The menu - Humble pie.

[sbcb]

Myself and a good friend have been winding each other up for the past couple of years about the oh so slowly progressing project cars we have. The plan is to meet on a drag track when..... well mine goes so I guess its when hes ready, and sort out the bragging rights.
The combatants are his VK dunnidore six cyinder verses my EBII Gli.
Doing my homework before I started I found the EB2 to be the best and quickest buy for my budget with the 4.0 motor proving to be considerably better than old 3.9.
Shes had exhaust and headers, K&N and a full service and tune and runs pretty well if I might say so myself. King low springs, monroe GT gas shocks and 17" ROH gladiators with basic rubber greatly improve my grip on the planet. The 4spd auto has had the electronic shift kit treatment and does pretty well. The old girl has done 18000km under my helm (got her at 247000km with a shagged motor, replaced that) and has been used as the do everything hack. Her work creds include lugging every piece of household renervations she can fit in her folded rear seats. By the way if you pop the lower seat cushion out you can fit a 1.5m bath across the back seat, you might have to keep the windows down to fit it but what other car car fit a bath across the back seat! While we are there, a chest of draws, 19 fifty litre bags of bark, retaining wall bricks you name it she does it all. Part of why I love the old girl.
Fully tuned and with the mods the old girl can do over 500km round town driving on a 68lt tank, thankfully.
So I have plenty to be proud of, particluarly as I have no mechnical background and have relied on the trusty haynes manual, mechanically minded mates and fan sites such as this for my education.
The mate on the other hand is trying to make a slow car fast with cams and triple carbs yawn I fell asleep about now. He has had four VK bodies to play with now and has only just managed to get one together, also using a toyota gearbox.
He arrived yesterday, engine roaring, wheelie up my driveway and full of confidence in his personlly developed weapon.
His car, as we speak sits in my garage, bonnet up, dead as a turd. Probably electrical as it fires and dies immediately and fuel seems to be moving. His girl friend summed it up for him, why of all the places it could have stopped did it do it here. I simply said it was the pure intimidation of what it stood facing.
So the busted **** general sits in my garage, flanked by the wifes car (AUII XR8 which growls intermittently at it), and he left to drive his couple of hour trip home in MY proud as punch EB2 Gli. YEP arrive in his bad holden and leave in MY Ford, I'm still grinning about it now. He conceeded he was impressed by the open road fuel economy from his trip home in my old falcon. I hadn't tested it myself since the exhaust and filter was done but she was on target for 730km on the 68lt tank (we installed a trip computer). Goes to show not all impressive perfomance is grunt, it does go well, earns an honest living, and does it all at pretty dam good economy.
Proud day for the basic machine and the Ford flag never looked higher or brighter at our house.
Look after your old EBs, they deserve it, they rock.
Stil can't get the grin off my face.