Neat Cruise In Find
 

Got the vette out for some cruising last weekend before it starts getting too hot and came across a fairly rare vehicle. This specific cruise in often has a handful of exotics, but the vast majority are your 'typical' rich person stuff - stock Huracan/488/ R8/ etc.

This was a refreshing surprise - a LFA. Ive always heard about the legendary exhaust note, but had never heard one in person until he pulled this in. I absolutely agree with the reviews - that is absolutely one of the best automotive exhaust sounds in existence. If you had your eyes closed, you'd 100% guess this was some kind of crazy formula type race car.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...def053d8fc.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...9518967fff.jpg


One part I was somewhat confused by are those little plastic tubes up in the corners of the engine bay. On the bottom, they bolt indirectly to the topside of the exhaust manifolds (although it doesn't look like exhaust comes through them), then they've got a short piece of what looks like small dryer duct, and then topped by a round plastic tube. Those tubes generally sit beneath the big vents in the hood, although it looks like they just loosely hang out below it - they aren't really sealed up / connected in any way.

Not really sure what they do. At first I thought cooling for the manifolds for some reason - but the bottoms/outlets are pretty small - it can't cover more than 1 or 2 cylinders worth of exhaust pipes. Just thought it was a neat peculiarity:
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...7cc5f1c6b3.jpg


I did naturally check to see if he had any interest in a friendly highway pull for fun, but he declined. It's too bad, I'd just put on some brand new pilot sport 4s up front that I was eager to try out :)

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...96f37a7bf1.jpg

I'll definitely give him props for at least bringing it out of the garage to see the light of day! I'm sure there are thousands of really cool cars in the metro that just sit locked away permanently.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...85fc4f8f1a.jpg
Keeping with the theme of neat stuff from this same show , I'll dig up a few oldies.

This one is a double (?) size willys. I don't remember exactly what multiple it was, but the guy basically took the drawings and multiplied the size of every body feature by that. He had some monster pedal extenders to reach the pedals and even the seats looked like a medieval kings throne.

The whole body itself really isn't too crazy size wise, its not really much bigger than a lifted F250 / excursion, but it is funny seeing all of the features exaggerated by that much.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...86493163ed.jpg
This was a really cool one.

I'll be honest- I'm not a bike guy. I think sport bikes are cool, but Im too scared to ride one. Ive been rear ended 4 times in my life, 3 of them rather severe accidents. So I don't trust others enough to ride one.

But, this thing was next level cool. Its a Y2K bike which is powered by a turbine engine. Literally sounds like a jet at the airport driving around. Absolutely stopped everyone dead in their tracks and drew everyone to it.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...ad740abe35.jpg


One other of my favorite things about this place is the displays some people do (unusual for an informal cruise in where cars are constantly coming and going).

I can't find my two favorites as I think they were on my old phone:
-One guy brought his original gt40 (not a replica) when the new Ford GT came out. He flanked it with the early 00s version on one side and the and the latest GT on the other.
-Some of the hardcore Jeep guys with the big mud tires would have one person crank his wheel all the way to the right so his big tire was hanging way out the left. Then the next guy would pull up and climb his right tire up onto the first guys left tire. They'd repeat this with 3 or 4 Jeep so they were all stacked / tilted against each other.

Pic above isn't as cool, but still thought it was cool

Nice pics!

The LFA and others are cool but is that your Corvette?? Lol kinda like that better. Crazy is always cool but obtainable has always been more desirable to me.

Yes it is. I bought it several years ago as a birthday present for myself. It was a bone stock, zero option, black 2009.

Come a long way since then:
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...a0bf9b9742.jpg

I've done all the mods myself besides the tint (I've done a good bit of tint at a past job, but enough to know that rear window is a booger to do right).

Mod list:
-GM suede steering wheel
-GM suede ebake handle / boot
-GM suede center console lid
-GM heads up display

-Rear widebody conversion
-ZR1 spoiler
-Tint
-Entire car wrapped in 3m 1080 vinyl
-OEM Z06 wheels (the real Italian Speedlines) powdercoated black
-345 NT05R drag radials in back

-Z51 front brake / rotor conversion
-Carbotech ax6 brake pads

-A&A centrifugal supercharger kit, vortech v3si
-Meth injection
-1 7/8 headers
-Corsa Extreme exhaust

Last dyno was 585 whp, but that was a couple pulley drops ago - should be in the low-mid 600s now.

Definitely some interesting rides , it's nice to see different projects that others have instead of the same thing everytime.

My favorite are the home built swaps and conversions - those are the people I could spend hours talking to. There's usually a few 6 figure cars at each show, but there's usually not much to talk about when all they did was write a check and (maybe) read the brochure. I liked the LFA only because it was so rare - its maybe only once a year I catch something that odd (McLaren F1 and an original gt40 being two of my other favs).

The thing I like most about this specific show is the cruise in format. Certainly there are probably a dozen or two people that treat it like a regular car show and camp there all day every weekend. But probably 95%+ of the show is a fluid group of cars coming and going. Not only is the majority of the group different from one weekend to the next, but even if you came at 4pm and then circled back at 7pm, you'd see probably 50% new faces.

It's one of my stops when I do cruising on Saturday night. I'll hit this area first for dinner and to walk around once, then go cruise one specific area and circle back here later in the evening to see who else came in.

Ahh I actually know the answer to that one! Working in conjunction with the air vents on the hood, while at speed those pipes help pull air up and away from the manifold. Just a tad bit of cooling like you thought. There's enough negative pressure at speed that it pulls up