[James OLC]

Two weeks to go... and we have a long way to go...

The car is back from Southern California and a bunch of progress has been made - after three days at Turn Key Engine Supply we have a properly caliberated ECM and a pretty decent tune from idle to WOT - although we'll have to run without the wideband for now. That's not a big deal for the Silver State Classic and I've always run open loop to this point anyways so that's not going to slow us down at all. Best of Show installed our new Magnum T-56 (thanks to some help from Classic Chevy 5-Speed and Tremec) with a new driveshaft from Inland Empire Driveline. Our charging gremlins have been tracked down and chased out so we should be locked and loaded for the Optima High Noon Shootout on Saturday. The steering upgrades seem to be working and we're darn close to being ready... or at least we were until yesterday...

we've been chasing a driveline vibration since day one and think that we might have found it last night. When the new driveshaft was going in David noted what felt like some excess free play in the rear end so he pulled the center section yesterday. His first indication that things were amis came when he unscrewed the (huge) drain plug... and nothing came out. A little bit of fishing around yeilded some huge blobs of metal shavings... not good a good sign... When the center section came out the carnage was immediately obvious - the differential was completely pooched - to the point that it was actually cracked. Shoot... not a great start to the long weekend.

We should have time to get it fixed - and broken in at least a bit - before we hit the road on the 17th... I hope.