10,280 miles to be exact! My car is running strong and is ready for its next service. This weekend, I'm going to put it up on the Quick Jack lift and do my routine undercarriage inspection and detailing. I'll pull the wheels off and clean them up, inside and out. Then wipe down the braking components and underside of the motor, tranny and diff. I have a very slight leak from either the fill plug or the diff cover that needs to be addressed. I need to change the oil and inspect all other fluid levels. I also have on my list to adjust the hydraulic clutch down a little and refit the drivers door to get it a little more flush. I currently sits a little proud along the lower edge.

During these miles, I have met many friends, answered the question "Is it real" many many times, and had a lot of overnight driving trips to AZ, CO, UT, and CA. I have been caught in light rain and pouring down rain with no windshield wipers. My front end has a few paint chips and on my very last outing, I caught a rock with the windshield. The crater is not directly in my line of sight. It is bigger than what the home windshield repair kits are good for. But I did one anyway just to keep it from spreading. I'm sure I'll need to replace the windshield not too long from now.

I still love my Forte 347 and TKO 600 tranny powertrain. I semiregularly bounce off of the rev limiter while enthusiastically driving. I can get 21 mpg if speeds are kept at 65. On the highway at 75-80, I regularly get 19 mpg. The Kirkey Vintage 55 seats are still comfortable and I can do 150 miles between butt breaks comfortably. I love love love the cruise control. It makes road trips so much more enjoyable. I can put both of my feet in front of the pedals and stretch out my legs.

I had to get my Holley Sniper professionally tuned. The motor was starting to run like crap and would constantly die at idle. The Holley "self tuning" is not that great IMHO. I found Andrew "Dr EFI" at [email protected]. He was able to remotely connect to my Sniper through a laptop connected to my WiFi. He did three tunes over a period of time with miles between to get everything just right. It was really amazing to listen to my motor respond to him at his keyboard across the country as he flattened this, smoothed that, took a little out here, added more there. Technology. The motor runs stronger than ever before. He was great to work with and I can't recommend him enough. At $475, it is not cheap. But what is on these cars? If I could start over, if I chose to go with the Holley Sniper, I would have also purchased their distributer to go along with it rather than a standard vacuum advance distributer. Andrew could have had done more with the programming that way. I had to add a total of 2 quarts of oil over the last 5,000 miles. Perhaps it is because of the forged pistons? I don't know. I have to remind myself that this is not my Toyota Tacoma that still has oil at the top of the dip stick line after 7,500 miles.

A group of us, including GTBradley, already have another summer 5 day trip planned to CO at the end of August. It is a great way to beat the heat here in Las Vegas.