The Purple Thing........What can I say other than this car is just rock solid.  It's not the fastest, not the prettiest, but it's dependable, strong, and fun to drive.  Gets a lot of compliments too, but can't take the credit for how it looks (Thnaks Bobby).  Katie loves the car, I like the car, yeah, it's a part of the family.
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February 08, 2010 -- Been working on it a little at a time.  Completely bolted the motor in, and started mocking up the turbo kit.  For the most part everything fit, but I did have to notch the rear A-Arm mount on the passenger side of the BMR K-Member due to clearance, and I had to take a ball peen to the middle up pipe (between the header merge and the last section prior to the turbo) to clear the motor mount.  HOWEVER, there is an unfortunate rather work stopping clearance issue in that I can't get the down pipe to fit.  I may be able to oval it out some, but as is it simply doesn't have room to fit.  As usual, pics of the mock up are HERE.

February 02, 2010 -- Big time progress.  The motor is IN the car!!!!!!  I got a bug in me tonight (and a wife who took the kid and went to a friends so I'd be able to wrench) and went to town!  Pics on the new motor page as usual!

January 13, 2009 -- Progress is finally happening.  After a nearly having to sue OFI for lack of production, shutting down, and disappearing with my money, I found him and got my money back.  So, straight back to LT1Boost I went!  Custom 1 3/4" turbo headers are in the works right now, so I'm feeling MUCH better overall about how things are going.  Have a stack of parts pron I just posted on the new motor page!!!

August 23, 2008 -- Work on the fuel rails today!  Through some searching, and some help from a VERY helpful local CamaroZ28.com member, I have managed to put together a -AN fitting equipped fuel rails setup WITHOUT doing any welding.  It's been proven to work already, so I'm not too concerned about a leak though a pressure test will be happening once the rest of the system is complete.  Pics are at the bottom of THIS page.

August 13, 2008 -- Finally started doing some work for some unplanned changes.  LT1Boost.net turbo kit deal fell through (no hard feelings, personal situation for owner), so an Ohio Forced Inductions kit has been ordered.  This is going to require a LOT of mods to the front end, things like vertical radiator, custom radiator hoses, low profile fans, stand A/C condenser up, ect.  So, todays work was OFF WITH THE NOSE!  Needed to get started on this to figure out what can stay and go, and found some good and bad, and a lot of work that needs to be done.  

July 12, 2008 -- Wow, long time no update.  Car is motorless, all proceeds from the tear down and sale were blown through to live off of last year while Katie wasn't working.  Put a real hurt on the project.  During that time, it was also decided that the D-1SC blower wasn't going to get me where I needed, so the kit was sold at a break even price, and it was decided to go through LT1Boost.net (Jon, or RealQuick on the forums) for a tubular header turbo hot-part kit.  So I made a deposit on that, and got a PT76GTS and blanket shipped in.  Sadly, due to some personal issues, Jon wasn't able to complete my kit, so he graciously worked things out with me (absolutely no hard feelings at all) and I will now be going with an OFI hot-part kit.  It is going to cost more, and makes me do some things I hadn't planned, but I will now hopefully be putting it back together and running sometime this fall.  I have several thousand dollars worth of parts sitting around the house, to include a tubular K-Member and A-Arms, FAST XFI, rebuilt McLeod Street Twin, Adjustable Master Cylinder, the PT76GTS Turbo, among other smaller stuff.  Parts pron pics coming.  

September 2, 2007 -- Motor swap in full swing now.  Got the old motor completely out and torn down today.  Had a day off and took advantage of it.  Now to just sell all the old parts and get some new stuff to play with!!!!

August 16, 2007 -- Motor swap has started.  Time isn't allowing a lot of work to be dedicated with the two jobs, and the car is going to be down for quite a long time as finances aren't in the greatest of positions.  I DID however find a buyer for the D1SC and will be upgrading to the F1A after all.  I'm up in the air as to whether do a horizontal mount FMIC or no intercooler at all.  So, it'll be a one piece at a time project but it will be done hopefully this spring in time for a proposed LTx shootout.  Shooting for solid 9 second passes. 

June 23, 2007 -- Well, let's see.  Got the new motor yesterday, and have decided to sell the unused D-1SC and stick a F1A blower on the car instead.  Other than that, not much going on.  Just working on getting the new motor tidied up. Picked up a used McLeod Street Twin for $400, and after the rebuild and purchasing of a modified stock master cylinder to be adjustable, I'll have about $400-500 less into it than a brand new setup.  Along with the motor came my Fast Track Performance (now Horsepower Connections) integration harness for the FAST XFI into the car to retain the stock computer.   CLICK HERE to follow along for a photographic rundown as I finish the motor and get everything into the car.

March 5th 2007 -- Picked up the purple car from the body shop today, got that damn shopping cart hit fixed.  Looks AWESOME.

February 25, 2007 -- Today, the Arizona Speed and Marine headers went on to the car.  It is officially now a different animal.  Louder, more offensive, and DEFINITELY faster!

December 15, 2006 -- An interesting development.  Due to the impending departure of the black car, the purple car will be receiving many parts from the black car to include a 383 and D-1SC, among other things.  

October 20, 2006 -- Well, with the Celica in the shop getting fixed from hitting a deer, Katie took the purple car to work today, and guess what it got hit by??  You guessed it, a freaking shopping cart.  Did $1300 in damage to the passenger side quarter panel.  

July 25, 2006 -- Purple car isn't running as poor as I thought.  Had a little run today with my buddy's bolt on 05 GTO.  He only managed to pull just a little bit on me from a roll.  From a dig I'd get him, I'm sure of it.

June 23, 2006 -- Purple car gets a new track life.  Back in march I had come across a can't pass on deal; A strange 12 bolt with under 10K miles for a paltry $1375.  Needless to say, I was all over that, with intentions of installation into the black car for the blower motor.  Fast forward to about three weeks ago, I'm thumbing through the latest issue of GM High Tech Performance and what do I see but Strange now has another offering:  The Strange S60, which is a Dana 60 center section in a solid axle configuration.  Holy strength, especially considering the 9.75" ring gear and standard Detroit TrueTrac.  So it was decided that the S60 would be purchased for the black car, and the 12 bolt sitting on the garage floor would be donated to the purple car.  OK, so there was an ulterior motive also.  About 2 months ago I had purchased a Thunder Racing 4.10 gear kit for the purple car and had it installed.  The 4.10's woke the car up, but were a bit noisy for Katie's taste.  Sadly, that's $1000 out of pocket on a rear that's now sitting useless, trying to be sold.  Well last weekend out with the old and in with the new (or used).  Installation was a breeze considering it was a by myself endeavor.  After a bit of fighting with the speedo calibration via the Dakota Digital SGI-5 recalibration box, I got the speedo spot on, and everything was cool.  This new rear is whisper quiet although the backlash is quite a bit wider than it should be.  Just a bit of clunking though, so for now we're OK with it.  The car seems to like the gears too.  I barked third in it for the first time, which it wouldn't do with the 4.10's.  But, it takes a noticabely larger amount of throttle to get the car moving now, and it doesn't seem to pull as hard as opposed to the 4.10's either.  Track times forthcoming as soon as we get a third car back.  Only other things done to the car was the installation of the Racetronix fuel pump from the black car, as the stock pump decided to give it up late last fall.  And the battery hasn't had any issues since the last update!!!

September 17, 2005 -- Nothing much new to report on the purple car.  Biggest and best thing is the addition of an SLP Loudmouth!!!!  The battery drain issue is minimal now as the headlamp door control module went out when troubleshooting.  I canned that part off of the black car, as well as the driver side fog light.  I've also put the pen pocket in the car in lieu of the TCS panel that was there, and have replaced the driver door map pocket and window stabilizers too.  Also have a new clutch return spring and master cylinder pin retainer to put in still.  Tune up parts are sitting here too, going to put in Taylor Spiro-Pro 8mm wires (black this time) and NGK TR55 plugs.  And lastly, got a new pair of tires for the rear.  Firestone Firehawk Wide Oval.  I HIGHLY recommend these tires.  Unbelievable straight line traction.  Just trying to stay on top of the little misc things with this car.  Oh yeah, earlier this year I decided to clean up the oil leaks.  Went through a 3 month ordeal with the oil pan gasket due to yours truly leaving a metal O-ring on the rear driver stud.  That sucker leaked like a sieve.  Got the leaky front of the motor taken care of, but still having a slight leak from the rear of the pan as well as the valve covers showing some seepage.  But it's an LT1.  I'd rather leak oil than burn it (A.K.A. LS1).  Back in February got to lay the smack down on a Eclipse GS (94-96) with a turbo.  He hung OK, but from 70-110 I put three cars on him with the poor gearing even.  

May 14, 2004 -- DYNO TUNED THE PURPLE THING!!!  New Dyno Chart Posted.  I had set up a dyno tune day at Xotic Motorsports in Cochranville PA and had both Alvin and Bryan from PCM For Less show.  Alvin drove up from North Carolina for this.  It went off really well.  We had a few no shows, but three of the four no shows were due to maintenance issues.  I ended up working from 4 PM to 5 AM with one guy the night before the dyno tune day to get his car working, and in the end it just wasn't enough time.  Such is life.  Thanks to those whom showed!!!  Looking forward to having another!

April 16, 2004 -- First time out to the track with the purple car was today.  First run I pulled a 13.16@106.90 bouncing off of the rev limiter at 6200 RPM at the traps.  So, I bump the limiter up to 6400, and on the next run it pays off.  I pulled a 12.988@107.98 crossing the traps in third gear right at 6200 RPM.  This was on a 2.04 sixty foot time also.  The car absolutely NEEDS some shorter gears.  I think solid 12.5-7 @ about 110-112 should be attainable with the correct gearing.   

March 22, 2004 -- Finally got a dyno done on the car.  Not what I expected for overall power though, but the TQ was better than expected.  The A/F ratio is way off, 14.5 at WOT.  Car didn't detonate or anything at all though, which is a relief.  Dyno Charts page finally posted.  I'm going to have the tune refined and put a cutout on it and see where that gets me.  Probably going to put a 52mm throttle body and a new cat-back on her.

March 7, 2004 -- Cleaned her up today.  Washed, waxed with 3M Imperial Glaze.  Dang she looks good now.

January 14, 2004 -- Wow, long time, no update.  Not much going on with this ride.  Except the following!!!!  Some retard hit the car in my squadron parking lot.  What else........Hooked up my MTX Thunderform/Thunder 3000 combo from my black car and my Alpine MRV-100M amp.  Sounds good. Future plans for the car are a Magnaflow Exhaust, 3.73 gears (if I can every find an SLP speedo box), new clutch, fix the misc. stuff, fix the FENDER!!!!  Katie wants to put in a CD/MP3 head unit with XM capability.  Not a bad idea.

September 15, 2003 -- Well, Katie has decided that she REALLY likes this car.  Which is a relief because I wasn't too sure.  Apparently she's been driving it quite a bit, and is growing more and more attached to it every day.  She's planning on redoing the tint because it's a little scratched, putting an aftermarket steering wheel in it, new cat-back system since it's got the Flowmaster turn down pipes, and a couple of other small things.  Dear if you're reading this, I'm happy that you are enjoying the car.

August 25, 2003 -- FIXED!!!  A couple of days ago I pulled the chip and using Epromer5 (Thanks Bobby!) I downloaded the tune.  Hmmmmm, the tune was set up for the completely wrong Tunercat Definition file.  Alvin@PCMForLess emailed me Bobby's old tune, which I promptly downloaded, checked, burned, and installed.  Blammo!  That car runs good again!!  She still dies if the A/C is on and the throttle is quickly shut, but nothing a few IAC counts can't fix.  Gotta get her on the Wide Band to check the tune out, she's barely getting 20 MPG right now.  Fun to drive though, and hooks like a demon.  Katie has also renamed her the "Purple Thing"

August 10, 2003 -- Well, the car has a rough idle/stalling problem.  She'll start, but the IAC drives shut, and she'll die.  Not cool.  Don't even want to drive her right now, and Katie surely can't drive her.

July 14, 2003 -- She got delivered last week.  The trucking company pulled a fast one on me.  During shipment a tire had gotten punctured on the sidewall, and was plugged.  I didn't notice it until after I washed the car on the day of delivery.  Oh well....