Don't you just hate it when living expenses use up all your fun money. Unfortunately, Geoff's beater Toyota gave up and needed replacement. So he located two RX-7's (I don't know how he does that), for the price of one, kind of. One ran, but was a rustbucket. And the other was straight and rust free, but had the engine in the hatchback, in pieces. The one that ran made a cool geyser out of the radiator fill every time Geoff revved it. Needless to say, it needed rebuilding, and it's a damn rotary.

We got a deal from a friend that races and rebuilds rotaries for a living. Now we have a fresh 12A rotary with a header and Holley four barrel on a trick intake manifold in the RX-7 with the good body. Only cost $1200 for the rebuild and the dog runs a blazing 16 flat in the quarter! I HATE rotaries! Geoff is already looking for a turbo V6 to put in the car. Well, he's got wheels again anyway

Next, it was my turn to replace my trusty 86 Lincoln Towncar. I hated to see it go, it was truly a four door workhorse, and it had 222 thousand miles on it. It was still the original motor, and still got 20 mpg on the highway. Since I treated it like a pickup most of the time, I decided to buy a pickup. A 97 Chevy 1500 3 door with a 350 Vortec and towing package. If the racecar ever gets finished, we'll be able to tow it anyway.

Unfortunately, our February completion date has come and gone and we are still probably two months from finishing. When we started this project, we decided that we would not go into debt or take a loan to finish it, and that is still the rule. The schedule may slip, but when it is finished, it will also be paid for. There will be maintenance costs of course, but no regular monthly payments to some bank.

We should be able to get back up to speed on finishing the racecar soon, I get the opposite of a refund from Uncle Sam this year, so hopefully that will be the last unplanned expense for a while. I figure we are less than $2000 from completion. We still need the roll cage, rear disc brakes, rear axles, drive shaft and front runners. But the 4 link is done, the interior and motor are ready, and the body is ready for paint. Once we start throwing money at it again, the rest will go quickly.