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| Joined: | 09-17-2007 |
| Location: | San Francisco, California USA |
| Posts: | 221 |
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I thought I had seen a good deal in 25 years of working on cars, but this one was new. Always thought backfires could blow up mufflers, seen a few opened like tin cans at a shooting range, but this backfire actually imploded the muffler! Crunched it like someone smacked it with a sledge hammer.
Got it out to a local muffle shop and selected a Flowmaster Super 44. Since my entire exhaust is custom made 2.5" system, there is no spare tire and the muffler just sits there. Sounds great now and a bit of performance is back.
Tried to turn on the old Alpine stereo (probably from the early 80's) and it was dead. Looked around a bit and found a nice unit: a Retrosound. It has bluetooth and is a tiny thing, very well made and it's more retro looking than the Alpine was. It sounds great too with my small 150 watt amp and some custom speakers.
For some reason my theme song with this car is "The Kinks, Living on a Thin Line". Drove it down the pacific coast highway today listening to it.
Also upgraded the starter to a WOSP high torque unit from Britain. Spoke directly with Luke at WOSP and he talked me through some tech issues. This is a Denso unit that is really 3x the starting torque and it's quiet and very modern, drawing less than half the amperage of the stock unit. It's half the size and a third of the weight too. Remarkable little upgrade, my old starter was getting hung up here and there on compression stroke. This one chugs it like it was spinning a dime.
WOSP told me that I didn't need the coil cold enriching circuit, so I left it unhooked. Works just fine. The line running from your coil to the starter basically sends the ignition and extra umpf for starting cold, but because the Denso is so efficient it simply doesn't need it anymore. $350 it's pricey but it works very well and I think it's the best upgrade I have done in this resurrection so far. It's air weight compared to the original, less than 5 pounds. It also allows you to clock it anywhere you like with a custom bolt mounting system. Great immediate customer service from WOSP in the UK.
