:thumbsup:

Andrew

We went to Stubb's downtown to get out of the heat - decent place.

I thought the BBQ sucked... LOL!

I'll cut that bad-boy out of billet for ya!!!

Stubb's in one of the favorite music venues in town, and I actually use their Dry Rub when I cook my own ribs. But I don't eat there... :\

OT - do you know if there sauce is vinegar based?

Here in NC you basically have eastern NC (vinegar based) and western NC (tomato based) and I have to say I prefer the tomato based bbq sauce.

Oh I'm very familiar with the NC BBQ. I grew up in Greensboro. :) I don't think of western NC as tomato based though, I think of it as a sweeter sauce while eastern is a bit more spicy. Perhaps I haven't had it far enough west. :)

You could actually buy Stubb's sauce in the NC grocery stores when I lived there. Stubb's sauce is definitely more tomato than vinegar, but it does have vinegar in it (I have a bottle in the fridge, I just looked. :) ).

I personally prefer their Mesquite sauce flavor, but I have both that and the original in the fridge at the moment...

NC-style bbq is one of the things I really miss being here in Texas. Just something you can't get down here, although occasionally you'll find a good sandwich.

Nice - agreed it's definitely more sweeter the further west you go.

If you are ever back in NC - I suggest going to Lexington NC - there are a few BBQ restauraunts that so far that I have tasted are my favorite in the area.

As for Texas BBQ - my GF and I are driving out to Dallas TX for the Hot Rod Power Tour and will have to check out some different places out there.

Funny thing is that neither of us had been to Texas before - and here we are going twice in 2 weeks!

Here favorite places in NC are up in Boone and out in Brevard.

I'll have to look for Stubb's in the grocery store - can't say that I've looked for it.

Do you think temperature wise - Dallas is hotter then Austin?

If you have the time - I highly suggest you check out the Power Tour.


-Craig

Oh boy another tread has gone of track, :poke: you guys are making me very hungry with all this talk about BBQ :drool: :headspin:

Boner ---


Best BBQ sauce EVER ---- Billy Gibbons (ZZ TOP) has his BFG sauce... and it's by far the best I've ever grilled with. Stubbs is pretty good -- but his is better.:thumbsup:



http://www.billygibbons.com/index.ph...bbq-sauce.html

Yeah thanks Greg but their out of stock :guns: my wife hates how many BBQ sauces I buy all the time. Now I have to keep checking back to see when they are back in stock. :thumbsup:

That air cleaner pic is hysterical! Nice job! So much time.... so little to do!


I really liked those Recaros we were playing with. I may even join you and put a set in the Muttstang.


Now.... back to the BBQ.

I've got a really nice set of Sparco's that I'm selling which, according to Rob, work great as high-chairs. :D

That may have to be all I talk about today, as it looks like my plans for a test drive have been thwarted by mother nature today. :(

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psde06581f.jpg

:grouphug: :mad:

Wait isn't it being built to drive??? Just sayin :D

YES! But since my windshield wiper motor has been stuck in DSE's warranty department for 2 weeks, I don't have any wipers! :( And I'd like to roll it out and take some pictures at least once before it gets filthy!

Rain-X!!!

Saw it today, looks great Brian. Love the dash..:thumbsup:

X2!!!

Or, drop down into South Carolina and get some Carolina gold BBq. Now, that's some good stuff. The clear/vinegar sauce is second best for me. I get mine from the little town of Kingstree, SC from relatives.

I also agree with you guys about Texas BBq and brisket. It's good but when you're raised on Carolina pork BBq, all three sauces even, nothing compares. I also really hate it when "good" BBq, at least according to locals, obviously uses KC Masterpiece as the base for their sauce. Boring. I miss my southern food and Carolina BBq.

When I was in Ft Worth back in 2011 for a few months, I would go to Cousin's BBq. I liked it. The pork had a kick to it. Other's like Risky's but I haven't tried them. You may be able to find them both in the Dallas area. A good burger joint is Kincaid's.

:drive:

I'm way too tired at the moment to write an appropriate post, or even to talk about barbeque, but I wanted to let everyone know that TOW moved under her own power today. Just a parking lot drive, but she moved! We have a couple of small things to work on after the short trek, but I'm beyond excited!

If the weather holds out tomorrow, we'll get her out for a real drive. I have some tuning to do on the ECU, and Eric has a little work to do on the pedals to get them positioned better for me. But she moves, steered, and stopped all as she was supposed to!

Pictures and maybe a video tomorrow... Bed time now!

Way to go!!!! It's been a long time coming. Looks like a great memorial day for all.

Great to hear Bryan!

Even a little parking lot drive is rewarding! :thumbsup:

Soooooo it's morning?? Have you been back to go for a drive, or at least what's the weather report for today??? :hairpullout:

Did you see that San Antonio got 12" of rain in 24 hours??? He can stretch that excuse all the way across I-35 to Austin. :secret: :D

We had some crazy rain here the last couple of days, but did have that window of clear in the afternoon yesterday. The forecast for today looks like it will be ok, so I'm hoping for a little more than the parking lot. First stop, gas station, or we won't be going very far! :)

I'm working on my idle tune this morning. When I updated the ECU to the latest firmware, it wiped out my old tune. I have it saved, but I'm trying to only take back the pieces which I think I need, since there were some aspects that I didn't think were right. Hopefully I'll have her running better this afternoon!

We need to change out the brake light switch, the new one appears to be flaky. We also need to adjust the pedals a little bit (bring them up higher), and throw the passenger seat in so that Eric can ride along with me. :) We knocked out a bunch of little things yesterday to get to this point, and we'll get a bunch more done this afternoon!

Hopefully one of us will remember to grab a phone and record some video too. :)

I know a nice back road out to Driftwood.... you could grab some awesome lunch...


:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :poke: :smiley_smack:

Congrats, Bryan. That first drive no matter how short is always fantastic.

Today, we were able to take a real drive! We managed to get a lot of little things taken care of first, including replacing the brake light switch, installing the passenger seat, installing some seat belts, working on the HP EFI tune, installing the sail panels, and adjusting the pedals. After we finished all of that, we started her up and drove off. First stop, gas station. :)

I pur 10 gallons of premium in her, and we took off along a feeder road to the highway. I didn't push it very hard, we probably saw about 60 mph. We did a u-turn and came back up the other side. Everything was mostly smooth, but we noticed that the coolant temp was creeping up to about 215. We hit a stoplight where we sat for a couple of minutes, and it didn't come back down. So we decided to bring her back and see what was up.

We're not exactly sure what happened, but it appears that the thermostat never opened. It stabilized at 215, but the radiator was cool when we stopped, as was the radiator hose. So it doesn't seem that we had any flow, and thus the belief that the t-stat didn't open. We're going to investigate that more soon.

We have just a couple of minor things to deal with after the drive, but on the whole, it seems like everything is in good shape! I have a lot of work to do on the tuning, it's lean off idle. And the spark table seems to be too aggressive (we had a little knock), but when it was driving, it felt pretty good. We didn't log anything yet, we'll do that on the next drive.

On the whole, I'm very happy with our weekend! I have to travel next weekend, so I've left Eric a little list of things to do. By the time I get back, I think the car will mostly be wrapped up. Then we get to DRIVE!!! Woo hoo!

Good to hear Bryan!


You're in capable hands with Eric turning the wrenches that's for sure.



BTW --- Didn't happen without some video so we can hear that bad boy!

Agreed!

I think Eric took about 10 seconds of video on the drive from the shop to the gas station. After that, we were both too focused on listening to the engine and feeling for any problems that we didn't pull a camera back out! :\

As for the sound, it sounds AWESOME! I'm so glad I chose the Pro-XS mufflers instead of the XR-1's. In the short drive, it sounded just right to me! We'll get some video when we hit the road again, within the next couple of weeks (I'm traveling next weekend, so I won't get to drive again for a while).

:dance: :beavis: :hapdance:

Nice Bryan glad to here it went smooth for the most part, now next time if there's no video :warning: :warning: :poke:

Love everything you've done to the TA. I think I have gone through the entire thread at least three times!

Thanx Al!

There are so many details that go into a project like this which are hard to capture. I know I've commented on it a few times, but I did more work for the shaker yesterday. I custom made a set of PCV hoses to enable the factory LS PCV system to operate correctly. You'd be amazed at how much trouble we had finding pre-formed 90* bend vacuum hoses. Then we spliced a couple of them together to get the hoses shaped exactly right. Eric's idea, and it worked out great!

Another thing I forgot to mention in my last post was how well the car drove in a straight line yesterday. We haven't touched the alignment yet, we just installed everything and drove. I know that Jake does some level of alignment setup on the subframe when he ships it. While I was driving yesterday, I let go of the wheel, and the car was perfectly straight! That was pretty cool... :)

We're taking the day off today, but we'll be back at it tomorrow. More soon!

Great to hear you got it up and running, look forward to next update :thumbsup:

Cheers

Almost there man.... I bet you wished you were not traveling next weekend. :)

Since I am traveling, I can only do a couple of things. One being, post pictures. :)

Here are a few of the interior mostly put together. You can see in one shot the vinyl covered aluminum panel which Eric built to replace the original plastic inner panel. Eric built some wood formed and bent/stretched the aluminum over them. Then some landau foam and the vinyl, and they slipped right into place. Definitely looks better than attempting to cut/reform the originals.

Most of the other interior pieces are in-place at this point. We received the DSE replacement wiper motor, so the gauge cluster can go back in for hopefully the last time. The replacement Fesler hood struts are also here, and Eric says they are holding the hood up appropriately. It would seem that I didn't set up something quite right in the ECU to control the AC Compressor, so I'm working on that today (I had a polarity inversion in my input definition is seems). One of the other things I can do from afar: tweak ECU settings. :)

This week Eric has also replaced the thermostat and flushed the block, to make sure the cooling system is running ok. He's also gotten the AC charged (despite my programming issues), raised the car up a little, and knocked out several other small things.

Here are some pics. I look forward to getting back next week and driving it again!

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps9a563c8d.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...pscdff51a5.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps8a52487e.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps900b657d.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps2069af4b.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps994f07a2.jpg

It's hard to see in this picture, but Eric made a mesh screen to keep large objects out of the shaker, and built an edge plate around it to bolt it in place. Looks great in person!

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psf5c72adc.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps3542674c.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps0e5ab7b2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psfb62b150.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps831c7419.jpg

The back panels look great. Nice to see it's almost there...

Now I'm curious when the first track or autocross day is.... There's one in Bastrop Sunday.......

Good question! I'm actually out of town this weekend, and I hope/expect that we will be going on a longer drive next weekend. I will drive it a bit on the streets to see where it's at, and then I'll find an event to hit soon. It sounds like you're trying to hit a bunch of them, so I'll definitely hit you up to find one to join you at. :)

Awesome man... looks great.. you must have borrowed Rob's camera for those epic photos. :disgusted:

:thumbsup:

Hey, come on... My cell phone pics aren't THAT bad! :hitaxeonthehead:

Looking good Bryan!! :thumbsup: that does suck you had to be out of town this weekend.