Killer Man-Hole Covers

  I drove up the road and then...WHAM, I immediately turned the engine off. In an instant I had changed my plans for spring break. I knew I had hurt at least the exhaust system immediately after impact due to the incredibly loud exhaust after the impact. Upon looking under the car, I found myself lodged on an awkwardly angled man-hole cover. After pushing the car off the cover I coasted down to my friends house where I changed into my overalls and prepared for the worst. I was expecting far worse then what had actually occurred. The inspection found a cracked header tube on the number one cylinder due to the swaybar being jammed into the collector pipe. The second thing I found was that the oil-pan had been dented severely, but hadn't been opened up (thank you steel!).

  I had to make a decision about what I was going to do, and I had to make it fast. I could just replace the header and swap my brakes like I was going to do over spring break, or I could go for broke and swap in my new motor as well. I opted to swap in the ABA 2.0L I had purchased about a month before hand (it was going to be swapped durring the summer) as well as do the brake swap, I had two weeks to order parts and a week to do the install.