Just in case any of you are curious, I went and weighed the car.

for my '88 coupe, with stock body, AC compressor and condenser removed, and the 3800 NA and 4 speed Muncie, the weight was 2880 lbs with 5/8 tank of gas, me, and my work bag. If I figure that I have about 7 gallons in there, and I think gas is around 7 lbs per gallon, and the bag and I together weigh 220, that leaves me with a dry curb weight of 2610. Not too shabby, considering the big wide 17's.

I couldn't measure front vs rear, and I just used the scales at the local dump, but they're calibrated daily to a maximum of 20lbs error, and I weighed the same on both the "in" and "out" scales.

Interesting for anybody curious about the weights.. I'm pretty sure I dropped about 30 pounds from the duke / auto combo. Pretty cool considering I more than doubled the power.

quote Originally posted by aaronkoch: My car is done. I took my wife up and down the street for the inaugural drive, and she feels really good.

And how was the car?

Nice to see a long project get finished. Good job!

Ran like a champ. I changed the break-in oil Thursday with about 250 miles on it, and nothing looked scary, so i topped off all the fluids, checked tire pressures, packed a WHOLE set of tools in the trunk and drove down Friday.

Even with the 4 speed and driving like a lunatic, i still averaged about 24-25 MPG. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and order Rodney's Getrag shift cables so I can throw that 5 speed in it for highway cruising. 3200 RPM at 70 isn't fun for several hundred miles in a row...

It was a great shakedown run. I have a tiny coolant seep from somewhere on the waterpump housing edge, and the exhaust touches the cradle sometimes and rattles a bit, but those are pretty minor bugs on a project of this scope, especially considering I have no formal mechanic training of any kind. As soon as we get back below the upper 90's I'll drive it more, just too stinking hot to drive the fiero when my DD calls to me with it's sweet air conditioned interior..

[This message has been edited by aaronkoch (edited 08-14-2012).]