Here are a couple more photos along the way. Before we even got an hour under way climbing up the hill towards Park City I had one of my drag bags pop, which dropped the car low enough that the tire would scrub on big dips and bumps. It tore up the right rear tire a bit but some road side redneck engineering got the fender lip rolled up. I crammed a hammer handle up between the sheet metal and tire and had my wife drive back and forth a couple feet until there was enough space to clear the tire. It made it the rest of the way to GA sagging on the right side but the tire didn't rub any more.
This photo was our first stop, just outside Denver, CO where we stayed overnight. Didn't I say it looked crazy?
Overall the car ran great. The toughest part of the trip by far was in Utah and Wyoming, those up hill mountains just killed me. The car was already running rich and in some places running full throttle in 2nd gear just to maintain 30 mph on an uphill climb did wonders for my MPG average. There was one particular hill I used 3 gallons of gas in 5 minutes of driving. Running a bit rich you suppose? Look how black with soot the chain is behind the exhaust tips, lol!
With the Dan Howe fan shroud the engine stayed right around 190 degrees for the entire trip, although through the mountains the trans got up to 250 degrees a couple times and hovered around 210-230 for most of the trip. Normally it runs around 190 on longer trips.
We took it fairly easy, my wife wanted to keep it at or below 70 mph. This was about 2000 rpms for me. I wanted to go a little faster, my car felt better cruizing around 2200-2300, but a happy wife on a road trip is a good thing. I figured my gas mileage when we got to my in-law's place in Wichita Kansas, right about 10.5 mpg average for the trip so far. The Suburban was right about 8.5 mpg, even in all it's girth with a 454 and TH400 backed by 4.56 gears. I was a bit disappointed by my mileage but figuring I was hauling my car with about 500 lbs in the back plus a 3400 lb car in tow, plus the weight of the dolly, I guess that's not that bad. Outside the air bag fail we had a relatively easy going trip, not one other problem along the way.
This next photo was in Kentucky I think.
After the second day we got creative and realized that a trip to a grocery store for Lunchables was just as positive an experience as a happy meal for the little kids. Way to keep the kids happy and save money too haha. In using this method I discovered the fine art of manifold baking. Frozen egg rolls, deli sandwiches, hot dogs, yeah they heat up real nice wrapped in foil and placed on the intake for a couple hours.
After 6 days, visiting with family in Missouri and Kansas and a whole lot of gallons of used up gas, we finally made it from the Salt Lake City, UT area to Acworth GA. A couple key things that made the trip fun for me- spending a whole bunch of time with Roman, something we didn't get much of prior to this. Laughing as we'd ask each other at the end of a day of driving if our hearing was still muffled because of my ridiculously loud car, goofing off with my family in Super 8 motels along the way, visiting family, and getting a ton of compliments and thumbs up on the car along the way.