Since I didn't bother (nor cared to) backup my kinjoppo posts, and due to a lack of anything better to do on my lunchbreak, I thought I would do the best thing: talk about myself. Everyone loves that, right?

My car love goes back to preschool, where my mom would buy me hotwheels cars to surprise me after school. My chosen career path? Monster truck driver, apparently. Hey, it still could happen...
You know the story. Played all the racing games, go karts, bumper cars, whatever I could get my hands on. It started to wane a bit in my later years, due to Pittsburgh not being much of a car town. At least it wasn't back then.

Then I got my license. Was like I woke back up. It was exactly what I had hoped for.

Scraped and saved, and bought myself a Porsche 944 n/a as a highschool senior. No looking back at that point.

Unfortunately that car died from a combination of sams club tires, sleep deprivation, and a wet/oily road surface. RIP my beloved Stacy.

Following that, I bought myself a '10 cooper s R56. It sucked and I wont forgive Mini nor BMW.

Currently have my restoration+ project, a 1979 Firebird Trans Am, 403 3-speed auto car. Been trying to get it legal for 6 years now, but hey it was pretty rough and I am working out of an open air Pennsylvania driveway. Specs are as follows:
Rebuilt Oldsmobile 403 engine, kb hypereutectic pistons , 9.5:1 bored .024 over. Comp 260h cam. Pertronix HEI coil and module. Hooker competition headers. Trans go shift kit, Pro touring f-body subframe connectors and solid body bushings. Pypes 2.5 inch x flow exhaust w/glasspack style (street-pro) mufflers.
Makes 309 crank horsepower, but 425 lb/ft of torque.

Looks great in pictures, but it's pretty rough. About a 20-footer. Currently needs front suspension bushings, wheel bearings, front calipers and a powersteering rebuild and mechanically it will be pretty thoroughly overhauled at that point. Longterm plans are a 5 speed manual, rear discs, a better diff, fuel injection, and a nicer stereo on top of a cosmetic restoration.

Also, I have my lovely '18 FOST. I put mud flaps on it.

For the future, I plan to do some hyper mega crunch saving (which I have done successfully before) in order to have enough cash to partly finance both a house, and a Caterham Seven. Being that I am still fresh in my new career, I expect this will take several years (curse you student loans) but my eyeball math works out.
Here's to hoping everything goes back to normal. Should you have any questions regarding buying/maintaining a 2nd gen f-body, feel free to DM me. I am still a somewhat amateur mechanic but I know a great many of the pitfalls of these cars.

Hopefully my posts begin to transition from wrenching posts, to event posts....

Sparco pro corsas

I like em, but my options were limited.

To your detriment oppo

Still got some minor flu-like symptoms, but according to the county I should be able to be in public. Gonna give it a few more days for giggles.

Good news though, nice 60 degree day today. Gave the ST a bath, and went for a walk. I also like to periodically fire up the 'bird during winter to cycle the fluids, and my tinkering must have paid off. Once it got gas, it snapped right to life. Idle settings were correct and everything. Engine is extremely happy, wants to run.

The problem with restoration is that its 5x the amount of work a car would otherwise demand. Not only are you fixing the car, assembling an entire car from scratch, but you are also restoring many of the parts while also fixing and diagnosing problems with them. Also, you are also disassembling an entire car, and having to fight over each piece you remove.

In other word(s), I think I'm selling the 'bird. After I get it street legal, to both take less of a financial loss on it and to not be a quitter. I have no desire to continue, despite my continued love for these cars.

Tesla Crashes
I remember when autopilot first came out, and I said that Tesla was going to be in hot water over their marketing/ choices regarding to it. People said "your crazy. Everyone knows it isn't full autonomy. You have to agree to it. Nobody is that stupid. Besides, theres nothing the government can do legally if someone agreed to the T&C"

Well, contracts have to be in good faith, and even in liability waivers there still has to be "due care"

I'd post a gif of the "I told you so" dance but people are dead. So I'd rather just say F off Jalopnik commenters.

2 days, 2 springs. Yup, thats how long this took.

You notice... Something wrong there? I was driving on these springs, couldnt tell anything was amiss. The drivers side was broken in two places. My only guess was that the two stub ends were still engaging the control arm and frame cup.

PSA time. Like roadkill? Vice grip garage? Do you want to buy a ratty old car, fix it for peanuts and drive it cross country? You can actually do that. However, DON'T. Every single thing will deteriorate. Brakes, suspension, engine and transmission. It will work, but it is hilariously dangerous. You will not be able to pass state safety without entirely overhauling the car.

Classic cars aren't some amazing unparalleled driving experience. I have driven several. I wanted them to be amazing. They are just cars. Yes, they are fun. But the only thing a classic can do that a modern car can't is the nostalgia. Understand that you are sacrificing a tremendous amount of performance and safety for little to no benefit other than style points.

I'm sorry to wreck your dreams. But after six wasted summers for a car that I can't get my money back out of, I am only trying to help you.

@haplesshatrackhackattack its a holdover from old oppo. If there wasnt any posts in over an hour (usually at night) an oppo would post something quick, so that the kinja bigwigs wouldn't think we weren't using the site and shut us down. Not really necessary these days but old habits and whatnot

@chariotoflove I think I speak for all the shareholders here when I approve of the oppo puns.

Just feel like posting an update. Thanks for all the support from Oppo.
Doing ok, slept all day which really helped with my main problem, waiting for cyberpunk 2077 to come out...

Everyone in my family is ok. Really, really recommend you dont get this. All those symptoms? You dont get them all at once. Its like a roulette wheel. What is going to be f*cked today? Not doing too bad on the respiratory front. I am not really congested (although there is sinus pressure) and have full lung capacity. Got a dry cough that occasionally results in a big uhh... Glob. Fatigue obviously, big time soreness. I'm going to be fine, and my family who all got infected first are all on the mend. My sister lost 8 lbs!
Yeah, looks like im definetly going to need that time off work.
Bonnie is here for lots of hugs.
If you want to know what you can do for me, post pictures of kit cars or firebirds.

So a project/thing I wanted to build for a while now would be a custom portable computer/console that just does game emulation. And when I say games, I mean absolutely everything short of the new/current consoles. Stuff I can download en masse without feeling bad considering none of the people responsible for coding this stuff will ever see a dime. So, nothing newer than ps2 and a handful of xbox 360 games I paid for.

So the fun part: current technology is perfect for this. I was originally going to use a raspberry pi, but as my father has stepped in to help me (he is an IT pro) the project has reached an excellent result so far. So let's talk details.

Currently, we are using a lenovo thinkcentre model m10 ab with a intel core i5 pricessor and a 500gb SSD. My father has been playing with these machines and picked one up for cheap, less than $200. You can get these with an i7 but we are talking old console games here. With the SSD it boots immediately which is amazing for me and makes me realize how badly I need to update my tower. It is also perfect for replicating that game console experience.

On to the software: primarily, what bundles everything together is a shell software called launchbox/bigbox. If you are super into pc gaming, launchbox is nice as a free software that can bring all your steam/gog/origin/whatever games into the same launcher. Bigbox is premium, but uneccessary. In my case, bigbox is designed as a UI companion to launchbox specifically for homemade arcade cabinets. It is totally worth it in my case as it completes the look, and the functionality. It automatically downloads box art, screenshots, publication data, and even autoplays gameplay video! Very, very slick.

Emulators are whatever you prefer. Retroarch is a similar piece of free software that brings all of your emulators together for updates, control schemes, ect. but my experience has been much less positive, especially on the user friendliness. Almost seems better to run dedicated emulators.

Trials and tribulations: so my current status is that of having general functionality for testing purposes. I have n64 and the sega genesis/mega drive working under retroarch fairly flawlessly. Gamecube is running under dolphin, although no way to access the UI with just a controller.

Speaking of which, I am running xbox wireless controllers using the proprietary dongle. It's a great option in many respects as they take AA batteries (no proprietary irreplaceable rechargable packs), they are durable, will likely be available as replacements in the future, and have good connections. Few issues though. To prevent updates and background bloatware from messing things up, we are using windows 10 LTSC, For whatever reason, the drivers were built into normal windows and not the dongle. This necessitates downloading a few xbox peripheral apps... Which LTSC can't do. They cut out the store. Lets just say, it was an uncharacteristically BS run around to get these working. Now that they are working, the only issue I am having is that the xbox overlay (which is what you get when you press the xbox button) doesn't return to the proper window when using it. It's a minor problem, but I would like to keep it if possible as I like to use the clock.
Watching some videos on similar projects led me to this nice, portable, and wireless logitech keyboard/mouse, that also takes AA batteries and has a long life:

As for the classic arcade games.... Those are going to take some serious fiddling. If you are interested, look into MAME emulation. Currently I have some mismatch between software or ROM files or some other nonsense.

Still to do: Currently waiting on downloading some ps1, ps2, xbox 360 games to test those. Think I am also going to get the SNES games working also. Need to set everything up to run big box on system boot up so that windows is never shown.

Look for a DIY guide when this is all done.

@way2blu even with batteries, why is it 9000 lbs? Dafuq?

@mm54 the issue is that these need sanded and painted, and I really dont want to drop em off just to pick em up and then go back and drop them off. Specialty mechanics are RARE in the 'burgh.

@pos_camaro I am so not looking forward to that part. I've heard drilling them out and collapsing them is the preferred method.

@mm54 ill keep that in mind, thanks. Im iffy about reusing these shims, they are flaking.

Took me a few hours to get my upper control arms off. The shaft nuts came right off, but the shafts themselves were stuck on. It is odd, as the bolt holes are not threaded. Just... Rust. Heres the bolt that gave me the most trouble:
Enjoy the carnage

@just-jeepin we should brainstorm some funny/ punny paint code names for our upcoming OPPO car company

@just-jeepin chrysler has all the best. Plum crazy, hellraisin, sassy grass green, lime time, the list goes on.

@mazda616 Nocturne blue for the t/a, in 2018 ford ditched their cool names and kona blue was replaced with just blue metallic.

@hammerheadfistpunch

@aestheticsinmotion this man is insane. Have you seen the instant legolas? Fully able to be built with ancient tech. Incredible.