ZZZ...

it haunts me.
In my dreams.
While I am awake.
It doesn't matter. It's always there. It keeps coming back...

Hello. My name is Aly. I am a girl who would rather be holding a wrench instead of a flower. It just kind of happened that way. Blame my friends. (though I'd settle for a mechanical flower). I can remember when I didn't know the difference between a Honda and a Hyundai. (and I didn't care either) Either way it goes... I'd have to say I'm pretty handy with a ratchet and some sockets. And even better when it comes to research. So now I know loads about almost every import car out there and even some about american cars as well (hey you've gotta know your enemy, right?)
In knowing a good portion of the market - doing loads of research - there is something that simply cannot escape my mind.

I'm sure some of you know what it is that I'm on about. The reason why I'm posting at 3:38am even though I have class tomorrow followed by work. The reason why I have been restless the last two weeks.

I'll give you a little back history. Looking to buy my first car - I desperately searched junkyards for something I could modify. The first thing I fancied was a 1987 Mazda RX7. Tuned By Racing Service: Jerry Rig. I did not care. I had the blinders on. It wasn't _that_ bad. But the money I was borrowing was from my grandpa. And as an annoyingly decent mechanic - he wasn't having it.
She's always been in my heart. The one that got away. I bought the repair manual in anticipation of the next day purchase. Imagine how shattered I was when he said no. She took it personal. She took it out on me for giving up so easily. That's when she hit me with the curse. Her soul burned my eyes. I can still see her now as plain as day.

We ended up getting a 1984 Toyota Celica GT notchback (RA64). It was okay for looking kinda AE86-ish if you looked at it from far away at night. But the dead axel in the rear said otherwise. But so started my Toyota regime.
MA61, AW11 and a few 'others' - CB7 honda accord lx, and S12 Nissan Silvia.
And I drove them all like I was in the race of my life. (except the AW11..... that car was mean. And now - MX73 Cressida and TE72 Corolla. I guess you could say I fell in love with 80's toyota styling. Somewhere along the line I had a vague wish that would revive itself with a massive explosion. The elusive 'best of both worlds'

Somewhere inbetween all of this - a friend picked up a cherry Turbo II. Killed it shortly after despite all of our efforts telling him to properly maintain it. It hurts to know that turbo ii is still in front of his moms house rusting away. But our time with it didn't really help me. What with all the curse & stuff.

So anyway - Studying cars like mad, I found myself in Texas one day. The local library at an AirBase in Fort Worth. There I found an old ratty brown / yellow page galore book all about the Wankel Rotary and it's history. I read. And then I read some more. And I fell in love all over again.

Fast forward to two weeks ago.
I'm driving to the not so local tapioca place because we take the roadcourse inbetween - and I'm thinking all the way- what can I put in the Cressida?

Well.... two of my friends blew their headgaskets on two seperate S13s twice. Both doing it again RIGHT after their full rebuilds. Guess what didn't help the 'piston' side of the points lead for my swap candidate list. Neither did not seeing any rotary cars in the junkyard when we went.

The 5M-GE motor was more than good to me but it started knocking all over the place. I pulled it out (which isn't as much of a hassle as people make motor swaps to be) On that fateful night - because my keywords were 'lightweight' 'similar hp' and 'response' the Wankel Rotary fell straight into my lap.

I've had trouble sleeping ever since. So take a quick stab at what's going in haha. If you started with 13 and ended with B(T) you'd be right on.
Similar power. Lighter. And all of this delivered just the way I like it.

Right. SO. That's a long introduction. Thanks for reading my first post - hope to talk to you all soon. Now I'm off to try for some sleep. You try sleeping when your TE72 is yelling '12A' in the middle of the night / morning. Tell me how it goes for you.
It never goes away.