Thread: How about some great stories??

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With you and Jack telling cop stories on your other thread about the dummy burning down his own car I was reminded of an old story. Glad you started a new thread where it would be more appropriate.

When I was stationed in Victorville, CA at George AFB I bought a '55 Chev tudor sedan from a little ol' lady in Apple Valley. It came with a tired six and powerglide, but the body and interior were very nice, and with some polishing the paint came back pretty well. All it needed were some "improvements". Just so happened a guy I knew needed some money and had a fairly fresh 327 with a gnarly cam and a big 3310 on a high rise. Pretty much a 350 hp L79 clone. My room mate and I had rented an old, converted horse stall in Adelanto, a mostly rural community at the time, out on Hwy 395 where he was building a '36 ford pickup, and I worked on the '55. In addition to the V8 I had scored all the pieces needed to do the stick shift conversion by parting out a '57 Chev (a story I've posted up years ago here). The day came when all the transfer work was done and it came time to fire it up for the first time. The engine came with a nice set of full headers, but I didn't have facility to do an exhaust system so we just fired it open. It just so happened that in the nearest house (probably 100 yards or so away) lived a kid with a '58 Vette, dual quad 283 variety. A couple minutes after firing off the 327 he and his buddy showed up. I had my head over the engine timing it, but I heard his buddy shout to him "....oh you can beat him, he's only got one carb!". At that they walked back to their house. Well, it was time to see how she would run through the gears. So I backed it out, pulled out into the paved road that ran in front of the acreage where our building was, as well as the kid's house. Drove it easy down the block at first just to make sure everything was working okay. Hmmmm, seems pretty good so far, and man that nasty small block sounded great through those open headers! Turned around, stopped in front of the kid's house, pushed the loud pedal and dumped the clutch! OOOOOWWWEEEEEEEE, like runnin' at San Fernando again!!!! Got to the end of the street, big smile on the face, and putted back to the garage. Time to inspect for leaks and whatnot. While I'm under the car I notice off to the side of the car some very shiny shoes and tan pant legs. My buddy Kieth said something like "you may want to crawl out from under there Bob." Yup, a visit from the county mountie.........sunglasses, smokey hat, and all! Man could he give a butt chewin'...............would make a first sargeant proud!!! Somethin' about some woman being scared to death by the noise and all. At the end of his tirade he was good enough not to give me a ticket, but warned me if he ever got another call about me runnin' with open headers again I'd be getting a ride in HIS car.

Oh, the kid never did come around with his Vette either.