3 DAYS TO GO....

...until we break the car in practice again. Thats right - the race is this weekend! The semi truck arrived last night (which means yes, the neighbors called the cops on us twice yesterday due to that thing being parked outside), the car is nearly ready (more on that below), and the drivers all continue to look like balding monkeys behind the wheel. That can only mean one thing - its racing time!

The last time we put out an update, the engine was sitting in the car, we had 90% of the connections made correctly, and the clutch was still out.

Sadly - the forecast of 10% of the connections being right was very accurate. The clutch - yeah, we never got than cursed thing back in the car (AND managed to break the hydraulic line in the process). We did, against all odds, manage to get the engine to crank over, but not start. Thus, we borrowed a neighbors truck which had no brakes (perfect for towing), and towed the Slaab back to the shop for help and assistance.

At Tony's, we managed to get the engine running after correcting numerous connection errors, got the clutch installed (amazing how having the right tools makes a difference. We're at my house using Landon's plastic screw drivers and ratchet set in comparison). We even managed to get the car started...and then we hit a problem.

(no - the problem was NOT that the car was a Saab. We already knew about that problem.)

No oil pressure.

So we returned the following night, yanked the engine back out due to what we thought was the wrong oil-pick-up-line-thingy-ma-jiggy. After a full night of work, we realized that, uh, it was a part we forgot to put back on the car (and did not require pulling the engine). About that point in the night, we made a beer run to keep Tony happy, because otherwise he was going to smack us with a Swedish mallet. Here is a video of the car roaring back to life after a 5 month Norwegian Cruise vacation:




So....engine is back in. It runs (mostly - it needs a tuneup still). We feel good about the car running well enough to get us into trouble on the track and break it. But more important than all that "engine running" and "driving skills" business....

It looks good. DAMN GOOD. And lets be honest...we need all the help we can get looking good. Our goal of having the best looking theme'd car this year is looking like great odds at this point. We probably added 50lbs to the weight of the car with all the paint, but we are offsetting the speed penalty with our high-tech plywood splitter and sheet metal air dam. Fab-Man-Nick (otherwise known as the Brit who calls all the tools "spanners") did a great job getting it on the car. All parts of our car follow the 10' rule - from 10' away, it positively looks bad-ass. Up close...yeah not so much. Maybe we'll keep stanchions around it at a 10' distance in the pits.

Below are some pictures of the finished product: