Made some adjustments to the old car and took it down to test it out at AutoCross. In 100 degree heat and after a few hours and over 25 runs, my ignition coil went out and the car sputtered to a stop just outside the exit of the run. I hoped letting the car cool down would help and so decided to jump into a few drift cars and go for some rides. It was incredible and inspired this video from that day….
Take a look and see more videos on the YouTube channel—> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUS-Up72Py1nZdz2eVKpWQA?view_as=public
The part you don’t see is the two times the car broke down on interstate during rush house at the spaghetti bowl on the way home, during the week of Hot August Nights, with the whole valley layered in brown smoke from the nearby fire or ten. I didn’t know exactly what the problem with the car was at this point. I called a tow on the side of the interstate and just before dispatch, I put the phone on speaker and tried the engine again – bingo, it started. I just want to make it up the next exit, which required 3 stoplights before getting to a residential area. I went for it. After sweating it out at the 3rd stoplight, all of which I hit, I made it to near a sports bar and the car started sputtering and lurching. I knew I only had moments and was eyeballing any shade to break down in and made it to a suburb and called for the tow. The tow truck guy was a pro. He had towed a classic car earlier that day for an older guy and had about 20 stories for me on our 45 minute ride up the mountain pass. He was an ex-semi-pro athlete who was used to keeping up being in-shape. This made most of his other stories about his life in the singles scene in the city, which was interesting. After some issues with getting the tow truck stuck, he was able to ‘walk’ it back down and put the rear tires back on pavement and then go and drop the car down on the street.
The tow truck rear end tires are off the ground and so is the car!
This coil looks hardly used. I noticed it missing a few weeks earlier. The heat really seemed to affect it. I dropped a new one in for about $35 in 5 minutes and am back on the road!
