The Story of the Viper and its Recent Upgrades

Anyone who knows us, knows that we aren’t just about DIY home stuff, we do almost all of our own car work (repair, upgrades, etc. too). As with the house, we mostly do this because we are cheap. Another reason is that we have trust issues letting other people work on our stuff. And no, we are not going to work on that.

I don’t think that many people believe that I work on the cars too, but that is definitely not the case. I am always helping, and often have to do the work in cramped spaces because my hands and arms are a little smaller. And if I am not actually doing the work, I am the assistant who gets yelled at for grabbing the wrong tools and taking too long to find stuff. A lot of car stuff Aaron talks about (he talks about cars and car parts about 70% of the time that he is awake, maybe more) goes in one ear and out the other. However, I do retain a decent amount of information, just enough to be dangerous. Moving on… 

The Story of the Viper

The Viper is our wedding and honeymoon. After I received my long-awaited engagement ring, I didn’t really want a big wedding. We had a very small wedding ceremony in our house on Thursday, May 20th, 2010, officiated by one of our favorite neighbors and friend in Illinois (check Angie Morgan out at http://www.wedofficiant.com/). We each had a best friend there and it was all around very peaceful and just perfect for us. And no, I am not sharing pictures because I was about 25 pounds heavier and I don’t like the way I looked. Ew. Just looked at those pictures again, and man did I look F_A_T! How about a picture of the delicious food I made instead? (hmmm, wonder why I was a chunkster?!?!)

About a month after we got married, we bought the Viper from a private person (not a dealer) in Oklahoma City. I guess you could consider our turn around drive to pick it up our honeymoon???

Recent Upgrades

The Viper has recently (meaning last 6 months) received some upgrades and a small under-cover face lift.  Overall, the process took an entire Saturday, mostly thanks to the lower radiator hose clamp that was being a complete $*%&@(#. So here is the list of what the viper Aaron got for his birthday:

• Solid upper and lower radiator hoses (matches the intake)
• Powder coated intake manifold
• New spark plugs and wires
• New throttle body

It isn’t like the car needed repaired or even upgraded, it’s a stunning beast on its own. Mostly because of its Paxton friend that resides under the hood.

This is what the Viper’s engine bay looked like before:

And now for some in progress pictures:

And finally, the cleaned up after shots:

Houston has some amazing car clubs. This picture was taken by someone (soooooo sorry, I don’t know who took this or I would give credit) at Houston’s Coffee and Cars (http://coffeeandcarshouston.com/) January 2011 event. I want this guy’s camera! That is Aaron driving and his best friend Rob in the passenger seat.

One word for this picture: cooooooool

Advertisements