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Roy Johnson is another person TF use to race with. He was a local guy from Greenville, TN that went to all the tracks we did I knew Roy well. Later on after he got older Roy built engines for his son Allen Johnson who use to be a big time Mopar pro-stock racer. I always rooted for him when I saw him on TV. I don't know if they are still in drag racing or not. Below is a photo of Roy's car when TF raced him in the '70s. The red headed guy on the right is my friend Dennis Tucker. TF's Camaro was in the left lane and out of the picture. I was probably there somewhere. EDIT: Looks like Roy and Allen retired from racing in 2017. That's Roy on the bicycle.

The manual I just got is clearly marked "final edition". It's grey with drawings of the Reatta and the Rivera in white, quite thick so I intend to study it and become familiar with it.

Years ago I helped Glen drop an L-67 and 5 speed Getrag into an 88 keeping the digital dash. Today might do something different but cheated, bought a nice 89 Allante with 273 lb-ft of torque for chump change. 270-300 lb-ft of torque makes for a nice cruiser.

I'm just glad I'm not a mechanic that has to work on any of those engines. To complicated for me.

I have been looking through old photos on my laptops and several different camera memory chips. I must admit I have a confusing jumble of dates and parallel projects over 20 years or so. This makes a sequential narrative difficult and probably inaccurate so, I thought I might try posting some photos I am trying to label rather than a .jpg number with a small note about it. The image quality is highly variable. This the first turbo installation from 2003. The front exhaust manifold design is unchanged except for the rear exhaust crossover pipe coming in from the left. The turbo downpipe connected in the same place as the normal crossover pipe at the rear so that whole turbo assembly could be unbolted from the exhaust connections and the stock crossover reinstalled. The turbo itself is a three bolt style Garrett T3 from an early hot air, non intercooled, Grand National. Note the location of the O2 sensor moved to the front, which I found later was a bad idea as the pre-turbo exhaust pressure can screw up the O2 exchange in the sensor. The compressor blows directly into the MAF/TB. All piping is high heat ceramic coated, inside and out, from Finishline in Milwaukie, OR. I think this is mocked up on my original engine and the engine in the car at the time was the one I rebuilt with a little more compression. This whole assembly was transferred to the engine that was in the car at the time. This is a top view of the piping layout in raw form from January 2003, a winter project in the heated workshop. The crossover pipe from the rear is on the right and that's an expansion joint in the middle, which is very close to the center of the water pump pulley. The rear manifold was a complete fabrication from new and scavenged stock manifold parts cut up to redirect the rear exhaust to the front. Just peeking out from underneath is the "S" shaped exhaust outlet to the exhaust system. This was bolted to a tab on the new rear manifold so the rest of the stock exhaust system connected normally.

It does effect the exhaust note; a little bit louder. As for performance, it is hard to judge but I do know the exhaust will smell much like a pre-emissions engine which I didn't like. Unless the rear manifold restriction is removed, likely little will change performance wise. The stock muffler isn't a big problem flow wise at stock power levels. I do have flow figures from the flowbench somewhere which I think I have posted before. What I found to be a decent compromise is to install a modern replacement cat. Nothing exotic or "high flow rated", just a simple Walker or similar. I know they are stealing converters from under cars in parking lots for the rare earth elements but several years ago I know it was well under $100. From memory and relative figures, I found a stock cat around 225cfm, a replacement cat at over 340cfm and an equal straight pipe just shy of 400cfm, at approx one psi.

Man that sounds like fun. All Reattas should have an engine that would make them feel that way. I usually drive my truck around town but I've started driving my Equinox with a 3.0 V6 a lot lately. It's a high tech engine with VVT and direct injection. It has 264 horsepower. It reminds me more of a motorcycle engine than a car engine. It doesn't like to be below 2000 RPM unless you are just cruising on level ground. It doesn't ever really need to drop below 2000. With the 6 speed transmission you always seem to be in the right gear. Just driving normally it's not unusual to look down at the tach and see it run up to 4000 as is accelerates through the gears. It is so smooth and effortless at those RPMs that you don't even notice it. If you really get into the throttle it will run up past 7000 just as easy. Maybe more but that is where I back off. The tach goes to 8000 with no redline but I don't want to push my luck. It would really be fun to be able to do that in my Reatta. The Reatta should have an engine and transmission like that.

I drove mine today, almost a full month earlier than usual, although not exactly planned. It was a nice dry day today so I am slowly preparing to open my cottage for the season and I had parts for the boat, several batteries that come home for winter and some other "stuff". I have a 24 year old Ford Ranger 4x4 that does winter duty at home and the was the vehicle of choice to haul stuff north. Just as I arrived on the private road that leads in off the pavement, the Ranger decided it would be a good time for the rear brake line to not contain fluid any longer? I still have front brakes but a very low pedal so it made it to where it was destined to be stored in a month or two anyway. Since I had brought batteries along it was a no brainer to wake the Reatta early this year. It starts instantly, as per usual, and simply sounded good. I will post a couple answers here that were asked recently in other threads: - Both battery connectors have three different sized wires attached - My trunk lid wiring is definitely the factory setup and there are three conductors, one is a dedicated ground wire for the lock release and the light. - Just recently performance was inquired about and since I have a vacuum/boost gauge, I do pay attention to it, even in normal driving. I try not to abuse the car, particularly the transaxle, so my observation is in average conditions, the gauge is in the 5-6" of manifold vacuum range while accelerating up to speed, which is pretty light throttle. As mentioned before, it gets into boost pretty easily and there is a fairly steep hill to be climbed just as I get to the pavement leaving the cottage. I always enjoy my first drive of the season, it just feels good, so as I accelerated up the hill, it got into about 5 psi of boost and I just left it there. It just feels so effortless. I guess the best description is contentment lives on the right side of zero.

When I bought the Judge it was a $600 gas guzzler. I just rarely sell a car. Would like to add either a 5 speed or an overdrive.

I've read that a lot of Reatta owners that want really great speakers were very happy with Infinity Kappa speakers. They are available on Amazon. I just installed new OEM speakers from a local parts store. They have a lot to be desired. I usually drive with the windows down in nice weather so even good speakers wouldn't sound all that good. If I want to hear good music I listen to my vintage Polk SDA 2s at home.