Musclepalooza IX: barn-find Yenko Deuce?

We see some unusual stuff go down the dragstrip during our Musclepalooza events – after all, it’s a chance for anybody who can pass tech to test their car’s abilities – and Musclepalooza IX was no exception. We saw this ratty Nova done up in Yenko Deuce livery making a few passes and knew we had to track the guy down.

He proved a bit elusive to find, but we did finally corral Bob Couse, who said it’s an actual Yenko Deuce (who’d fake one like this?) and that he found it in a barn in Idaho. He also said he wants to restore it sometime soon, so we’re aiming to do a full photo shoot and feature on it before then because it’s just too cool in the condition it’s in now. More pictures after the jump.

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Four-Links – pizzaboy searches for Camaro, CJ-6s galore, kustoms in Italy, Stanguellini tour

* So even though we don’t have a Papa John’s anywhere nearby, we see their commercials on the television around here, and one of the latest commercials features founder John Schnatter tooling around in a gold second-gen Camaro. As it turns out, that car’s a clone of the ‘72 John owned when he started the pizza chain, but was forced to sell to keep the business afloat. Now, John’s on the lookout for the exact car he sold off many years ago and has started a site to follow his search. (via)

* Though the CJ-8 seems to get all the attention when it comes to collectible CJs nowadays, the CJ-6 certainly has its own dedicated fanbase, and Boyink has a nice blog dedicated not only to his 6, but to all sorts of different CJ-6s. (via)

* There’s something quite incongruous about a kustom show in Italy. While kustom builders and Italians both appreciate aesthetics, the homegrown American aesthetic of the kustoms seems entirely out of place against the backdrop of handsome old-world cities criss-crossed with cobblestone streets. Which makes Lowtech’s photos of last weekend’s kustomweekend near Florence all the more compelling.

* We’ve been digging Retro Scene Magazine’s online content lately, and they deliver again with a tour of the Stanguellini family’s dealership, which includes a number of the family’s sports and racing cars from the etceterini period.

* Finally, another kustom post. This time, though, the Transforming the Pickle blog has a boatload of photos of SoCal customs and the shops that churned them out in the 1950s. Perhaps it’s time to create another Google Map to determine the kustom hotspots in SoCal?

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HMX – first road trip, first check engine light

While I’ve had the HMX out and about town this spring, I didn’t take the chance to run it for an extended amount of time until last weekend, when I took it down to Musclepalooza, about an hour’s drive from Bennington. The stumbling issue I encountered earlier this year seems to have been resolved, and I’m still tracking down a belt squeal, and of course the exhaust isn’t finished and the rear suspension still needs rebuilt, but the biggest thing on my mind the whole way down to Lebanon Valley was a tapping sound.

Normally, the 4.0L is good for some lifter tapping when cold, but this tapping continued even after the engine had plenty of time to warm up. Performance remained excellent, though, so I pressed on, and right as I arrived at the dragstrip, the computer tossed me a check engine light.

When reading up on the OBDI system used on the HO 4.0L, I came to appreciate the check engine light and its ability (at least on this system) to display trouble codes by flashing the check engine light. OBDI code scanners are few and far between compared to OBDII scanners, so I’ve been relying on this system as my diagnosis tool. And as it so happened, the Spirit gauge cluster had an unused “check engine” spot, requiring only a bulb and a wire from the ECM.

So after the day’s events, I discovered that code 51, which the system gave me, indicated that the O2 sensor measured a lean condition. I thus figured the tapping was an exhaust leak, which introduced excess air upstream of the O2 sensor, so I retightened the manifold bolts. No more tapping, but the constant rain this week has prevented me from running the car long enough to clear the code.

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Playboy Pink Mustang found?

One of the members at the Hemmings Forum, Emjay Binge, recently pulled his pink Mustang out of storage and quizzed us whether it’s a real Playboy Pink Mustang. For those of you who can answer his question, he included the door tag information in his post on the forum, but hey, we have a meme to keep up here at the Hemmings Blog, so we’ll post his pictures here.

And apparently, there’s a forum dedicated just to pink Mustangs. Thus proving there’s an Internet forum for every little kink imaginable.

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