Part 1
The year was just about over. Darrell had finally saved up some money and felt like things were looking up and he was about to get ahead. His dream was to own his own high performance automotive shop. He had built several types of vehicles in the past. It all started with a Toyota 22RE pickup. He started with the basics and found that he had a knack for it. He worked for a mechanic at one point but what a joke that was. All work and no pay made Darrell a dull boy. This year had been different. He threw out that old philosophy of if I just keep showing up. He thought about the old tale of the Greek who cheated death and had to push a rock up a hill, almost get to the top and have it roll back to the bottom. Wonder if that guy ever found a better job. Maybe he eventually figured out leverage or took a play from the Egyptians and moved the terrain under the rock. Working for someone else was Darrell's rock he needed to overcome. The way he was raised is if you were not successful it was your own fault. There was plenty of opportunities for people willing to risk failure.
Failure is just a lesson, another starting point. Darrell had combined all of his skills and resources to making and saving money. He had his little handyman service he started, he worked for a winery, and he ran tractors as well as other machines for farmers. He was about to finish up the farming season and put the tractors away after checking antifreeze. Last thing anyone wants is the liquid freezing in a motor. It will likely just push the soft plug out but it will definitely make a mess. It seemed like before he was just working check to check. It was frustrating not being able to get ahead. When it seemed like things were going well something would break down and eliminate his savings. The only thing he had going for him was he didn't owe anyone anything.
The standard way of living seems to be on credit these days. Boats, campers, cars, and houses all on credit. The house is understandable and maybe the car if you're not mechanically inclined. The house is an investment and a car is usually a bad investment outside of transportation convenience. We love our cars though and we especially love to modify our cars. A combustion motor is a very simple device that a person should have a basic understanding of at least in his opinion. A gas motor and diesel have slightly different methods of working. Most people are more familiar with the gas engine and two and four cycle operations. Gas is highly flammable and is ignited by a spark plug. A mini Tesla coil. A basic diesel motor can have glow plugs to heat and ignite diesel. A diesel motor actually works by compressing the diesel until it ignites. When this happens to a gas motor it is called detonation and can destroy a motor. It happens when a plug doesn't fire at the right time, not at all, or if fuel gets cut off at high RPM it can have disastrous effects. Even though a combustion motor is simple it takes a lot of effort and money to get it to top performance.
A gas motor the principal is how much fuel and air can be ran through a motor. With fuel injection, Super chargers, or turbo chargers a smaller motor is capable of increasing amounts of horse power. A super charger is connected to a belt and forces more air into the motor. A turbo charger works with the exhaust pressure to accomplish the same goal. Now in a certain crowd when people talk about meth they are talking about Nitro methane. Carburetors and fuel injection can work well with nitro methane. Fuel and oxygen combined. Nitrous oxide is also fuel and oxygen pressurized and used in combination with high octane gasoline. Those are the basics of high performance. It is all about the details from there. Anything that can be balanced or help the flow of intake and exhaust. On the bottom end of a motor as it is called is the crankshaft, rods, and pistons contained in the block. In the top end known as the head there are valves that control the intake and exhaust. There are chambers that line up that allow water to cool the block on liquid cooled motors. The gasket that keeps the oil and water chambers separate is called a head gasket. This is something someone owning an older Toyota with a 22R is familiar with. This can cause a common problem on a lot of vehicles. A large cloud of white steam coming out of an exhaust is a pretty good sign of gasket failure. His experience working for a mechanic made him aware of what neglect of vehicle care can do. That type of mechanical work is not what he was interested in. Fixing what is broken is one thing but making a vehicle perform better was a more satisfying endeavor.
Darrell had heard there was some pretty crazy stuff on the Internet and would only use it for ordering parts or looking for that next vehicle. While looking for parts Darrell stumbled across a section for Women seeking men. How about that? He thought a one stop shop. He needed some stress relief. He had been avoiding the bar and drinking to save money. A couple of meaningless dates sounded like a great time. He found an ad with a female around his age who wrote she like camping and outdoor activities. Great, that sounded like a winner. He responded thinking nothing of it. He thought some princess from some crazy country would probably scam him into cashing a check at worst. The next project was going to have a LS1 Corvette motor with forged everything. He wasn't sure if he was going to go with an off road vehicle with a Baja type suspension with a lot of down travel. Or he could find a light car for the drag strip. A 5.0 Mustang or Fox body had the most parts available but the whole putting a Chevy motor in a Ford vehicle just seemed wrong.