Personal automotive archaeology.

We were backing up our back up and going through organizing photos and such. Found so many old photos and thought I'd share. 

This was my first real project after getting married. We'd traded in my 2000 Sonoma for the Elantra (coming up soon) and I was stir crazy. Ran across this critter on the way back home from my folks house and called. $2000 for it in 2003. It was a 1989 rcsb 4.3/5-spd with a 3.08 rear end. I put a dynomax 3" catback, open element air cleaner and a prom from hypertech. It was good for 25mpg at 75mph. I also put 2" drop springs in the front and 4" drop leafs in the rear and poly bushings for the sway bar. It handled decent. In '06 we sold it because we bought the wife her 06 Sierra and we didn't need 2 trucks and a car..... Sold it on eBay for $3500, breaking even.

So this is the truck we bought to replace her Grand Vitara and my 89. It is an SLE 4.8 2wd, did not have the fog lights or denali wheels. This has a magnaflow catback, K&N intake and a soft tonneau. We bought it new in 06, its the truck I refer to when talking about her truck. 

This is the car that started the Hyundai humping for me. 2002 Elantra GLS 5-spd. We bought it after looking at all the competition at the time. We checked out the Civic, Corolla, Cavalier, Alero etc and this was just the best at being a decent car for $13k. After trading in my Sonoma to buy it I got bored. Fast.

I worked for the Hyundai dealer (Kia, suzuki and daewoo) and found the Korean spec GLS fog lights part number in the catalogs and thatthey were stocked in the Chicago warehouse. So I bought ordered them and did my own wiring install. Found these Enkei RS-7's in Ohio. Installed a CAI as well. After that the wife got tired of me playig with the DD and we bought the 89. After we sold the 89 in 06 I got restless again..... went for an OE  look with the Sonata wheels and sold the Enkeis. 

On one of the Elantra message boards, a group decided to have a meet at this thing called an auto-x in Peru, fairly close to home. We had members from Michigan, Indiana, Toronto, and Ohio all meeting up. Wife and I went up on that sunday and I got talked into running the car. At the time It was a stock suspension with a Tiburon rear sway bar, Sonata 16x6's with 205/60/16 all seasons. I was dead last in STS. This was October 2007. I made 6 runs. Worst. Idea. Ever. I was hooked. That winter I got hooked up with a local group called Winged Warrior that did a charity event at IRP (it will always be Indianapolis Raceway Park for me). It was a car show, auto-x and drag race that pitted domestics against imports in 6 classes based off NASA rules. I decided that this was something I cold do. I used to go drag racing in my trucks. I can do this.

That spring I installed H&R springs on the car and got some wheels and tires. 225/45/16 Hankook RS-3's on some 16x7 Konig wheels. 

Car was fun, I wasn't last this time and I started to get serious. This car got an exhaust at some point as well. It made 2 national tours at peru. Always terrible. The car was slotted into STS at 2880lb with 135hp at the flywheel against the 89 Civic Si. Never going to be fast at that weight. So Back to daily status it went with a stock exhaust and 205/55/16 allseasons and I did the research for something NOT a Civic Si but smaller and lighter in the same class. The one thing that annoyed me was the idiotically small front rotors/calipers. It would warp a set of rotors with a single hard stop from 80. They would be blue as hell. 9.9" rotors on a 2900lb car with rear drums. But, forums helped find a better solution with Sonata rotors and tiburon calipers. No more rotor warping.   But, this car was back to DD status.... to be replaced with...

This was actually the SECOND swift. The first car (89) was so pooched by the previous owner I cut bait and found this one in Chicago. Lots of work went into it. Koni yellows, springs, sway bar, EBC pads front and rear, 15x7 wheels and 195/50 bridgestones. Car made all the right noises and on paper should have been a contender. Reality was the chassis was so sloppy and the stearing rack so slow it was painful to try and autox. I do miss hearing that G13b screaming at 9k rpm's though. But after 2 years of banging my head against the wall, it was time to move on. I sold it, and all the spares and broke even again. 

so, while this was all going on the wife went back to school for her masters. While that was great, she was also driving 100 miles a day, 4 days a week in my car. That just wasn't going to work (it was still the autox car) so I found her a nice little beater to drive.

2000 Accent GL 5-spd. Bought it from the original owner with 110k miles and a bad wheel bearing. Popped in a new bearing and she drove that car for 8 years and 150k miles. It ate lots of tires and gas and oil and a transmission (after she drove over a 12" curb and shoved the drivers axle into the diff). This thing was a beast and solidified me on the Korean cars. 

So, shortly after realizing how bad the swift was for auto-x and trying to be a srs bzns autox'er I was ready for something fun.

There's a whole build thread here and the subsequent sale to Cotton here on the Forum. This was a fun and frustrating experiment into my roots. I've been a GM V8 RWD guy since birth. Lot of work went into that thing.... probably should have thought more than wrenching on that one. But I didn't know Seth then.

Just before going out to my first solo nats in 2012 I was changing the oil on the Elantra and noticed new rust on the front core support.  I thought I could just clean it up and repaint it to save it.... right up to the point that my finger went through the metal like paper. Sure, the car had 170k miles and we'd owned it for over 10 years but dangit. I liked this car. But while in Lincoln, I made the deal for this one:

now we all know how I still wax poetic over this car. I sold the corvette after we brought it home. 18k miles, 2 years old and 10k. Hard to pass up. Had it for 4 years. Too many emotions on this car. 

While I was towing out a friends civic and he and his co-driver were driving my forte to Lincolnfor the 2013 solo nats, the accent was just getting old and wore out. It was pushing 250k miles and the ac compressor was on its way out. Rear windows no longer worked etc. Wife was ready for an auto car for a dd for the first time. so we found this:

2008 Rio LX auto. Former rental car. 70k miles and 3k.Kept this one as a dd from 2013 until april 2018. sold it to a friends brother for 2300 with 170k miles. Car was a solid runner and driver. I think there was a thread on it here as well. If you're keeping track that's 4 Korean cars now that we have put almost 500k miles on. Only one ever left us stranded with a bad $20 sensor. 

So the Rio was getting up there in miles, and the wife wanted something nicer/newer but we had a $7k budget.

ok, file photo.... 2014 Forte Koup EX auto. Salvage title, 2.0/6spd auto with 30k miles for $7k. We've since put 45k miles on it and she still likes it. 

Of course, we all know the new old truck

the truck I flew to arizona and had an epic road trip with my dad with. And have since spent more money than sense on. Still needs work but isn't going anywhere.

and finally tubey:

There are 4 other vehicles I don't have photos for, my very first 1980 Buick park ave diesel that I bought at 15 for $150 and never got to drive it legally. My 1984 Ford Tempo 5-spd that I used all through high school. The 1989 Caprice 9C1 that got me through college and my early 20's. The 2000 Sonoma sportside that I had.... loved it too. The only othervehicle was the seconf vehicle I should have never sold my 1993 1500 ECSB 4.3 5-spd. I know there's a photo floating around here somewhere...

oh, here's my 93

Cool pics. Love the Swift, is that the one that had 100hp? White tail lights?

I still question your judgement on Korean cars but I approve of the crappy rwd GM V8 stuff.

In reply to Slippery :

94 had that testarossa body look and they all had red tail lights

In reply to bobzilla :

I meant red/white tail lights. Maybe it was a jdm/row only thing:

Love it. 

Those were the lights nobody wanted

In reply to bobzilla :

That was interesting. I enjoyed reading that.

In reply to Woody :

I'm copying over to the second new drive tomorrow. I'll see if I can find some more fun stuff in there. Looks like we have about 300gig of photos and videos of the house, vacations, cars, family etc. wife had been slowly getting them organized whole on break. 
 

ive got a ton of videos too but I do t have an easy place to host them. 

Woody said:

In reply to bobzilla :

That was interesting. I enjoyed reading that.

Ditto

An interesting insight into The Bob-o-sphere!

Fun. 

It looks like I may have forgotten the wife's early vehicles. She had a 1997 Rav4 4dr 5spd when we met. In the first 5 months of our relationship it ate a distributor, one cat, caught the plastic splash shield/rockguard on fire, ate both o2 sensors and the rear end sounded like a sledgehammer hitting the floorpan everytime it tried to engage. Needless to say, at 80k miles it was a complete pile of E36 M3. We traded it in at the beginning of january 02 for this:

quite possibly still her favorite vehicle we've ever owned. 2001 Suzuki Grand Vitara 4wd. This thing was a beast. Throw it into 4wd and it hit WAY above it's size. Couldn't find a path or snow or ice it couldn't get through. What it WASN'T good at was longdistance travel with things on it's roof in a bag. It got 15mpg at 70mph and with a 15 gallon fuel tank, you're always looking for a gas station. but throw it in 4wd and head for the dirt and it was at home. I still miss it too.

Found this:

maybe the only digital photo I have of my 2000 Sonoma. This was wearing my 17x8 Boydz wheels and 255/50/17 NT450's. With the 2.2 and 3.42 rear it got horrible fuel economy and was slow as... well, a 2.2 sonoma. At least with these wheels you never had to lift.EVER. I remember a run from Danville Indiana to Daytona in 11 hours with my best friend. I was running 98mph through downtown Atlanta at about 3am, foot to the floor on the speed limiter.All the way through. At some point we got bracketed by and RX7 and a civic running at least a buck twenty.