3/16/07

I didn’t make an entry yesterday because I knew I'd have a lot to say today. My cold air intake for Matilda finally arrived so I knew I'd be installing that when John and I went to the shop. Also, I suspected that Mr. Wiggly would be ready and that there would be a tale in that. So, here goes, I called John around lunchtime to see if he had spoken to Steve/John. He had. I asked if Mr. Wiggly was ready. It was. We came up with the following plan: I'd swing by John's house after work and pick him up. From there we’d go to Steve/John’s place and get Mr. Wiggly. I'd drive Mr. Wiggly to the shop with John following in Matilda. Then, after we were done installing the CAI I'd drive him back home. Well, that was exactly what we did. I pulled into his driveway about ten minutes early and waited. At 1640 h I tried to call him. No answer. I waited. At 1645 h, the time I was supposed to be there, I called again. No answer. I waited. At 1650 h I called again and got through. “Smello?” he said. “Where are you?” I asked. “In the house,” he replied. “Where are you?” “In your driveway,” I re-replied. “I’ll be right out,” he said. He came out and hopped in the passenger seat. We were off. At Steve/John’s we talked for a bit, like an hour and a half, and I paid my tab. It was actually about $200.00 less than I had expected, which I suppose makes up for Mr. Wiggly's zorst being about $100.00 more than expected some time back. I hopped into Mr. Wiggly and we were off. Well, ok, I stalled it three times trying to back up before getting the feel for the new clutch. I knew if I didn’t ‘fess up to that, John would have busted my balls in an aside right about now. I pulled out onto Precinct Line, or whatever road that is, and accelerated away. What a difference! I still hadn’t got the feel for the clutch totally and jerked and popped it a few times. At the highway the thing ran right up to speed with no issue. I could even lug it down into the power band and still pull away from slower traffic. I was quite pleased. We got to the shop and I parked then came around front to see that John had already opened up the back of Matilda and unloaded the CAI. He asked if we could load the Velox wheels to take back to his house and I must have made a face or something. I didn’t intend to, but somehow I gave the impression it was an imposition. I over compensated with my reply that it was fine so I think he might still think it wasn’t, but it was, really. Oh well. We walked in the shop and John saw the turbine wheels on George. “Those look AWESOME!” he said. “I really expected to hate them,” he continued. “Which I can say, now that I don’t.” I just smiled as if I knew all along that they were going to be really bitchin’. Truth be told though, I wasn’t really all that impressed when I first put them on. Don’t get me wrong, I was going to use them no matter what, but I was kind of surprised by his reaction. Well, Petey just told me I have an appointment in fifteen minutes so I'd better go. I'll be back to finish later. Ok, I'm back. So, John liked the turbine wheels, much to both of our surprise, and we were ready to move on. He began loading the Velox wheels in the back of Matilda while I rounded up all of the tools that were lying on George. I didn’t put them away of course, just rounded them up on top of the toolbox. Who do you think I am, the pope? And if I were you’d probably be all like, “Straighten your pope hat,” and junk. But I digress. We roll George out and John snaps a few pictures before we lose all daylight. I pull Matilda in and we get to work. I had read the instructions the other night so I just got started while John read them. I jacked up the driver’s side front wheel and took it off to access the inner fender. We both worked on removing the battery and he took off the upper hose while I yanked the old air box out. I swapped the mass air sensor to the new upper pipe while he worked on getting the wiring harness shifted out of the way, or something. Since he didn’t volunteer to sit in the dirt and remove the inner fender, I went ahead and got to work on it. It pissed me off to no end. The inner fender pissed me off that is, not John's recalcitrance. I sure hope that is the right word because it really makes me feel good using it. Anyhoo, the little clip thingies fought me, every one of them. Finally got them all out about the time John saw me getting pissed off and tried to help. I got a touch snippy because I was already pissed at the car and snapped, “You are right where I need to be!” I apologized for yelling and hope he knew it was the clips and not him I was pissed at. “And now, on a very special ‘Girlie Feelings Show,’ we’ll all talk about our feelings and being girlie.” Sorry, where was I? Oh right, I get the inner fender out and we snake the lower pipe in place. I bolt it down when he tells me he has the upper end set and ask Marty Smith for the filter. Did I mention Marty Smith showed up? Well, he did. He tried to give us shit about sucking water up the intake and we both said that that only happens to dumb asses who drive through deep water. He tried to make it out that any moisture hitting that filter was going to hydraulically lock the engine. I finally blew him off and got back to work. I installed the filter while John buttoned up under the hood. I reinstalled the inner fender and wheel then lowered the jack. We put the battery back in and finalized the, um, final finalization, finally. Since he was cleaner than I, I asked him to back the car out for me. He did and went for a trip around the building. He came back and said it was a definite improvement. We cleaned up and headed out. Oh, we rolled George back in and locked up the shop as well. We ate at Don Pablo’s then I took him home. I noticed an improvement in the quickness of the engine’s revs but there was also a slight decrease in torque. It is still very drivable and a whole lot of fun, but the intake honk is also diminished. All in all, I'm going to declare it a net gain. Since I have to go pick mom up at the airport tonight, I decided it would behoove me to wash all of the dishes that had been collecting in the sink for the last week. I got done with that around 2330 h and went to bed. Of course I had to watch an episode of “Scrubs” before going to sleep because I'm stupid. This morning it was all I could do to get up and come to work. The first thing I did when I fired up the internot this morning was order a bypass valve just in case I do get caught in a situation where I absolutely must drive into deep water. Juan never knows. Well, I guess that’s about it for this week. I'll talk to y'all again Monday. Toodles.