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There were lots of GT500's lined up outside SAI for their KR conversions:
But this was what the trip was all about:
The car came out a little dirty, but still looked a lot better than it went in. Still some bugs on the bumper from the trip down at the end of June, but it looks as though they were cleaned off before the stripe went on. The only bumps under the stripe were from the old license plate holes.
After inspecting the car, my brother and I took it for a spin. When we picked up my 40th, there was a lot of wheel shake, so I was wondering how these wheels would make out. More shake - back to SAI where they re-balanced them. One of the fronts had no weights at all, which I thought was rather rare, but they said they get quite a few that zero-balance. Another run, and it felt much better. Here's hazy Las Vegas in the background on the test drive:
The other I noticed on the test drive was that the car felt so sloooowww... The speedometer was reading 140 km/hr, but it felt much slower. We hauled out the GPS, and sure enough, the speedo's reading 20% high, so at 120 I'm only doing 100. Even after you know, it's very weird. Bud's going to look into sending me another unit with (hopefully) the proper calibration. And as I write this, I don't know why we didn't just try to fix the problem then and there. My 40th Anniversary has the opposite problem: it reads 10% too slow, so 45 mph (US car) on the speedo is actually 50. Did anyone else have this problem when their car was converted? I think MM did, and he got a speeding ticket during one of his early runs. And so did I. After I got back, I was driving the 40th the next day, and got nabbed for 102 km/hr in an 80 zone (60 in a 50). Piss me off, there was no discussion, no warning, just license registration, here's your ticket, "Slow down!" And I was trying to go the limit! the KB and my right foot were touchy that day. So was the cop - there was absolutely no one else on the road for miles except the 2 of us...
We got on the road shortly after lunch. We took our stops every half-hour to allow the rear-end gears to cool, as suggested. Shortly after we re-started on one of them, we heard a loud repeating noise coming from the back left of the car. Oh no, another flat, just like last trip? We stopped, everything looked fine, and we couldn't tell what it was. I thought maybe a truck we passed in the median had just started an air compressor as we drove by, it was that loud. We carried on, but checked again later. Look at the white mark on the corner of the brake duct:
There's maybe half an inch between the duct and the inside of the wheel. I couldn't get my camera in there, but the inside of the rim was scratched, so we must have picked up a rock and it rattled around like a roulette ball until it was spit out. The right rear didn't show any of the marks, but I'm going to pull my wheels off and check more closely.
As the sun went down, the near-full moon was rising. I think it just wanted a peek at the SuperSnake:
You can see the SS shadow in the foreground.
We made it to Pocatella around 11PM, a couple of hours north of Salt Lake City, before stopping for the night. It was clear, and we heard there was lots of snow in the past few days further north, so we wanted to get as far as we could while we had good weather. Like 2-3 FEET of snow in some places in Idaho. Oh no... Can't you hear the conversation now? "Honey, we have to go back to Vegas, as the roads are blocked. For how long? I don't know, 5 months probably. Love you too, dear!"
The road crews must have been working on I-15, because there was no snow on the rods, but certainly in the ditches. I think eastern Idaho and Montana got the worst of it. Here's the car first thing Tuesday morning:
Just a little frosty! I was glad the Mustang GT parked beside me sometime after we arrived. He probably took care not to bang my door! I don't really like parking at motels...
Pics at their limit; more in 2nd post...
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MultiQuote
We took it pretty easy on the spirited driving, just because of the cool temperatures. I didn't want any nasty surprises by suddenly losing grip.
And I betcha he's in their database now! 
