Musings of an Internet Junkie

I have owned a 1987 Toyota Supra for a little over a year now. During that time I have replaced the turbocharger, the exhaust manifold, helicoiled the head and inserted new exhaust manifold studs, replaced a bunch of gaskets and did some general engine cleaning.

It has been my intention, as I have been sorting out my car, to eventually build up another engine for it. The opportunity finally presented itself during the beginning of April. My friend’s father has been putting together a Supra of his own and has been slowly getting rid of the extra parts. I just happened to notice at the beginning of the month that his next batch of parts were an engine block and head. My wife and I picked up the parts yesterday.

Watch here for pictures of the project, and the trials and tribulations I encounter while building a Toyota 7M-GTE engine up from scratch with the goal of reach a minimum of 500 rwhp. I fully expect this project to take at least 2-3 years to complete and possibly even longer.

As some of you may remember, I gave up World of Warcraft around two months ago. This week, I decided to go back and check on how the game has progressed since the expansion was released. I can stop playing anytime I want….right? Yes, I’ve fallen off the wagon.

I’m a bit late writing about my trip to Greenville, South Carolina, but better late than never. During the beginning of March I took a business trip to Greenville, SC, to test out some equipment at a client’s warehouse. I had approximately six days to run tests after taking into account travel time. This should allow for an extra day for unknowns.

Well, the trip was seemed doomed from the start. My connection from Grand Rapids to Detroit, MI, was late arriving and I missed my flight to Greenville. The next flight would leave for Greenville four hours later putting me nearly a half day behind. Once I finally arrived on site, I wanted to check over the equipment and I would be ready to go the next day but unfortunately my project contact was out at the beach and had been for the past several days. Luckily the second shift supervisor was aware that I would be there and was able to show me around.

The next morning I arrived on site only to find out that 1000 feet of Type T thermocouple wire was missing from my order of 1500 feet. I spent half of the day on the phone with my supplier who eventually filed a claim with UPS and resolved to expedite 1000 feet out to me for an early AM delivery, only charging me the shipping cost. I also found out the same day that all five of the data loggers I brought with me were out of tolerance and the data may or may not be able to be corrected (editor: it could not be corrected).

I proceed with the work the best I can and eventually I’m able to wrap up the work by Monday evening only a half day longer than I expected but luckily I had included that extra day for unknowns. My flight would leave on Tuesday evening. Several missing documents and a few out of spec items later, and I’m on a flight back to Michigan. The missing documents must be found and the out of spec items calibrated before we can wrap up the tests. It is now a month later and nothing has progressed.

Of course the real reason to write this is regarding the excellent restaurants I visited while on the road in South Carolina. The first one being Flat Rock Grille inspired by the old mountain lodges of North Carolina where I was able to enjoy a hickory grilled Atlantic Salmon in a bourbon marinade.

The second was Bucky’s BBQ where I sampled all three of their homemade sauces on fresh hickory smoked, pulled pork. Bucky’s smokes their meats for 16-18 hours with their own homemade rub. The sauces included a sweet tasting mustard sauce, a smoky tomato based red sauce, and a hot-n-spicy sauce. I would highly recommend Bucky’s BBQ to anyone visiting the Greenville/Spartansburg area of South Carolina.