[The Scifi Guy]

I hate to Say ... I too had problems reaching home... But with my Blue Devil GT ... my Good and Bad Luck seem to prevail... I was following Jeff home... and before we left I heard some rattle noises.. payed no mind as the car was running good, and got on the road.
after some High speed chasing down Jeff's car... my Exhaust Head pipe came loose and was very loud head pipe held on with one bolt.. 1 out of six took a hike / the GT had no power

The same happened to me on the way home after my first Carlisle 9 years ago. I used stainless steel bolts and the car(Red Baron) had only got ready to drive for the first time in 25 years the night before the show. 5 of 6 bolts fell out. I took bolts from other places in the car to replace them. When I got home and checked them, 4 had fallen out again. I am now a believer that you should always use regular bolts at the headpipe, so that they rust into place, and make sure to drive the car for few weeks before a long trip. Buuuuuut, RallyBob gave me new high quality stainless bolts with my headpipe and I followed his instructions for tightening and I have had no problems.

 

[opellane]

more photo's

 

[Gary]

Made it home about an hour ago. Minor problem with a trailer brake hanging up in the N.Y. traffic. Had a great time. Time to rest!

 

[opellane]

More Photo's

 

[P.J. Romano (R.I.P.)]

Just arrived home. I took 15N which is about 500 miles but made it in 9 hours with the lunch stop in Corning. No issues at the border, all junk that I acquired at Carlisle arrived fine. The traffic was light even through Buffalo but I encountered very heavy rain storm around Niagara Falls, the sky went dark and some cars pulled to the side of the road - not the GT!
I am very happy with Chinese Webers, they beat Spanish Webers hands down. Engine runs smoother, no backfiring or anything. Fuel consumption was 10l/100 km (23.5 miles per gallon), not bad at all, and I had A/C on most of the time.

I left our BS session about 11 pm last night as I had to drive back to my hotel and did not want to be caught DUI. By the way, Days Inn has been on my s..t list for a long time and the state of the meeting room just confirmed my feelings.

It is always great to see you all. Too bad some of the members couldn’t participate but there is always next year. Congratulations to award winners. It was refreshing to see new Opels, some of them were absolutely superb.

 

[dsmith]

Congrats on the award Keith. Sorry I wasn't there to see some serious Opel muscle up close. Thanks for the pics Gordo! So sorry to hear of your car trouble.:no:

 

[kevinfier]

Made it home safe about an hour ago.
It was great to see you all, and some new people. Lots of nice cars.
Thanks to all that helped put on a great event.

 

[hrcollinsjr]

Just got home a few minutes ago. As always, good to see everyone and never enough time to visit with each of you. Thanks to all that helped make this event a success.

Harold

 

[GoldGT]

I got home at 6pm after traveling with Mike (Opellane) and my son and his GF in his Bimmer 135i. This is the first year that my car ran flawlessly in both directions, what a pleasure. I do have to look at the gripper LSD because I hear it grind a little once in a awhile. I am not quite sure how to fix that, I really don't want to take it out of the car to send it back, too much work and too much down time. I will probably just change the rear end oil to make sure I have no fine steel particles floating around in the pumpkin. We were totally stopped on 78 East for about 45 minutes due to a crash that must have happened about 30 seconds in front of us. We had to wait for all of the emergency vehicles to show up and clear the roadway. We were smokin' North on route 22 heading for the Delaware Water Gap and route 209 taking the sweeping turns at "speed". We got on to 209 when Mike pulled up along side of me and told me about his loud exhaust noise. When Mike popped the hood you could see that only 1 bolt was left in the headpipe to sprint manifold connection and the gasket was spun about 90 degrees but it was still there. There was about a 1/2" space between the manifold and the headpipe. That last bolt must have been down to the last 2 threads before falling out. I had to take a leak so I went up to a souvenir shop that was high on a hill above us. I met the shop owner who told me they had no public restroom but that I was welcome to go behind the barn and relieve myself :lmao:. Since I had driven my car up the hill he saw it and says the usual "wow I haven't seen one of those in years"! I told him there was another one at the bottom of the hill with an exhaust leak and he says "well I have tons of metric stuff and I have this lift here next to my truck that you are welcome to use!! Unbelievable! I drove down the hill and Mike and my son followed me back up. The guy (Rob) says he works on VWs and shows us his VW powered trike that he says goes 130mph. Anyway, like Mike said in his post Rob was a fantastic guy who helped us with nothing but good will as a motive, we could not thank him enough. One hour later we were back on the road with Mike's car fixed as good as if he had done the repair in his garage.

Thank you to the people who mentioned the loss of my former business partner which is why I didn't arrive until Saturday, the funeral took precedence over Carlisle.

Although it was a short trip and we were missing quite a few members in the bench racing room for various reasons it was still a great time with very little rain to dampen our spirits. Congrats to the winners of the awards, I missed the presentations because I was hungry after my record drive time and was eating down behind the grandstand.

Since my car was running so sweet and Gordon mentioned he only got 15 mpg I was curious so I checked the mileage I was getting for the first time since I built the car. 26 mpg and I was up over 4000 rpm almost all the way. I think it can be even better because I am still seeing AFR ratios in the 11s and 12s under acceleration and hill climbing loads so I think there are some areas of my tune that can still be leaned out a little bit.

Here's Mike's car up on Rob's lift.....you just can't make this stuff up.

 

[jlthunder]

Well it was great to see everybody. I enjoyed talking with our mid-west, southern, New England and of course the local PA and NJ Opelers. I did the 19.0 hours of Carlisle. Left at 6:30 AM, 2 hrs to Carlisle, Stayed until 11:30 PM and arrived home at 1:30 AM. The Opel ran well. Approx 250 miles round trip with no issues. The old girl did well. I think I got about 23-24 MPG while pulling the little trailer.

 

[The Scifi Guy]

YOU GUYS ARE PISSING ME OFF WITH YOUR GREAT FUEL ECONOMY!


:lmao:

 

[norbertone.gt371 (R.I.P.)]

YOU GUYS ARE PISSING ME OFF WITH YOUR GREAT FUEL ECONOMY!


:lmao:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3hzzqWpwnk&feature=youtu.be

 

[GoldGT]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3hzzqWpwnk&feature=youtu.be

Seems like you can see where his oil is going from this video. :yup:

 

[jlthunder]

YOU GUYS ARE PISSING ME OFF WITH YOUR GREAT FUEL ECONOMY!


:lmao:

Well my Saab with the 3.0 Opel engine with turbo gets 30 MPG on the highway. Great Highway car!!

 

[crliwa]

It was great seeing everyone again...... I missed a lot of the familiar faces though. Hopefully you will be at the next show.

One of these days I hope that I can get to and from an Opel meet w/o a story to tell. This time it was my 322000 mile Camry that broke 35 miles before getting to the hotel. I was towed in and spent the weekend stressing about how to get it fixed either there or in town. When the Toyota dealer said they couldn't get the parts 'til Tuesday I decided to rent a truck and tow dolly from U haul. Thanks to Ron Mattern and his son Robert for their help. U haul gave me a new 10 foot box truck and an ok dolly. A few guys from the Rice burner group were the only ones left in the parking lot when I came back w/the truck and dolly. I asked them for help and they took over getting the car onto the dolly and strapping/chaining it down. The trip was ok at first .....then the accident on I78 caused a backup. Luckily I saw the backup in time to get off an exit and used a few side roads to get around the closure so I only lost a little time.
Next was the challenge of getting into NYC to Gerri's apartment. I greased the fenders and finally got to the corner near her apartment and she jumped out and I continued to try to get to the 59th street bridge to get to Long Island. After a lot more bumper to bumper traffic I got to the LIE and finally home in 6 hours. I took the car to a friends shop and he is tearing it down and ordering the timing chain parts and putting in a new water pump.
Mike Lane's story of his breakdown and repair was really something. I hope Vickie and Allen had a safe trip home with their U haul and trailer. Let's hope that one day we all get to and from Carlisle w/o a story to tell.

 

[saxybiker]

Sorry our post is so late. I had a very long and detailed post done last night and when I went to post it.... It disappeared and after our day that was more than enough!

As many of you know my little red GT, Omi, let me down for the first time in 12 years. We had resealed all her gaskets and she was running well. Unfortunately, on the way over she began to get low oil pressure and developed a vibration. Next we went to no oil pressure. The best that can be said it she got me there (all 325 miles). However, she was not in any shape to make it back. So we rented a U-Haul and trailer for the trip back on Sunday. Then we enjoyed Saturday

It was great to reconnect with the Hale's and see their son, Michael's, V8 Opel. We were all building ours at the same time in the early 2000's. We are looking forward to seeing Dave's version in the next year.

Thanks to Steve Daniels for following us home on Sunday and making sure we made it safely. Also to Roger Summy for the great route home. Beautiful scenery, few hill and best of all... NO TOLLS!

As always, we are looking forward to seeing all of you at the next event. We have plenty of events to choose from. Pete's in July, Nationals in August, Springfield in September as well as all the local events.

Hoping to see you soon.... Vickie & Allen

 

[Gary]

The award winners:

Best in Show - Dave and Sandy Hale, V8 powered GT

Best GT -

1st place: Mike Lane
2nd place: James Carey​

Best Kadett/Manta -

1st place: Gaye and Rita Luddick
2nd place: Edwin Monsees​

Most unique - Gordon Payton

People's Choice -

1st place: Don McClean
2nd place: Rick Gradwell​

Tom Cavataio Opel Spirit award: Keith Lundholm​

 

[norbertone.gt371 (R.I.P.)]

The award winners:


Most unique - Gordon Payton

The car or the guy:thinking:

 

[norbertone.gt371 (R.I.P.)]

Seems like you can see where his oil is going from this video. :yup:

Jeff,be sure a set of new seals will work fine

The discription hit the nail:lmao:

https://www.edelschmiede.com/shop/Reinz-valve-stem-seal-Valve-stem-sealing-ring-Valve-stem-cap-Opel-cih