My baby

I thought I’d blog about something I’m truly passionate about and that is my car.

In August of 1998 I went looking for a black SS Camaro but couldn’t find one. I wasn’t real crazy about the “fish-mouth” front of the new Camaros but being a Chevy guy that’s what I was going to get. I couldn’t find one exactly like I wanted so I stopped in a local Pontiac dealer on the way home and looked at the WS6’s (they had two) and fell in love. I brought my black, fully optioned, M6 Trans Am WS6 home that evening. I started modding the car right away with things like K&N air filter, home ported MAF, Magnecore plug wires, and a Mecham cat-back exhaust. Then things got out of hand

I would like to document everything that I’ve done with the car and my results. I should also mention mistakes (there have been many) I’ve made and things I’d do differently.

Here’s the list of current mods to the car:

Current Powertrain Components

• 422 cubic inch iron block LS1 motor – (6L block with 4.030″ bore)
• Lunati 4340 Pro Series Forged Custom Crankshaft with 4.125 inch stroke
• Lunati 4340 6.250″ Billet Connecting Rods
• Ross custom forged pistons
• 0.043″ ring package and tool steel pins
• Childs and Albert Plasma Moly Ring Set
• Clevite H Series Race Bearings
• ARP Connecting Rod Bolts
• ARP Main Studs
• ARP Head Studs
• ARE blueprinted oil pump
• ARE Stage 3 ported/polished LS1 racing heads
• Solid Roller cam
• Whisper airbox lid
• ARE custom computer tuning
• T&D adjustable rockers arms
• Cloyes adjustable timing set
• SVO 30# fuel injectors
• Walbro 255L in tank fuel pump
• NGK TR6 spark plugs (gapped at 0.038)
• Stock LS1 ignition system
• Relocated coil packs with custom coil pack brackets
• MSD 8.5mm LT1 plug wires
• Stock LS1 Mass Air Flow Sensor (aftermarket ported ends)
• Stock LS1 Throttle Body (ported/polished)
• Stock LS6 composite intake manifold
• Stock LS1 water pump
• Grotyohann 1-3/4″ longtube headers, ceramic coated & 3″ off road y-pipe
• Mecham cat-back exhaust (4″ Mufflex ready to be installed)
• ASP underdrive crank and alternator pulleys
• No AC
• No PS
• No AIR
• No EGR
• No ABS
• No TCS
• Throttle cable with non-TCS throttle cable

Current Drivetrain Components

• ARE prepped TH350 transmission with trans-brake and reverse manual valve body
• B&M Hammer ratchet shifter
• Yank 4000 rpm stall torque converter
• TCI SFI-approved flexplate
• Denny’s “Nitrous Ready” cromoly steel driveshaft (3″) with 1350 yolks/U-joints
• Ford 9″ Detroit Locker rear with 3.50 gears w/Moser 35-spline axles
• ARP long wheel studs
• Weld Draglite 15×10 (7.5″ backspacing) wheels out back with Mickey Thompson ET Streets 26/11.5×15
• Weld Draglite 15×3.5 wheels in front with Mickey Thompson ET Fronts 26/4.5×15

Current Suspension Components

• HAL 12-way adjustable racing shocks (front and rear)
• V6 Camaro rear springs
• Hal drag front springs
• Spohn adjustable torque arm
• Wolf Racecraft rear swaybar
• Removed front swaybar
• Stock LS1 front dual A-arm components
• Stock LS1 engine K crossmember
• BMR bolt on subframe connectors
• BMR tubular lower control arms
• BMR LCA relocation brackets (need installed)

Safety

• Wolf Racecraft 6-point bolt-in rollbar with sidebar swingouts both sides
• Crow 5-point racing harness
• SN92 Helmet
• Fireproof proban racing jacket

Power Adder

• Nitrous Express wet kit with blowdown tube and bottle heater (currently not installed)
• NOS Progressive Controller (currently not installed)

Track Results

• N/A: December 10, 2004 – 1/4-mile = 11.316 @ 122.53  (1.732 60′)
• N2O: No results since rebuild

OneNote versus Excel for Data Management

I’ve been using my OneNote based GTD system for a few days now. It does keep track of everything and the ability to redefine the note flags for next action, to do, etc is nice. Having everything somewhat organized and all in one application is the biggest selling point with me since before I hade everything in multiple Excel spreadsheets (money related, ToDo list, movie rating list, pets log, work out log, etc) and a Word document (my Journal) along with Outlook Calendar and Contacts.

However, I still miss some of the features of my old Excel based ToDo list. Like sorting. The way my ToDo workbook worked was I had separate worksheets for several categories like Home, Computer, Personal, etc. I entered tasks in the appropriate sheet along with a due date (if appropriate) and priority from 1 – 10. I had (still have) macros that would then sort all of the separate sheets and pick the 10 next due tasks from all of the separate category worksheets and put them on one worksheet and the 10 highest priority items from all of the categories and put them on another worksheet. Doing this would show me problems with my prioritization I’d picked and due dates I had selected. For example if I sorted and “do something nice for wife” came out above “change the oil in race car” it’s obvious I need to adjust my priorities. Same thing with the task due dates.

With OneNote I can do sort of the same thing with the note flags summary. Maybe it’s no more than getting more comfortable with OneNote since I was not using it at all before starting this GTD push about two weeks ago. I really like the idea of almost everything being in one application and I’ve been trying to find something like this for years. If OneNote could insert Exel spreadsheets (like Power Point) it would truly be my killer app and I’d move to it 100%. I’m still using my Word journal and my Excel financial spreadsheet which I’ve been working on much longer and have many more features than my Excel ToDo spreadsheet.

I think getting OneNote set up the way I really want it may take years. I’d like to have everything in it. My journal is an easy transition to OneNote. I can see having man, many things documented in OneNote.

Some examples:

• old addresses
• birthday list
• passwords (?)
• account numbers

Like I said it could take years to get all of that data into OneNote and I’m still not 100% sure I’ll be sticking with OneNote but I do plan on giving it a shot

Mindfulness

I’ve been reading Mindfulness in Plain English. Meditation is something I’ve always wanted to try and I’m finally trying it. I’m only about half way through the book and am just getting into the mechanics about how to meditate so I don’t know what I’m doing yet but I think I have already been unknowingly practicing my own form of mindfulness. Over the years, I have done a lot of soul searching (much of it while working out) and I am able to step out of myself and look at myself objectively. I don’t do it often or consistently or even consciously  but from what I’ve been reading in the book this is something that I’ve learned on my own to do. I’m anxious learn how to meditate properly and see what kind of results I can get.

Update on My Productivity System Decision

I spent a lot of time looking at various software tools to implement a Getting Things Done type productivity system. I don’t like the inflexibility of all-in-one or GTD specific packages. I also struggled with figuring out to use the Excel ToDo spreadsheet I developed several years ago. In the end I’ve decided to go with a M$ OneNote based system. I saw several posts here and here which talk about ways to Implement GTD in OneNote. I’ve developed my own sytsem which I think will work good for work related tasks but I’m not 100% sure it will work well for all of my home and non-work tasks and projects. My system is a hybrid between several GTD implemntations I’ve seen and read about and “Ready, Set, Do” which is a Mac based set of scripts that I read about here.

I’m using OneNote 2003. From what I understand OneNote 2007 has many improvements which make implementing a GTD system much better. I may consider getting OneNote 2007 at some point after I’m fully convinced that OneNote is working for me.

Long time, no see

I haven’t updated this in a really long time.

I’ve been messing around with productivity tools lately. I found lots of discussions on Getting Things Done (GTD) and an offshoot of that called Zen To Don (ZTD) which I like. I wasted a lot of time messing around with various GTD tools but I keep coming back to my own Excel “To Do” spreadsheet. I have been doing the “collect” from GTD for years in this spreadsheet.