Road Trip to Key West

[taxspeaker]

Trunk monkey-great ads! If he's back there he's fried though!
How you doing Joe?

[Swampwing2]

Glad you made it with no major issues. The best thing about our south Florida summer heat is that the roads are half as crowded, since the snow birds all left.

Bummer we could not connect, but glad you didn't need anything.

I only run the ethanol free 89 octane in my 10:1, iron head, 440. It runs way better than 93 with ethanol, especially when I don't use it as much and the fuel gets a little older. It pings a lot more on the 93 under hard acceleration.

[taxspeaker]

The heat was so bad in Florida that we went ahead and got back to Indiana early.

A summary for anyone interested:
2,844 miles round trip
Averaged almost exactly 12.5 MPG for trip, but speeds were probably 72 average on highway
Mechanical issues-lost 1 lug nut somewhere, car ran rough when heat soaked, used exactly 1 quart of oil, but no real issues. Water temp was fine at highway speeds but very high when heat soaked and in traffic as expected and normal-triple core radiator cannot overcome lack of airflow. Getting some rear end whine, so I will pull the 3rd member in a month or so and send it off to Gary for rebuilding.
1 car show attended in Bradenton where it won best of that small 100 car show
Physical damage-none I can find and I have been over every inch

Stories-I am summarizing now. Heat is a big part of all of them. There were no 20 mile chasedowns like on the Alaska trip, but several shorter ones.

Side note-met a gentleman in extreme southern Florida with 2 birds. He bought his new and his brother had bought his new. His brother has since passed away. Both cars undriven now for 10-15 years he says. I did get to see both sitting in his sister-in-law's commercial garage. Dirty but unwrecked, obvious road wear, some minimal rust around rear windows and rear quarters.-he said they washed them all the time and parked them in the garage since new.  His brother's is a V code, 4-speed console B5 blue, his is a U code, automatic bench red one. For the 2nd time since I have driven the cars I have been asked to buy someone's Bird since I am an obvious wierdo on wing cars. (My and his wife's words) he has asked me to buy the 2 of them. I told him I just don't have the money, but he is very aggressive on it, so he has given me till the end of July to get it. Sadly, my only option is to try and sell my Daytona to get the money, so it's on another thread. Not really sure if I want to do this, but damn that 6 pack is nice-41,000 miles and started easily. If I can't do it I think he will wait-he is adamant about no auctions "Let the kids sell them otherwise" is his quote. I will follow up if anything happens here.

I appreciate the board and members on this forum, thanks for the comments, offers for help and encouragement. See you in Alexander City in October.
Bob

[held1823]

mortgage the wife and kids before you sell a daytona to buy a superbird, be it one, two, or twenty of them

signed,

an obviously biased daytona fan

[b5blue]

Bob, deep respect to you for risking it all for the adventure!     

[WINGIN IT]

Glad you are home safe Bob !
Congrats on the trip, can't wait to see some footage.

And what are you some kind of Bird magnet???
You average 2 bird owners a year wanting to sell their cars to you.

While I would also lust after that console 4spd B5 bird ( hint hint ) , Sell the Daytona?? NOOOOOOOOO!!!   
Wouldn't it make more sense to sell the one you just "painted"  or the green one, to get a six pack 4spd ?? 

Seriously , call me if you are still thinking of selling the Daytona, ( and I'll talk you out of it, lol ) .