then bolted to the ignition coils. It looks fine, it won’t win any awards but is totally functional.

I’ve checked and the shaker does indeed shake.

For now the LS swap is done. I’m exhausted and just want to drive and enjoy the car for a bit. I need some serious detailing and paint correction to mitigate all the damage apartment life has lent onto the car.

I found a 1993 Corvette listed on FB that seemed promising for a quick flip. The 3 photos all like this and description consisting of only “it has hard top to” were right up my alley for sketchy listings.

Looking at the ads photos I determined the seller had a 98,000mi LT1 powered 1993 C4 Corvette 40th Anniversary edition convertible with the rare factory hard top AND A 6-SPEED MANUAL! I decided to IMthe guy to get some more info and photos.

Again pics are crap, but he said nothing is wrong with it except there’s “probably an issue with the front brakes since it feels like air is in the line.” And a handful of videos he sent me of it doing a cold start and various features seem to show it in solid condition. It also has a clean car fax and the seller is only the second owner.

We negotiated a cash price over the phone and I committed to pick it up tomorrow. I’ve gotten a uhaul trailer reserved since the seller is 4 hours away but my biggest issue is cash… I have plenty of money according to my bank statements but the bank doesn’t think they’ve got enough cash on hand to facilitate my purchase. Ughhhh. So now I have to ask the seller if they’ll accept half cash (what I know I can get) and half bank check which sucks for everyone.

Banks are annoying since they give you stink eye if you withdraw any more than $1500, sellers and Americans in general are annoying since we don’t have a solid account to account fund transfer system or digital currency alternative that everyone of all ages can agree to work with.

Anyways, if everything works out tomorrow I’ll own a corvette and once I fix whatever brake issue is present and do a detail inside and out I’d like to do a quick flip on BaT or Cars and Bids where nice similar cars with lower milage but automatics have all been hitting $12k recently.

Post whatever you want. Here are some of my (mostly) automotive high lights from the year that uploaded in reverse order from what I wanted.

My puppy got big

I bought a 2000 Yukon Denali for shits and giggles

Saw my favorite band front row.

Saw the rolling stones, not front row

Got married

Got a puppy!

Went to Miami

Rebuilt the TAs suspension front and rear.

Went to an IMSA race

Saw some stuff I designed on a car I lust over.

These guys started to show up all over town.

Did some truck stuff

Did more truck stuff

Got a kitty

Did an LS swap

Painted a Jeep

Who knows what this year has in store.

I still do not recommend them for your stuff moving needs. The TA is back in Detroit after a long winter and the Canyon got 15.3 MPG towing the trailer 315mi on the interstates today at 70mph, not bad. Especially since we were probably near the weight limit of my Canyon with the trailer, the TA, tools and parts in the TAs trunk, a truck bed full of bridal shower gifts, two humans, and a cat.

@AkioOhtori Engines are easy... figuring out wiring harnesses and ECU/BCM interactions to make them run is not. I'd recommend swapping something where an aftermarket harness and ECU is available or where there's a large enough group of folks doing the swap there are instructions on how to modify an OEM harness for swap use.

@davesaddiction @e90m3 I got priced out of home ownership of any quality home in a decent suburb in metro Detroit so I packed up and moved to SC since I had the opportunity to work full time remote. It may hurt my career advancement options at my current company, but it's been the best thing for me financially and mental-health wise so far.

Why spend $300-$400k on a never-updated sub-2000sqft 70s split level on a quarter acre lot with high property taxes and costly car insurance when I can spend the same or less on a larger significantly newer home on a lot 3x the size in an area with lower taxes, cheaper insurance, much nicer weather, with access to mountain hiking within 30min.

@wheelerguy And yet the field still doesnt want Andretti-Cadillac

@dogisbadob Ah yes, the comments section, where people who don't matter can pick apart your whole car for insignificant flaws.

"Well Acktually... the hose routing sticker on your core support is a design from Tuesday March 31st 1998, and you say your car was built on March 1st 1998. So what else could be wrong with this car?! Seller is a scammer! Hssssssssss" - BaT people

@ForSweden at least it’s the new GX and not the leather clad Trax version ‍️

@Snuze if you’re there see if you can grab a handful of the fasteners used to hold the bumpers and such on. They always seem to get lost and cost far too much money at parts stores or dealers!

@facw @Exage03040 Shoot, I sold mine for more than that! And I had almost 100k miles and the body damage/rust to prove it. Probably made more because of the manual trans though

Edit: The "lets go brandon" sticker on the soft top window is peak C4 automatic convertible driver.

@Snuze pick up some used replacement parts from car-part.com and fix it for cheap. No need to buy new parts when used OEM stuff should be readily available.

@tysmagic keep those gas cans, they have the good “unsafe” and “bad for the environment” spouts that aren’t overly complicated with buttons and shit that are hard to use and always leak. EPA mandated design changes in 2009 so everything in store isn’t as simple as the old design.

@Chariotoflove Grilled pizzas in the bandit household.