Categories:
By
Murilee Martin on November 28, 2012
So I’ve still got an Integra GS-R engine sitting in my garage, waiting to be swapped into my hooptie ’92 Civic DX— because the fifth-gen Civic, with its ease of parts-swapping and galaxy of aftermarket stuff, is to the present day what the ’55 Chevy was to the 1970s— and when that happens I’ll need better brakes, right? Problem is, whenever a third-gen Acura Integra (which was a fifth-gen Civic with luxury and performance upgrades) shows up at a cheap self-service junkyard, it gets picked clean faster than just about anything this side of a Toyota Land Cruiser. It’s much like a ’55 Chevy owner in 1974, discovering an intact 396/4-speed Caprice 20 minutes after the car hit the yard at the U-Yank-It. When I found an intact ’94 Integra while on a Junkyard Find photo expedition at the Denver yard near my place, I knew I had to work fast. (Read More…)
By
Murilee Martin on August 2, 2011
Introduction • Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 • Part 8
After
installing a junkyard-centric, street-sign-based instrument panel and 20-pound “pullout sound system,” I hit the streets on my post-college-graduation job search. After all, with a newly-minted degree from the University of California in hand and the Bay Area from San Francisco to Concord, Santa Rosa to San Jose as my search area, I’d soon be raking in sufficient Benjamins to install a 6-71-blown 427 in my Chevy, right? Short answer, learned after several hundred increasingly grim job interviews:
no. I really feel for today’s recent college grads, since I had it
easy compared to what you poor 22-year-old, in-student-loan-debt-up-to-your-nodules bastids are facing… but still, with no income other than the occasional junkyard-wrenchin-fer-cash gig and death-to-soul office temping (more on that later) showing up for me, I felt the abyss (i.e. graduate school) looming ever closer. What to do?
Hit the highway! (Read More…)
By
Murilee Martin on January 31, 2011
Since I’ve got ungodly quantities of top-shelf booze thanks to my other job, I figured I’d celebrate my 900th birthday by having a party and pouring said booze down my guests’ throats. A couple of them went overboard on the gift department, including one who made me a coupon for free brake work on my Dodge A100 Hell Project. (Read More…)
Recent Comments
Summicron - I botched that good.
wumpus - It might get me kicked off this site, but I can’t help but think that it makes whole lot more sense to sell to the 1% (maybe .01%) something like this vehicle that...
Summicron - I would give Kristina asylum. “Vaelkommen til Wisconsin, aelsklig.”
PrincipalDan - I’d be interested in trying a Fusion with the most powerful engine but then I’d be thinking while driving it… “Wonder what the...
redav - It’s about space mostly. A 4 cylinder can be made plenty powerful just by increasing the volume of the cylinders, but that increases the size &...
BigOlds - It has definitely been edited. The original text read: Having gone from 40 percent to 53 market share in just 5 years, Ford is forecasting even more growth...
Ryoku75 - Between this and carsurvey I must ask, why do Panther buffs insist on starting their comments with “I’m 22 years old”...
Landcrusher - Call me a cynic, but I think Musk wants to sell more cars less than he wants to make more money and keep his political clout/protection. The...
wumpus - Anyone know what the interest on the load is? I would be shocked if they managed to release bonds with lower interest (especially on the heels of...
Quentin - So, my Prius, that makes peak torque of 295lb-ft at 0RPM, is clearly faster than both. /troll Torque alone is not a metric of performance. You have to look...