7/11/10- Viper: Wow, four months since my last post. I've been super busy with work and haven't had much extra time for cars, but recently Jaime's folks visited, and her Dad was excited to lend me a hand in the garage. We spent three days on the Viper, installing new KW shocks, Stoptech big brake kit, and prepping some used HRE wheels for paint.

The KW shocks were much easier to install than I thought they'd be, so that was a relief. They have adjustable right height and firmness, so I was able to lower the car a bit for a better stance while still maintaining the ability to go over speed bumps. I haven't messed around with the firmness yet. Right now they feel about the same as the stock shocks, maybe slightly softer which will be great for the streets. They're easy to adjust, so I can bump them up for autocrosses.

The Stoptech's are awesome. What a great kit! Very high quality everything and they look fantastic. I got an amazing deal on them, but they came in black, so I painted them to match the side emblems on the hood. Great break-in instructions that finally explain how to break in brakes properly, and what the thought process is behind it.

And finally the HREs I have been really excited about the HRE P40 style wheels for the Viper, but they are crazy expensive. Fortunately I ran across someone selling a used black set on the forum and got them with tires. They had a little curb rash, and some chips and scratches in the paint, but nothing that couldn't be fixed. I put them on the car as is, and really didn't like the gloss black paint. They looked too dark, and all the nice details and rim design was lost. The stripes on my car are a dark gray metallic paint that catch the light nicely. Since the wheels were going to need to be repainted, I decided to go with this color. We took our time prepping the wheels real nice and I painted them myself. They came out perfect and look great on the car!

3/9/10- Garage Buddy: If you're like me, any time you start working on the car you realize that you need some kind of chart, conversion table or formula for some kind of info. Maybe you can't remember how thick 18 gauge metal is, or you're trying to figure out how to convert centimeters to inches. You know you saw it once on the internet, or in a magazine, but you can't remember where. You have to stop working on the car and spend the next half hour looking for it. This kind of thing drives me crazy.

You know what would be cool? An iPhone/iPod app that has all of these things handy. Everything in one place, always nearby, even if I'm at Home Depot. Well it's here. The App is called "Garage Buddy" and it's only 99 cents! Get it!

2/19/10- Pantera: PI Motorsports puts together an awesome on-line newsletter (in .pdf format) every now and then, and our Pantera is featured in the most recent issue (Issue #4)! There are 12 pages of photos of our car, and an interview with me, along with many more pages covering other cars, events, recent Pantera news, etc. Check it out!

2/06/10- Rally Fighter: OK, not really our car... yet, but it's so cool that I had to post it here. This is the Rally Fighter that is being built by a small company called Local Motors. They are touring the US, and came down for the "Cars and Coffee" car show this morning, but it got rained out. It was still incredibly cool to to meet the Local Motors crew and see the Rally Fighter in person. They are reinventing the way a car company can run and build cars, and they're doing it here in the USA. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on there, too much for me to get into, but the highlights are:

• The community helps design the cars through their website. It Sounds crazy, but this sort of thing is done fairly often with computer software (Open Source Development). The Rally Fighter is Local Motor's first vehicle, and the fact that it exists at all is proof enough that the process is working.
• The cars aren't painted, they are shrink wrapped in a design of your choosing, or your own design. How cool is that? The shrink wrapping is a lot more friendly to the environment, so everyone wins.
• When it's time for your car to be built, you travel to Local Motors for about a week to help build it. I believe you can participate as much (or as little) as you want. For me, I absolutely love the idea of helping to build my car, and will have as big a hand in it as they will allow. :)

Jaime and I are #31 on the Rally Fighter list. See their website for more information on the Rally Fighter and Local Motors.

1/03/10- Pantera: Happy NewYear! I spent the first weekend of 2010 installing Pantera Performance's Wilwood Brake system. I started yesterday and finished them up today. Honestly, I put them on mostly for the visuals. Wanted to dress up the brakes a little, but WOW! what a difference! The brakes are fabulous. The install kit included a new master cylinder, front rotors and hats, four calipers, stainless lines and even brake fluid. The install went smooth and everything fit great. Outstanding kit!

12/25/09- Pantera Exterior... DONE.