"Mundane, Corroded Pizza Delivery Sled"

"Jesse Shaffer" (7esse) 10/11/2014 at 16:33 • Filed to: None

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O.K... so I've never actually used the car to deliver pizzas, but that has to be a tough gig for a vehicle to endure. Somehow, the stereotype for a "pizza delivery person" doesn't paint the picture of a supremely talented driver, despite their contextual experience.

My car wishes it was a delivery cart. The best aspect of using something cheap is that you can actually use it. What if the car cracks in half, tomorrow?

I don't care.

I'll have the power-train in another body in less than a week and a week's pay (usually much less.) The car is a monstrosity. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Shit happens. I had a fuel injector fail back in 2010, which caused a cylinder to overheat (BUY AN EGT GAUGE! [The AF/R gauge never went seriously lean.]) With a lack of fuel in the jug to cool the piston during combustion, it cracked in no-time. I was coming home from North Carolina when the piston failed. I noticed smoke seeping from the engine in Virginia and it got worse as I traveled. I knew it was serious because the oil pressure was erratic. To the car's credit - it soldiered on for over three hours like that. By the time I got it back to Pennsylvania it was obvious that some major internal component had broken. So, I did what any musician would do with a cheap guitar at the end of a great gig - I took it down the clearest, most open road I knew and went flat out. Christine still brought me home. The car started, idled and moved unaided until I pulled the plug.

The piston affected by the failed injector fell away from the wrist-pin and to the ground in two pieces when I popped it out of the bore. That's some serious heat. I was lucky and got away with just honing the cylinder out, swapping in the caravan pistons and running the stock waste-gate, sans boost controller.

I drove it like this for six months before I could afford to do anything else about it.

It was snowing, anyway.

I will say that the car is amusing in the Winter weather. You can't use the power or weight distribution to do much more than get where you're going, but you can jerk the rear end around on slick roads (because your rear tires will be the ones that you burned off in the Fall and rotated aft in October because you'll want to maintain the ability to get to your job so that you can afford to buy more tires) with almost no effort. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! holds true and the tail wags where you like. Because structural rigidity.

One of the brick's downfalls, though, is that you are missing out on two things that the folks at Chrysler decided to modify for the car that the turbo and pistons were actually designed for. The first is a set of four oil jets built in to the SRT-4 block that spray oil on to the underside of the pistons to keep them cool. Here, you have to be very knowledgeable about what you're doing. The tolerance for overheating a turbocharged car and the damages that will occur if you do are much more drastic than with a car that isn't so aspirating. You could get creative and buy a set of jets and tap the block to fit them, but modifying oil routing is beyond me, currently. I just use this as motivation to keep the engine-tuning as close to spot-on as possible. The next thing is an oil cooler. The SRT "NGC" engine has a heat exchanger on the back of the block that adds a bit of air and liquid cooling to the engine oil. That's a little easier to solve on your own if you're so inclined.

Fire needs air, air burns and makes heat, blah blah blah... but just in case you weren't aware: fuel is a coolant in the combustion chamber. Naturally aspirated cars have very little air in the cylinders during combustion in comparison to something that operates above atmospheric pressure. Fuel starvation fucks shit up.

You live, you learn, you get a tax refund and move on. Hell, if things get really tough I still have the original power-train stashed away. Vomit:

I went through three transmissions in the first year. I started out with 3.55 final drive then I bought a 3.92 gearbox from an R/T car. It was at this point that I realized gearing my car in this direction was counterproductive and switched back to a different 3.55 - which I proceeded to burn through three of five gears in a 40 mile round-trip noise-fest to work after forgetting to fill it with differential fluid during an unavoidable clutch upgrade (I swear I'm only a part-time idiot.)

I bought the one I'm running on at the moment for $75 on Craigslist from a blown-up Eclipse.

(Look for an article in a future year, after I can afford decent axles, that professes about how great I think it is that I've only been through four transmissions in that many years.)

Here's what I truly love about cars and car culture. Even though the car doesn't deliver the community's late-work-night salvation, it still has a presence in the community. Passion breeds more passion. I don't have a truck. I don't have a garage. I don't even have that many tools. You know what I do have? Some of the greatest friends a guy could ask for.

They help me with my problems, I help them with theirs.... when we have the time... if our lives aren't in the way. We make a phone call, take some berating, and we all learn together how not to repeat whatever stupid thing one of us just did... or, at least, we try to. Our common interest keeps each others cars on the road.

There is something in getting to know the underbelly of your car more intimately than you'd like after throwing a bitch-fit at some aluminum for forty-five additional minutes on what should-have-been a three hour job because the set pin in your block won't let your transmission completely seat because it's playing rock-vs.-hard-place against another set pin in said transmission which wriggled its way out of the iron block of that Eclipse and wedged itself in to the soft aluminum of the trans-casing that you bought and you didn't check for this kind of horse-shit because what-THE- FUCK after this thing took two jacks and three people to get an invisible pilot shaft lined up with a key-way in the crankshaft the first time and now it has to come back apart....

What was I saying? Oh yeah... there's something about working on your car that compels you to mature your use of the pedals. It's only after you find the weak points in what you thought you liked, do you then discover what you truly love. This car takes a lot of love because it has a lot of needs. Don't ever let me become guilty of confusing the word cheap with the word easy. This is the pizza delivery girl that went on to become the President & CEO in a hostile takeover. Easy, she aint. She's harsh and high-maintenance, but she's worth the ride. You better be on-point.

xmarkedspot is Jesse Alan Shaffer, former Director of Information Technology and Network Analyst for Pittsburgh Technology Management, current starry-eyed-schmuch-trying-to-be-a-writer in NY, NY. @xmarkedspot

TheLOUDMUSIC- Put it in H! > Jesse Shaffer 10/11/2014 at 16:37

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You should re post this on Monday. This is top quality material.

Jesse Shaffer > TheLOUDMUSIC- Put it in H! 10/11/2014 at 16:45

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Thanks for reading it. I'll e-mail the jalopnik tips site, and if anyone else does the same it is much appreciated.

Tohru > Jesse Shaffer 10/11/2014 at 17:20

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I was ready to dismiss this because it's a Neon. They have shit head gaskets, weak automatics, the paint likes to peel off in sheets, the tops of the doors rust, it's built to 90's Dodge quality control standards, and they're about the only 90's car out there worse than the Ford Escorts I've owned.

Then I read this story, and the two related ones from before it.

I approve.

Jesse Shaffer > Tohru 10/11/2014 at 17:22

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Thank you for taking the time to read through my work!

Racescort666 > Jesse Shaffer 10/11/2014 at 17:36

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I read the first few lines of this article then I decided to read the rest of the chronicles. It reminds me of why I love cars. It doesn't matter if other people think your car is a piece of shit (or even if you think so too) but that you love your piece of shit in a way that doesn't really make sense to a lot of people. I think there is a passion in cars that many people don't understand and probably never will. I'm pleased to say that I'm confident you get it. Carry on sir.

Cebu > Jesse Shaffer 10/11/2014 at 17:36

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Well wrote, my friend.

Well wrote.

Jesse Shaffer > Cebu 10/12/2014 at 15:22

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Thank you!

Jesse Shaffer > Racescort666 10/12/2014 at 15:23

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People are always telling me that I can't polish a turd, but I remind them that I'm an asshole and that's exactly what I do.