Runum!

I prefer old European stuff, and I refuse to buy a car thats not RWD. Personal preference.

I also love diesel...
I'd love to build a Mercedes Finnish super diesel.
I like big cars, Q ships as the Brits call them, so I would love to build one of these:
Find a very clean 350SD with bent rods, remove good but somewhat weak 3.5L 603, replace with:
OM606, which has the twin cam 4 valve head. Same block so its drop in, and the trans will bolt right up.
Massive Holset turbo.
Myna tuned injection pump with large elements. ($3k!!)
Massive custom intercooler
This allows you to crank boost and on a diesel more importantly fuel up. The trick is to keep your EGT's down so you don't melt the pistons.
With these mods I should be over 400hp, not bad for a diesel...

On the car I'd do Bilstein HD's, and H&R springs all around with some period correct AMG wheels.
I'd also put a 2.47 limited slip rear end into it from the 560SEL, because of the power it would still accelerate from a stop just fine. But I'm not looking for a 0-60 car, its a Mercedes after all they don't do that. I'm looking for passing power...80-120.

M120 into 560SL (With Pictures!) - ShopForum

Lots of Mercedes tuners, this guy is putting the freaken sweet M120 V12 into a 560SL, very clean and complicated install.



I love anything AMG.

Gullwing Motor Cars has a freaken sweet early production E type convertable for sale. Its mint, I think they want like $45k for it. If I had the money I would own it, I love those cars! The early cars are IMHO the best, I'd want no later than a 66.

http://www.gullwingmotorcars.com/inv...lay&autoID=655

I want that car bad!

Wow this thread has turned interesting!
Runum & Russ thank you for your posts, I just love cars!
Give me a Lamborghini Miura or a Ferrari 250 GTO (last one sold for $30 Million ) and I'll be a happy guy

The E-Type is great.

I love the Jap cars though like the 240Z which was inspired visually by the E-Type

This is what I hope to have some day one of my favourite cars

The other I love is the old Nissan Skyline KPCG10, here is a thread with pictures of a restoration project which sadly never took off, Runum you might like these pics

My uncle got me into cars, he restored a Z-Car as I was growing up and gave me the bug

I love working on them but I need money to do that so its something that will have to wait

I have done some work on some z cars. Mainly installing rollbars and some patch work. Most of the bad ass ones I have seen around here have installed a domestic v8 of some kind. Love the 240z's. Also love the second gen 300z's, and the 350,370z's.

Here's a pic of where we store the daily drivers at night. We have 5 indoor parking spaces and 2 covered parking spaces.

My kids daily driver. 1972 mav, 5.0 fuel injected.

My nephew's 1973 Mav. Lot's of custom mods on this one.

A few customer cars.

(sigh) A garage . . .

That's something I gave up when we began our fastlane plan . . .

I miss it.

Being in CA, we can keep the cars outside year 'round. Not great for them (have to keep the verts tops up all the time), but not too bad. Keep 'em in the shade, and except for the bird poop, they weather pretty well.

But I long to have a place where I can keep my beauties clean and dry . . . a place where I can go to tinker, and work on fun stuff . . .

Having a nice garage-- AND-- time for me to tinker on cars-- is part of our fastlane plan!

-Russ H.

Runum-

Looking at all your pix of American muscle, you sure seem like you grew up in Detroit! (says the guy who was born and raised there).

-Russ H.

Yep a few years too late and wrong location for me. I have had several friends from Detroit and Pontiac. They all say the same thing. Shoulda been on Gratiot Ave back in the late 60's.

Even in the early 70s, Gratiot was a pretty happenin' avenue.

My fave was always I-94 between Dearborn and Ann Arbor. Ford engineers used to take their test cars out there and open 'em up when they wanted "real world" conditions.

Around 2 am one morning, a buddy of mine was winding out a BMW bike that Ford had bought to study the engine design. He passed a county mounty on the side of the road at over 120 mph. Saw the red lights a few seconds later, and cruised to the side of the road and waited.

In a bit, the cop *flew* past him-- saw him at the side of the road, and locked his wheels, screetching to the side of the road about a mile up. Cop pulled to the shoulder, and reversed back to my buddy. Got out, looked at the bike, and said to my buddy:

"Why did you stop? I never would have caught you!"

They had a fun conversation, my buddy told him about the Beemer, and got off with a warning.

Good times.

-Russ H.

Runum,
You did have a little help on some of the cars, like letting little brother hand you a wrench, socket or what ever else you needed under the car.
Then as little brother got older and wanted to help more, little brother got to do the dirty work under the car while big brother worked the top side. But little bro didn't complain because he was learning alot, like how to install a moter in a VW when it is freezing cold.

When Runum says he built the car, there was not a bolt on the car he didn't touch. And to his credit, mechanical failures didn't happen very often for the abuse he was instilling on the machines.

Yeah, little bro helped a LOT. I will always appreciate his help. Lot's of good times, huh. Like dusting off that loud mouth with the Mustang that night. Remember bro?

Greg-

Saw these today and thought of you.

Nothing says quality more than a good weld, eh?

Jalopnik - 30 Epic Do-It-Yourself Automotive Fabrication Failures - Epic Fail

I laughed myself silly on some of these. Seems like these guys were watching too many of the old "Speed Racer" cartoons!

Best comment I saw was "Hint: If you don't know how your car works, don't try to modify it."

-Russ H.

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Those are pretty funny Russ. Although it does disturb me that you saw those and it reminded you of me.

Actually, the first thing I thought of was all of those 4x4 1960s Mustangs back in Detroit. There was a lot of that going on in the 1970s (put your rottted out 60s muscle car on top of a lifted truck frame).

Then I thought of how my buddies and I always had a good laugh when we saw stuff like this, and I thought of this thread.

-Russ H.

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Yeah, I remember a 4x4 Vega running around our area back then. They were always good for a laugh.

Funny story. I raced a lot at Texas Raceway. I had my small block, yellow 1969 Malibu on the trailer. I pulled it off the trailer and was cruising through the pits. I start hearing this voice yelling "I want you!" I kept hearing it over and over and couldn't figure it out. I finally spot the joker. His standing beside a beautiful red 1969 Chevelle with SS396 badges. I stop and he comes running at me, demanding a race right now. I said sure, OK, let's go. My car was a 6.80 1/8 mile(10.80 1/4 mile) street car. However it was just a full steel "Malibu" with a flat hood. Certainly an SS should spank it. Nope. Beat the snot out of him. 7.5 to 8.9. Of course I had to be cheating or had something hidden in the car, etc. No sign of him after that.

More stories to come.

Another story. I belonged to a local Chevelle club. There were the normal restorations and hot rodded Chevelles. I have owned several SS396 Chevelles and know them well. This time out we were at the Texas Motorplex for a car club race. Our club vs a lot of other clubs. Again I had the yellow "Malibu". The heavy hitters in our club had some mint SS454's The president of the club had his SS454 really built. It was a gorgeous black car with white stripes. All the purists knew that SS Chevelles kicked but and small block Malibus sucked eggs. I had been running 11.70's all day and was having fun. The pres was running 11.50's with his roller cam big block, with trans brake. Well the track was having tech problems and we were only going to get one more run. So I decided to open the nitrous bottle. Everyone knew i had it and thought I had been using it all day. So I lined up against a Buick GS 455 and ripped off a 10.86 in front of the whole club. When I got back to the pits it was real quiet in my club. I had committed a sin, my little block beat the bad big block. I didn't last too long with that club after that. Didn't like the cold shoulder.

Remember Smokey Yunick?

What's your favorite Smokey story?

Here's mine Smokey was at a race, and the organizers were accusing him of having a spare gas tank hidden somewhere in the car.

Thing is, the mechanics went all over the car-- even removed the existing gas tank-- but could find no backup tank!!!

Smokie insisted that the car had no spare tank, and met all of the regulations.

The judges disagreed, and voted to not allow the car for unspecified reasons.

Smokie was so mad, he threw the disconnected gas tank in the back seat.

And drove away . . .

(true story)

-Russ H