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Blue 92 - The Kid is Back

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Write-up with more photos tomorrow.

2000 miles in 4 days, broken exhaust, snow, Slow240, Tail of the Dragon & a Bigfoot museum.
 
Thursday after work I drove from San Antonio to Houston to prep for the trip and complete a wasted trip to the VA.

When my daughter got home from work at 7 I packed up while she at something for dinner. At 7:30 we hit the road with a goal of hitting Lafayette Louisiana. It started off fine until we hit the highway. Had a bad steering shimmy at anything over 65. Because I'm 3 hours away in San Antonio while my daughter stayed behind in Houston to finish her senior year in high school it went slightly undiagnosed. She took it to her school vo-tech class thinking it needed an alignment - which was completed and done pretty good aside from a now crooked steering wheel.

Made it to our first stop without any real issues around 11:30 pm. Woke up at 7 for a terrible hotel breakfast & trekked on. About 1/3 of the way across Mississippi we peeled off looking for a shop to handle a quick wheel balance. Located a Wal-Mart, but they were booked solid the next 3 hours. According to the girl scheduling it was because tax refunds were in and everybody was buying tires. We didn't have 3 extra hours, so back to the highway.



Pushed on across Alabama and into Georgia then Tennessee. Forgot about the eastern time change, so we lost an hour for that. By the time we rolled into Chattanooga it was dark and beginning to snow. Let off the throttle and the car got loud. Gave it some gas and it was marginally quieter, but off throttle was pretty loud again. Off the highway and into a covered gas station.

Crawled up under the car to find the center resonator pipe leading to the muffler broke loose. Located an O'Reilly 5 miles away and picked up a slip fit pipe and pair of clamps as a temporary fix. Of course it was west, cold and snowing at this point as I was under the car patching things up.

Grabbed some solid grub at Taco Mamacita in Chattanooga. Initially there was about a 45 minute wait,, but the hostess felt bad when I told her I hadn't eaten since Louisiana and snaked us a couple seats at the bar.

From there is was a short 45 minute drive to Loudon Tennessee where the hotel was reserved. Checked in around 10:30, but lost a second hour due to time change.

Sunday morning we woke up, sent a text to Slow240 who was staying on the NC side at a fellow turbobricker's house and headed east. Highway 129 started about 30 minutes from the hotel. I did the initial drive because I wasn't sure about road conditions and I heard snow was in the forecast.

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At the start on the Tennessee side.

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Stopped so she could take black & white photos for her photography class at a "rapey-looking" building acording to Slow240.

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At the highest point on 129 there was a light snow, but it didn't stick around past 11.

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Was supposed to meet Aaron at the NC side at 9 am. He was a no show by 9:30, so I let her drive. We drove up to the first scenic overlook and turned around to head back. Didn't pass a single car in either direction until I saw a lifted blue Volvo round the corner about 3 miles from the end on the NC side. Turned around and met up with Aaron and ran back up to the scenic view for some photos.

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Ran back and forth a few times. I let my daughter drive as much as she wanted. She let me take a run playing leapfrog with Slow240. I think I surprised her with what her car can do. She was a little scared at first, but by the time we were ready to go she was starting to scare me a bit with some slight understeer due to some wet corners.

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Wasn't much to pick from for eats on the way out on the North Carolina side. Huddle House was the only thing open, so we stopped for a second breakfast.

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Handed off three 6-packs of Texas beer, one 6-pack of St. Arnold's craft root beer for Aaron's wife, bottle of Franklin's BBQ sauce, some What-A-Burger spicy ketchup, some Texas salsa and a bonus jar of Dreamland BBQ sauce I picked up in Alabama.

By then it was about 2pm and I was way behind schedule. Plugged in a destination into the phone & parted ways.

Lost all hope of receiving a signal someplace near the NC, Georgia and Tennessee bermuda triangle. Stopped for directions and was pointed in the right direction again. Were able to find another Wal-Mart that wasn't super busy. Stopped and had the tires balanced only to find we have 2 bent Hydras. Got them balanced reasonably and transferred to the back. Back on the road & it was so much better. Put the pedal down & were cruising at 75 with no issues.

and then fate brought us to here :

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Had to do a hard braking for a u-turn. No way we were missing this.

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Spent 30 minutes learing all about Bigfoot research. By then it was 5pm and we were noplace even close to home. Throttle down and headed west. Made it to 45 miles into Louisiana before giving up around midnight.

The next morning grabbed some Awful House for breakfast - no road trip is complete without it - and continued west. Made a quick stop at a junkyard looking for some Volvo parts when a state trooper nailed me driving 67 in a 55 on a side road. Didn't realize the speedo was that far off as it was showing I was at 60-62 at the time.

No Volvo parts aside from an S60R out front that doesn't look like it's moved in a while.

Another 5 hours and we were back in Houston. That's pretty much it except I had another 3 hour drive from Houston to San Antonio plus an additional hour for traffic due to construction.
 
That video really doesn't do it justice. I will always enjoy running a car 10/10 with no fear of sudden death.

We were balls out, dive bombing corners, and I was giggling like a schoolgirl. I think our top speed was a little over 45mph? So damn much fun.
 
Was back in Houston over the weekend. Good thing I ordered that IPD exhaust. The temporary exhaust fix gave up on her was home from work Friday evening. Laid everything out in the garage, got the rear up on jack stands & got to work. Finished the exhaust just before dark.

The oil needed changed and she wanted to tackle it on her own. I supervised & held the flashlight because it was dark by then.
No photos because I'm sure you have all seen an exhaust before.

She picked up a pair of black cloth Subaru Impreza front seats off craigslist on Saturday for $100. Need to figure out the best way to get them to fit.
 
Went back to Houston last weekend for the girl's high school graduation. Had a bit of a hiccup with the car the week before. Developed a transmission leak that she wasn't aware of and ran low on fluid. Had to pay someone to handle it as I'm still working in San Antonio which is 3 hours away.

They replaced the leaky gasket, installed a new filter and refilled the fluid. They also took care of a noisy A/C compressor.

Leaving for her graduation ceremony :

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Went junkyarding with the boy & girl last Friday while I was in town. No luck with Volvo parts, but was able to pick up a Neuspeed upper stress bar, Neuspeed lowering springs and a CL Type-S rear sway bar for the boy's 01 Accord coupe.

Sunday morning girl & I installed new brake pads all around. I showed her how on the driver side and she took care of the passenger side by herself.

On Tuesday her e-code headlights showed up from the Netherlands in great shape. I'll be back in Houston in a couple weeks and we'll install them.

For her graduation present I just booked her a flight to Costa Rica for 11 days where she's going to volunteer at the animal rescue center - http://www.costaricaanimalrescuecenter.org/

If anybody wants to make a donation to the center please see the link above.
 
I was back in Houston this weekend to pick up my daughter at the airport after spending 10 days in Costa Rica.

I was able to get the e-codes installed. I put some clear Lamin-X on the lenses before installing them to help prevent any stone chips. The old headlight mounting hardware was so rusted I pretty much had to destroy them in order to get them off the car. While I was at it I also installed some S70 side marker lights and used the polisher to bring a bit of a shine to the paint.

Under the hood I installed a new thhermostat and added some Redline Water Wetter to the coolant to help keep the temps down. She was complaining about a slight hesitation with the initial throttle so I also added a set of 850 N/A orange top injectors after doing a lot of reading here first. The original injectors were pretty grungy and were most likely sticking a little bit.

Lastly inside I put a blue dash mat on to keep the sun from baking the dash in the hot Texas sun (shoutout to PDX240 for the speedy delivery - I wasn't expecting it so soon). While installing the Volt gauge in the dash and running the wire to the #12 fuse panel Ifound a bunch of debris around the heater control valve. I cleaned & vacuumed out all the leaves so hopefully it will operate better now and no longer be stuck on heat full time.

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Checklist of thhings left :

Order an adjustable cam gear
Install the VX cam
Paint the valve cover
Make & install some lower front chassis braces
Order a set of GT style front tower braces
Order & install new rear shock
Install the IPD rear bar at the same time as the shocks
Install water temp gauge
Get new windshield installed
Figure out how to adapt the WRX seats to fit the 240 base

Longer term items :

Buy 225/50/16s for the BBS
Order wheel adapters
Do something about the single stage paint - possible DIY plasti-dip
 
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