John the back of your boat looks pretty sweet as it is !! hint hint..

Nothing majorly exciting but here are a few progress shots of the battery holdowns.. obviously the blue is from earlier today before the stripping started & the other two are from just a few minuets ago stripped & partly polished.. See I told you guys I actually had a wide open speed.

May sound silly but its pretty cool to me b/c "to the best of my knowledge" these hold downs came out of the first Cig. Top Gun ever built.. I bought these from (firstgun) here on the board who again "to the best of my knowledge" owns the first Top Gun just before he redone it. Maybe thats prophetic as to the next boat I will own.. As they are pretty high up on my pretty short list.. Its doubtfull but hey one can always wish..

Sounds like your moving along pretty good. Can't wait to see the pics of the mill dropped in. Cool story about the optimas too.

i had to put a box in my trunk today and saw your exhaust rings in there. oops. I completely forgot about them.

I'll try to get over to the post office tomorrow and send them to you...

No problem.. Thanks again !!! Hows the Pantera power coming along ??

Been updating a little next door so though I would throw one up here.. The engine has been here at the house for a week orso getting some attention & accesorized.. It is really ready & can be dropped in anytime.. However I brought it home from the shop in an attempt to get as much as I can get done on it before dropping it in the hole to save the climbing in & out sydrome..Not to mention the most important part of being at home with my family a few steps away & having my wife & two little girls coming out in the garage checking on me !!

Anyways back to the update... The accesories are coming along pretty well.. I have the back of it in pretty good shape & am in the process of waiting on a few front end things to come togather.. I droped off a couple items with my Tig guy this evening that I have been fabbing on.. Such as the water pump mount along with the Ignition/coil/merc 10 pin wiring harness mount that will mount on the rear of the starboard head.. Once I get my crankshaft accessory pulley from Vortech I will ahve the front ready to roll & will most likely go ahead & drop it in the hole, unless I decide to go ahead & pre-wire it to the merc plug ?? (we will see how patient I am on that one)

As I have said somewhere ?? I plan on redoing a new (more organized) thread when this is all said & done !!

Ilike the paint design

Ingnition/coil/wiring harness plug Bracket along with a few of my supercharger mount plates have been at hte powdercoaters for a few days now so they should be back in a few more days..

The crankshaft acessory pulley I have been needing from Vortech is officially on its way as of yesterday.. I also just ordered the 9 pin merc. engine harness so hopefully that stuff will make it by the weekend..

Nothing ground breaking but progress indeed !!

All the parts are back from powdercoat & mounted up.. Wiring harness is in & mouted up on the engine (however I still have to wire it in.) The ignition box is also mounted as is the coil.. Supercharger is mounted up.. Crank accesory pulley finally arrived & with a little tweaking all my belts are finally lined up to where I want them.. The Jabsco has a new impellor & is mounted up, also the p/s pump.. The alternator is on & lower mount all fabbed up (although I do have to pull it back off & take it to the alternator pimps of town)

Anways it is moving along.. Here is a quikie shot from the cell phone taken a few nights ago.. The belts along with a couple other items are on there mearly for mockup.. Before somebody asks if I really plan on running zip-tied belts, or just a regular ole curburator on er..

I've been attempting to work on it as much as I can between life happening.. Long story short last week my buddy who was getting my powdercoat work done for me by another friend of ours had his house catch fire last monday night.. Along with his wife & two small kids he got out ok & only suffered some minor smoke inhalation due to him trying his best to put it out.. Along with the million other things he lost was a Super Slick big supercharged power mustang cobra he has had & been building on for 10 years.. I was in the process of doing some work on it when the fire happened (to bad it was a fairly small part that unbolted so it was the only part at the shop) He also lost a nice 88gt that he has had since he was 17, along with an average early 90's driver F150.. Worst part of the vehicles is that those only had liability coverage.. Out of his other 2 vehicles with full coverage only one was minorly damaged.. It really breaks my heart b/c he's a True hottrodder, just a regular do-it-yourself dude who has busted his butt & labored not only for but on every cool toy he has ever had !! His exact words to me on the Cobra was "It was the car I always wanted but never could afford"

Despite his world temporarily being torn apart & several coversations from me telling him not to worry about my parts, he still managed to get them back from the powdercoater on schedule & I finished up final buffing on his rear spoiler that he will not be using for a while today.. Good part is he is a man of charactor that realizes things could have been allot worse & he's relentlesly ready to start over..

Soooooo I get to the bottom of the post & realize I can't even post a pic b/c my membership here must have expired a few days ago... I guess I will copy & paste so look next door..

Man that sucks....sounds like he had some nice toys that he took alot of pride in building.

Pony up and post some pics over here....