My Name is Steve, I am 33yrs. old, married to my loving wife Doreen, with no children... yet! We live in a House we recently purchased in a small community in central New York. I work for the New York State Department of Corrections as an Officer and my wife works as a supervisor for the local Wal*Mart Distribution Center. We both enjoy cars, although my wife prefers only to drive them, while I prefer working on them as well.
I am originally from the the City of Buffalo, NY and remain a loyal fan of both national sports teams in Buffalo... The Buffalo Bills, and the Buffalo Sabres.
My first car was a 1972 Plymouth Valiant Scamp with a 225cid slant six, which i had for nearly 3 years and still holds a dear place im my heart to this day, although it has gone to the recycling yard in the sky.
I next purchased a 1974 Plymouth Valiant that recieved the transplanted engine from the earlier car, unfortunately the rear gears had been changed to 4.56's without my knowledge and the engine quickly blew on the highway a few months later.
My next car was a 1978 Ford Fairmont wagon, which was a great party barge for a teenager, and saved on a lot of motel costs. :) I drove the Fairmont for about 2 years before selling it for $250 as it was litterally falling apart.
Which led me to my next purchase, a 1976 Dodge Grand Fury Sport with a 440cid Magnum engine and a 42gal. extended trip gas tank, the car had the police package on it, and topped 150+mph on the Highway a few times. This car came in third place at Erie County Fair's Demolition Derby before blowing the trans.
At this point I was convinced by a good friend of Chevy's superior vehicles and found myself a 1976 Camaro "Black Widow" with a 305cid and a 3spd. trans. I still have this car, and while it has been in storage for the last 16 years, she isn't to easy on the eyes. This was the first car I began to transform into a road beast.
This is what was eventually done to the Camaro;
The '76 Camaro (Black Widow) has a stroked 350 (383 with .030 over bore) with an Edelbrock Victor Jr. Manifold w/ Holley 750 dbl pumper and a Crane cam (.510 lift, 244 dur @ .050), 10.25:1 TRW pistons,2.02 aluminum `Vette heads (pocket ported, bowl blended and port matched), 8" Fluid Damper balancer, MSD 6a ignition, Hooker Super Competition Headers w/ Flowmasters and cutouts, Sub-frame Connectors, 10-point cage, Ladder bars, Ford 9" with 4.56 gears, Th-400 w/9" converter (3800 stall), and N50-15's in back with MT slicks on 10" monte Carlo rims (10.5"), it has fiberglass hood, fenders, trunk lid, and doors plus Lexan windows. It has run a best time of 8.18 @ 85.1MPH in the 1/8mi. and 12.54 @ 104.3MPH in the 1/4mi.
From here I went found myself a cherry 1967 Camaro which already had nearly all the work done on it for me. This was a Blown Smallblock which i cannot even guess at the internals it had... I owned it for 4 years before a loss of oil pressure ruined the crank and rods. I am trying to dig up an old picture of this baby.
I then Bought my first NEW car, which was a very big deal in my life. It took me a lot of hunting and patience, but I finally found the car I wanted.
This was my 1985 Bruick Regal Grand National. The saddest part of my life included this vehicle, in the space of 22 days I had an apartment fire, losing everything, Lost my job, and cartwheeled the GN. :(
But at least I got to spend a little over a month with my Pride and joy... And I still have a few pictures of my bad black Buick.
Well I had to find a replacement car fast, and without a Job, there wasn't much I could afford, so managed to talk my parents into giving me thier 1987 Ford Bronco, which I kept around for snow plowing duties until the only thing hold it together was the rust. I eventually found a new Job, got myself out of debt, and bought a 1985 Fiero. (Yeah yeah, I know it's a chick car...)
Since there wasn't too much to do to the 2.5litre "Iron Duke" to get much performance I decided to have fun and go the "add-on kit" route for this car. To be honest since the car was so light (all plastic body panels), and that old 4-banger had around 125hp the car had a little guts to it.... But converting her into a fake Ferrari was a great big hit
out at the clubs with the ladies, so I never minded what my friends would say about it being a "chick car" and had fun with it for about a year and a half.
At this point I finally had enough money to buy my next new car, and I chose a 1989 Probe GT which had the Turbocharged 4-cyl 2.2 Litre engine. This puppy really few and with a 79cent mod to the wastegate it would produce a constant 12psi boost constant rather than the stock 7.8psi with a temproary overboost to 12psi. Allowing it to nail a 9.96 in the 1/8mi. which matched a lot of the Dodge Daytona's and Eagle Talon's running at the time. It actually beat my friend's 1987 Mustang GT twice in street-light matchups to 60mph! I had it topped out at a police radar-gun clocked 141mph coming through Pennsylvania one time so believe me this was a little rocket that got 31MPG!
I then met my wife, who was the original owner of our 1987 Chevy Monte Carlo SS. To be honest, I made a lot of jokes about her car being a dog, and how it couldn't get out of its own way. This way becuase the Probe would simply dust it off the light, and just pull away from the stock SS without hardly trying. I was also fondly remembering the "true" performance of my old GN and at the time the SS was still in production they were commonly thought of as GN wannabees. Eventually the TCC solenoid puked on the Monte and I found this as a good excuse to talk my honey into a new converter and while we were at it, a new shift kit. She wasn't very keen on the new FIRM shifts and the fact that the car chirped the tires at nearly every stop without trying but I soothed her into believeing I had really turned it around from a performance "Dog". Eventually the SS began having the typical breakdowns and began to become a money pit...an intake leak persuaded her to swap in a Performer intake as long as we had the intake off. Then the car began buring a lot of oil and I informed my wife that the old L69 had 90k on it now and it just wasn't worth doing sinking any more moeny into, she agreed, and the decision to drop in a new motor was made.
But first I had to buy my wife a new ride, which turned out to be our 1996 Ford Thunderbird....Which kept puking its guts and went back to the dealer under the Lemon Law....
So we ordered one of the LAST T-bird's built and added the latest edition to our stable the "BlackBird" Our 1997 Ford Thunderbird with the 4.6litre Mustang engine in it! :) The OBDIII computer is going to give me fits getting the 'Bird ready to take on the "Incarcerator" but I am looking at a Hypertech "Chip", a 70mm Throttle body from SVO, and a Paxton blower to spice up power.