What are you doing?
 

So what is everyone doing with their cars? Cruises? racing? Throw out what's going on, maybe there's some events we don't know about

This week, Robbinsville cruise night Thursday, Jackson outlets Friday....except baseball both days (last year :() so I'm out. Probably autocrossing Sunday with Philly SCCA.

Good topic! I like it

May is hectic for me on the life front, started a new job a few weeks ago and have a baby (our first) coming in about 4 weeks time. Aside from that, I still will find time to enjoy using the car as often as I can. I have been to Island twice this season (would have gone more but there were several rain outs). I probably wont drag-race again till about August, because I want to get stuff dialed in for autocross. The big event I like to do is the UMI autocross challenge, and if all goes will with the wife/baby situation, I would still plan to attend (yes I am registered). I was also hoping to get over to the Camaro nationals, which is no longer in Fredrick, MD... but is now over in Morgantown, PA at some auto museum. Problem is, that is is the weekend prior to UMI. I can't attend the GM nationals (carlisle) this year because it is mid june.

I keep a car show, cruise night, and race event calendar in the garage and write down which events are a possibility. I do not intend to go to all of these, but I attached a photo of the calendar for anyone in the Northern NJ area that was looking for May events.

This weekend is the car show in Mine Hill (unless it rains out)
Next weekend I hope to do the Wharton one at the Knotty Pine Pub,
and the weekend after that I really want to finally get to the big show at the M&M/Mars candy headquarters over by Hackettstown.

Aside from that, the Cruise Nights are happening in Hackettstown at the Lowes/Wendy's parking lot, and the Tuesday night cruises in my hometown of Roxbury start in June.

I am goign to try to get on over to Island Dragway at the end of the month to spectate when the Street Outlaws Team Texas cars come for an exhibition event.


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saving up my pennies to have Larry fix up my trans am. Recently sold HHR SS to neighbor down the road who has a bunch of rare chevy cars (TB SS, STS-V, old GTOs). No recent bad cars to flip yet, next one might be a 2ZZ powered Toyota (Vibe GT, Matrix XRS, Corolla XRS) lol.

Hopefully TA will be car show ready this summer. want to try to make it to Flemington Pontiac day or Somerville one day.

Nothing but racing Friday Night Gambler Series @ Island. Trying to dial in the 80 Firebird with the sbc. Not a quick car but it works. Have my carb out for refresh at T-4 carbs for the 57. That will hit the track soon.

Did the M&M show I think in 2019. On my bucket list. Won't do it again. Hot day sitting around isn't my cup of tea. I would go as a spectator though. It's close I could ride my bike there,

No car shows or cruising for me

Just got the Camaro running after a broken knock sensor. I'm going to Hot Rods and Harleys in Rahway on Saturday. Probably wont take the Camaro...

Not sure yet. In the process of selling/buying house and dealing with some fun back issues. The dust should start to settle come early June and awaiting the blue bird to get wrapped up at Larry's to get that out and about. Black TA should fire over and be mobile too. Haven't touched it since the winter.

way too much. house is draining me and the fleet is up to 11 vehicles lol.

Hackensack PBA car show at Riverside Square Mall on May 22nd 12-4p. will probably be my only event for the season and I plan to break out the old 88 Camaro for that.

Should change the name from Pampered-Z to Moneypit-Z

So now that Summit went 1/8 mile I'm not running the series. Too hard to dial hard with a manual. In the 1/4 I could use my top end speed and play the top end. So not sure how much racing I'll be doing with it?

Spent the winter fixing ALLOT of stuff on the car, and spending allot of money!

Priority : Last year I continued to chase an issue where the car would very randomly cut out in the higher RPMs. ( no codes, scans looked fine ) Tried a bunch of stuff with no luck. So over the winter I tore everything out! build a new engine wiring harness from the ECM out to the engine bay. All new connectors, replaced every sensor, ign module, coil, opti, wires plug etc. Made about 7-8 passes and that seemed to fix the issue.

Fixed some stuff like re-wrapping the headers and Y-pipe, install some stuff that has been sitting around for year. Panhard relocation bracket, some new gauges, interior work like repainting the roll bar.

While working on it I noticed small stuff like the rubber boots on the ball joints were starting to dry rot, so fixed all them and replaced allot of bushing with new Poly..

Now that everything SEEMED GOOD - I decided to upgrade to longer wheel studs but they don't make the 3" in metric, so I had to buy new axles with 1/2" x 3" studs. (Ordered in February - still waiting!)

So was out cruising and noticed the clutch was sticking when it got hot. pulled it apart and the clutch was toast! badly worn and lots of hot spots. Called Mcleod and they no longer support the LT1 street twin, so I switched to a Spec stag4. Just got this installed and having issues. The peddle releases almost at the floor ( I have the Tick master turned all the way out ). Spec suggested driving it for a few hundred miles and see if it changes. Drive it about 40 miles so far and no change..... If not it has to come out and get sent back. Read on a few sites Spec may need to shim it?

AND ODDLY - Now there is a guy interested in the car and has made a significant offer that I'm REALLY thinking about?

Working on my outside toys so I can look into the next car project.

Taking my wife's vette to car shows.

Sadly this friday looks like rain, May 22nd the millstone cars and coffee starts back up

Took the black bomber to the baseball game today lol

Moving to Bethlehem, joining a street racing crew and working on my 1/8 dragy hits.

Great topic!

I just got plates for my Camaro earlier this week (I let the registration lapse because I couldn't get it inspected and it went too far for me to be able to renew it) and now I need to put a fresh battery in there and enjoy it around town. My daughter is dying to go for a ride in it.

Went to the Cops N Rodders cruise last night for a bit. First time. Hoping to go to Steelstacks cars and coffee on Sunday. Looking for events to hit when the kids don’t have sports which is not easy…
Planning to go to the Camaro Nationals (July) on Saturday for the day. Looks like it will be a great event at the new venue. Which btw is an amazing place if you have never been to the classic auto mall.
Would be up for a picnic event at Duke Park if that is in the plans this year.
Will see if I can get out to Jackson tonight. Was hoping to go to maple grove for the no prep kings race tonight.
-Doug

Just finished up replacing a blown head gasket. While I had the heads off I also replaced the valve seals and welded up a small crack in one of the headers. I installed a crankcase evacuation electric air pump. Pulls 7 HG under boost.

Jackson got canceled tonight due to rain threat

This electric vac pump has been an idea rolling around in my head for over a year. Care to elaborate on parts, cost, and setup? I have read about using salvaged OEM ones from some of the oem cars that use them which would be more budget friendly, and other ones that are high dollar. I am leaning much more towards a compact electric vac pump that i can tuck away, instead of a belt driven mechanical style. If you want to PM me instead thats fine, as I am not sure it fits the overall theme/topic of this thread.

This is the pump I bought https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000C9LARQ...roduct_details, connected to running voltage it produced 4 HG when car was under boost. I then added a voltage increaser https://www.amazon.com/ACEIRMC-Conve...49&sr=8-3&th=1 to increase voltage to around 18 volts, which increased the vacuum to 7 HG. The pump is activated by a hobbs switch at 1 lb of boost (could also be activated by a vacuum switch if non boosted) . I'll put together a diagram showing how I eliminated the pvc valve and the other parts that I added. I'll get some pics also.

Some pics of where I mounted the air pump. Air pump dumps fumes under car only when under boost, at idle and cruise fumes are directed into intake. Voltage booster is in plastic box next to the air pump.

Here's a diagram of the air pump circuit. The two check valves route the vacuum when pump is on and off. The vacuum relief valve controls the amount of vacuum when in cruise and idle, takes the place of the pcv valve I used this valve but in reverse. https://www.mcmaster.com/valves/valv...and-inert-gas/. I have it set to 5 HG at idle. I bought the vacuum relief valve at mcmaster carr. The large check valve is just a common smog pump valve https://www.ebay.com/itm/25457608737...05db55fbb4581b The small check valve is just a cheap 3/8 plastic piece.https://www.usplastic.com/catalog/it...x?itemid=36843

awesome awesome. yea some of the questions I was going to ask you, you actually just answered for me. I'll come back to this thread and maybe send ya a PM if I ever decide to do this project. as of now, its something I'll just keep as a future project. Thanks for the info, I am sure someone other than me might find it useful.

No problem, one important thing I left out, there is a foam filter inside the air pump that needs to be removed.

Drive the car more than 2-3x this year. Already did once and the baby loved it, granted just around the neighborhood.

Having issues getting that rear belt to lock so I want to play with it more before actually taking her out again.

Hoping to hit more cruise nights and maybe a small local show in the fall.

Haven't been doing much with the Camaro due to work on the house and getting my daughter's first car up to snuff.

Found an '02 Saturn SL1 with 52k miles on it. Clean car, was an older person's car that was garage kept until the owners prior to me. They bought it for their daughter's first car. They ended up selling it because it had a persistent check engine light for a cylinder 1 misfire they they couldn't get fixed and the car had a lot of 'vibration' when the engine was running. When I went to look at the car, brought a compression tester with me and can of brake clean. Compression test was good, and a quick shot of brake clean at the intake base showed a leak at the gasket on cylinder 1. Figured it was a leak of some kind as the car was idling at about 1100 RPM anyway, even warm. The engine vibration was a completely collapsed upper engine mount. Also noticed that the engine never really reached the 'right' spot on the temp gauge, and the scan tool showed it topping out in the 160's.

Ended up negotiating the price into a 'reasonable' range given the current used car market. Couple of bucks in parts (Intake gasket, upper motor mount, thermostat, all the appropriate fluids) and some bruised knuckles (with my daughter, she wanted to learn!) later, mechanically the car was sorted out. A quick (and more expensive than I would have liked) trip to the tire shop to replace the tires, two of which were original to the car going by date code, and the car was ready to drive.

Unfortunately the prior owner's daughter was not a very 'clean' person. Lots of spilled beverages in the seats and carpet, lots of food under the seats. Most of the khaki interior had a nasty black 'sheen' to it. Ended up taking apart a lot of the interior to clean it all out, shampooed the seats, etc. Got rid of the interior 'funk'. It cleaned up surprisingly well.

The exterior of the car is about what you'd expect for a 20 year old vehicle, with all the associated bumps and scrapes you might expect especially given the usage as a first car by a less then caring person, but there wasn't any reason I couldn't make it look better. So, out came the rotary polisher and the Meguiars to square away the paint, topped it off with some ceramic wax and now it looks about as good as it can.

With gas being so damned expensive, I've been using it a lot. It's got it's quirks (Manual everything except transmission, not even ABS) but it's a surprisingly competent car. Drives nice, it's comfortable, and the AC is nice and cold. Doesn't feel 'slow' even though it's a massive 1.9l of 99hp fury under the hood. I'm honestly going to miss using it once my daughter is done with her learner's permit and has her license.

I'll tell you one thing, though. I really wish Saturn as a company was still around. The manual for the car is actually useful with actual service procedures in it. It's really easy to work on. Transmission fluid changes are a breeze due to a drain plug and an external spin on filter, oil filter is in an accessible location. Nothing is 'buried' or hard to get to. Changing the intake manifold gasket wasn't that big of a deal even though it's on the back of the engine. It would be interesting to see what they would have done had they not been bought by GM and eventually killed off.

I'm starting to feel that at $5.40 a gallon, filling the tank should count as a 'mod'.

Drove the purple people eater today for the first time in many months.

Need to quit screwing around, and replace the water pump, the radiator, and unf#@k the transmission cooler setup, which currently bypasses the radiator and only runs to a front mounted and possibly ready to fall off cooler fastened via those nifty through-the-radiator-and-AC-condenser zip ties.

Quick Chek
 

Was that you at the Quick Chek today around 1:15-ish

Was going to say hello but you were getting back in your car.