You know the drill:

How old were you when you first discovered your passion for vehicles?

Would you ever lower a truck?

What's your preferred jam while hoonage ensues?

What's your typical Whataburger order?

How do you like your steak cooked?

If you were to build a sleeper with a typical budget, what vehicle would you use and what power plant would you use?

What state would you reside in if you weren't able to live in Texas?

Most f'ed up car/driving story of your life?

Favorite/least favorite beer?

Drink of choice?

What do you want your next vehicle to be?

How many JCI chili cheese dogs can you eat in one sitting?

Which car do you want to shove off a cliff?

In your opinion, what is the absolute worst modification that can be done to a vehicle?

3 favorite car related activities?

Preferred city for getting crunk?

Origin of user name?

Current hometown?

Original hometown?

Occupation?

Without considering cost, if you could give your kids any vehicle when they turn 16, what would you start them in?

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edit?

edit: Second try... the board ate the first post.

Hopefully answers make sense, I've been at work since 5am

How old were you when you first discovered your passion for vehicles?
That goes way back when, most of my early childhood memories have something to do with cars or hoonage (Hot Wheels, Roller Racer, ...). and my jungle gym was my grandpa's truck and tractor after he had a stroke. I got into wrenching in high school because if my POS didn't run I had no ride for a while, and I got serious about it in college. I had no car for a couple of years and I wanted to buy a turbo Z31, but could only afford enough to try and resurrect the truck that was sitting behind the house for years. Fixing things up kind of stuck with me since then. I still have grandpa's truck, and my one regret is not getting involved with TAMSCC.

Would you ever lower a truck?
I already have.


Without loading it up with a ton of concrete... I probably would have said no but the guy across the street has a '63 Suburban he's lowered a few inches and it looks pretty good. I'd also be lying if I said I haven't run across a slammed mini truck or 2 that didn't like.


What's your preferred jam while hoonage ensues?
I listen mostly to trance/progressive. Since I haven't live in TX in a few years most of my driving is long distance, and I have a lot of 2 hour sets that do a good job of passing the time and helping keep me alert enough to look out for the southeast's finest. Actual hoonage will probably have to wait until I can build a drift trike...

What's your typical Whataburger order?
The closest Whataburger that I get to stop at is near Biloxi, MS so first I have to gawk at the menu for a while while Mrs. Fife stands around annoyed. Double Whataburger with cheese, bacon, ketchup and mayo, large fries, DP and some ketchup packs for the road.

I also regret not getting involved in TAMSCC in college.

What do you do for a living that requires you to work: a. long hours, b. not in TX, and c. on the 4th?

How do you like your steak cooked?
Medium rare, because everyone overdoes it and it'll come out medium anyway. Bacon wrapped filet mignon if I'm out somewhere, or pretty much anything if it's outdoors. The only steak I really avoid was Sbisa "steak" night.

If you were to build a sleeper with a typical budget, what vehicle would you use and what power plant would you use?
I think about this at least 5 times a week because I love sleepers and the answer is always LS swap. A while back it was a LS/T56 swap into a late '80s Jaguar XJS. There are already kits out there to do this exact thing, how easy could it be? These days since Mrs. Fife keeps talking about kids it would be a tossup between an '83 Caprice wagon like my parents had or maybe building up a Volvo 850 wagon. There are WAY more projects out there that I would like to do than I have time or money for.

What state would you reside in if you weren't able to live in Texas?
I live in Charleston, SC and it's an ok place to be. I've been here for about 4 1/2 years and it's sort of grown on me. Before that I was split between Seattle and SA... My answer would be probably either Washington or Colorado. I like the outdoors, I like mountains, and I hate humidity. Western WA has the added bonus that all of the plastic interior parts that normally go to crap from the sun are just fine. That's a big part of why our Volvo is still around.

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I also regret not getting involved in TAMSCC in college.

What do you do for a living that requires you to work: a. long hours, b. not in TX, and c. on the 4th?

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I'm a lead engineer for a big aerospace company. Between me living in Seattle and now Charleston you should be able to figure out the company name and model.

a. Long hours... weekends are by choice (engineers get OT, and that helps out since we have a lawsuit going against a roofing company who had a major construction accident at one of our rentals and basically crushed the place). Early hours are because the people I support start at 5 on weekends/5:30 on weekdays, but most of the time I go home after about 8 hours so that's 1:30 or 2 in the afternoon. Not bad.

c. Airplanes don't build themselves, and the flight line is active because most airline customers are not American. Production took volunteers to help catch up today, so support is also here.

b. I started with the company in San Antonio at a site that does maintenance/mods for the USAF but commercial work is the place to be. That meant that I had to move, and I still miss the hell out of friends back over there.

Most f'ed up car/driving story of your life?
There are more than a couple. One year in SA, coming back from a New Year's Eve party I saw no fewer than two people driving the wrong way on the freeway + someone else who wrecked his car while taking the turnaround on an access road the wrong way. Another time I was driving this girl I was dating in my 924S with the sunroof removed. She was really drunk and thought it would be a good idea to stand on the seat.

The one involving me, I'll try and make a long story short... It was back in high school while I was driving my first car, a bottle green '78 Delta 88 with what we guessed was well over 200,000 miles. I didn't know that much about cars back then but I could tell something was starting to go seriously bad with the front/right wheel. I tried to show it to my dad but he just blew it off like maybe it threw a wheel weight or it was nothing, and he said the car is ok to keep driving.

A few days later we had a jazz band contest/performance at SWT so off I went. The turn to get to the music building is about at the bottom of the biggest hill in San Marcos. It's pretty steep. I start heading down the hill, gently get on the brakes and the pedal goes straight to the floor. Pumping it does nothing. About that time I see the light at the bottom of the hill is red, and someone I know was starting to go through the intersection. I stayed calm at least... I downshifted to 2nd to use the engine as a brake, grabbed the E-brake release handle and used that pedal so I could slow down enough to put the car in L and blew the light while making a right behind the guy from school.

What happened was the wheel bearing was failing and when it overheated it melted completely through the brake line. Between that and dad catching the car on fire I learned that he may not have been that mechanically inclined.

Favorite/least favorite beer?
Favorite depends... if I'm coming in from working outdoors just give me a Yuengling and I'm happy. If I actually want to enjoy the experience it's hard to go wrong with one of Rogue's darker beers. Holy City Pluff Mud Porter is great too and it's cheap because they're local. Least favorite... the worst I've had is Tecate, but usually I would run across it in some town in Mexico that might not actually be a place on the map/even have electricity. Ideal conditions for skunky beer.

Drink of choice?
I like beer more than anything mixed and already commented on that... otherwise it would either be Cheerwine or root beer. I've gotten kind of tired of regular soda and need to check around to see if anybody around here sells Big Red. We really need HEB over here.

What do you want your next vehicle to be?
If I got another without selling something first it would have to be something I could sleep in. I'm pulled in two directions. I've wanted an NSX for years now, and I've missed the P-car world since the day I sold the 924S. It would have to be a '97 or newer NSX or 996 turbo. Manual only.

How many JCI chili cheese dogs can you eat in one sitting?
Easily 4 but for some reason I'm as thin now as I was at HS graduation.

Which car do you want to shove off a cliff?
We're gonna need a big cliff.
- Any car belonging to someone who can't merge onto the highway and decides to stop on the onramp
- My 560SL when a bolt broke off just about flush with the head
- My first car when for only God knows why, it decided to barf up all the transmission fluid through the dipstick
- Convertible Muranos. Or just Muranos in general since they seem to be next to useless.

In your opinion, what is the absolute worst modification that can be done to a vehicle?
Car audio, specifically half-assed car audio. I've had to sort out some rediculously bad stereo wiring that was done by previous owners. There are also a ton of useless bro trucks around here. They can't tow, can't haul because the owner is scared of scratching the bed, ... what is it even good for any more?

3 favorite car related activities?
I've been held up for parts so long on the Volvo right now one of them would have to be just putting it back together with all new rubber and seals. In general the satisfaction from just being done is great, even when it's just done for now.

Detailing, because it's relatively fast and easy and you get immediate results. I also like a clean car, especially the interior.

Planning for how I'm going to build up our garage. It's about 33x30 with a high ceiling, and it's a pretty big part of why we chose the place. I already have A/C, flooring and two lifts planned out. There is also space for at least 12' worth of tool boxes + pegboards. Other projects are in line before this one... maybe it will happen next spring. A picture is worth 1,000 words...

Preferred city for getting crunk?
Puro San Anto! That's where the most memories happened.

Origin of user name?
It's been so long I wish I had half a clue... it's not my first name on Texags but I'm not positive what my first one was either. It wasn't anything memorable and I re-registered probably because I used an A&M address I didn't have access to any more to reset the password from. As far as I know this is the last time I used this user name.

Current hometown?
Charleston, SC. Real Charleston, not one of the suburbs.

Original hometown?
San Marcos, technically out in the county. I did a ton of trespassing back in the day and found all sorts of cool stuff out in the woods. Never got caught. I know where there's probably still a '36 Ford truck that I hid in during a hailstorm but the other cars are probably long gone. There was a '62 Ford Ranchero (Falcon), '50 Hudson, '54 Nash Ambassador, and '63/'64 Buick Wildcat and some '50s Chevy and GMC trucks. All were complete, hopefully someone bought them to restore.

Occupation?
Engineering lead at the country's largest aerospace company. Domestic assignments and travel are some of the most fun I've had outside of B/CS.

Without considering cost, if you could give your kids any vehicle when they turn 16, what would you start them in?
Something they'll get to work on or at least have some form of ownership in, so they'll get to help figure that out. That should cut down on the dumbassery a little. Things are a little different when you get to fix what you broke instead of daddy fixing it.

We don't have kids yet. It'll all probably be automated driving by then anyway, and cars will probably be safe with airbags like that car from Demolition Man or something.

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If you were to build a sleeper with a typical budget, what vehicle would you use and what power plant would you use?
I think about this at least 5 times a week because I love sleepers and the answer is always LS swap. A while back it was a LS/T56 swap into a late '80s Jaguar XJS. There are already kits out there to do this exact thing, how easy could it be? These days since Mrs. Fife keeps talking about kids it would be a tossup between an '83 Caprice wagon like my parents had or maybe building up a Volvo 850 wagon. There are WAY more projects out there that I would like to do than I have time or money for.

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Have you ever seen jagsthatrun.com? I've never looked through the kits they sell or anything, but it's a funny name and your answer reminded me of it.

I love following your house Reno on Home Improvement!

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I love following your house Reno on Home Improvement!

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Thanks! Now that I'm home for the day that's what I'm working on again (planning). The floorpan is finished but all the 1,000 other decisions like stone/bathtub/hardware/vanity color/... are still left to do.

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Have you ever seen jagsthatrun.com? I've never looked through the kits they sell or anything, but it's a funny name and your answer reminded me of it.

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Yeah I checked them out a while back. Jaguar Specialties has some pretty cool kits too, and they have some wiring kits too. If I was going to do this I'd probably hit them up. Don't think I haven't looked around on eBay for cars with blown engines before...

Another aero industry brother!

How much engineering work is moving to Charleston? Is it just product support or are they moving a lot of new product development and/or R&D?

Both.

All the normal breeds of engineering support are here on site, along with project ME because we some of what we do is not done in Everett and we own our own planning. We build the mid and aft sections of the 787, and all 787-10s will also be built here. The reason we keep hearing is that the mid section is too long / heavy to transport to Everett. There's also a local stress group.

We have a bunch of BR&T people - lots of them got out of college within the last 5 years. DE is still growing. I know ECS people have been moving over here because I'm working a project with them. It wouldn't surprise me if there were a lot more groups coming that I don't know about yet - some of the construction going on might be for administration/engineering type buildings. There's also supposed to be a data center going in somewhere.

The fan cowls and nacelles for the 737MAX and 777X are also built here. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if someday a second 737 line opened up here because you can only build so many of them in Renton, and Airbus already builds the 320 in 3 locations. The site has more than enough land for it.

Thanks for the info. I worked on 787 S41 in Wichita, as well as a lot of nacelle/TR for 777 and 737NG years ago. I knew they were trying to re-start a nacelle group out there and wonder if they'll be able to "get the band back together" after losing all of their expertise years ago.

I think I'd much prefer living in Charleston vs. Seattle if I had to choose. I'm content in Wichita, though.

It's a long shot but did either of y'all work with an older guy named Robert Parks on any projects? He posts on another forum I lurk on and has some incredible stories about working at Boeing from post WWII on up through the late 90's or so, he still does some smaller projects for them on the PR side sounds like.

Doesn't ring a bell with me, but if he was in Seattle then I likely wouldn't know of him anyway.

I'm envious of those in this industry that got to usher in the space age and the jet age...new technology was developing at a rapid pace and it was likely a lot of fun. Nowadays accountants and project managers have squeezed out most of the fun. :/ It still has it's moments, though.

The name isn't familiar to me, but I can ask my Uncle Tom* if he knew him. I think he was around Everett about when the 747 line started and Colorado Springs some other time. He's about 82 now.

The most fun I've had around here was flight test. The 787 and 747-8 both had their first flight within about a month of each other and we had the only flyable ones that existed in the world. A DTA I had in Long Beach a while back was great too. I lived in Seal Beach and my days were

- get up
- go to work for 8 hours
- surf until the sun goes down


*his actual name

Time for a new thread!

Gimme a few, it's lunchtime!

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Time for a new thread!

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ok, chicken strips are done and you got your wish!

http://texags.com/forums/46/topics/2640376/replies/43462109