Evan sent this to the group earlier this evening.
I have no reason to believe I’ll need to buy a second car. Probably.
So the exhaust manifold no longer gets so hot that it glows. Apparently the ECU had a bad ground, which was causing it to slow the timing at load, which was causing combustion flames to enter the manifold. So that’s a whole thing.
And a replaced gasket on the vacuum pod for good measure.
This means his car is new enough to have ignition timing determined by the ECU. Detectives, get out your service manuals.
But that’s odd… because he also wailed about the state of his distributor (which he also had to take apart and put back together). Of the three of us, I am the least knowledgeable on such matters — and I look forward to being thoroughly schooled about this in Missouri — but I thought either one might have a distributor (like, say, The Truck) or you would have computer-controlled ignition timing (like, say, Xterra the Younger), but not both… but apparently Evan’s mystery wagon… has both?
In the meantime, I gave up and put in a call to a dealer in Austin for the proper replacement to the mission-critical part I tried to salvage from a junkyard. They wanted to be paid … more than I wanted to pay … but I’m hoping the output will reduce the heckling from G&E, instill more confidence from me and Evan G, and — with any luck — allow this to go unnoticed by a Portland buyer.
I just asked George if he’s been up to anything of conseuqence:
I’ve been doing stuff! I’ve been fixing grounds and opening doors and trying to make it idle properly.
And even more exciting than all that obviously made-up nonsense — George has made us a dinner reservation! In Independence, Missouri. For exactly one week from tomorrow where the six of us will meet.