Jun 2012 25

After a trip to Ohio and back with my turbo car in spring, I thought I had figured out whatever gremlins I unleashed by reigniting an old flame (the combustion one on my 473whp engine) so I didn’t expect any problems making the 2 hour trek to NJ to cover the Formula Drift event.  Nonetheless, when a few cars decided to have an orgy on the freeway ahead of me, the stop and crawl traffic had my temp gauge rising to uncomfortable levels.  Almost luckily, we were so stopped I turned the car off for 20 mins.  I had just about reached that point of what will overheat first- my engine or myself.  And more luckily, after 10 miles of consistent single digit speeds with the heater on high and hot to keep my temps below 220 degrees (eek!), I got back up to cruising levels and temps for both me and the car went back down.

Off to the track Saturday morning- no go.  I had expected that battery was on its last spark (13v with engine on a few weeks ago) so I had packed a spare battery.  I know, who does that?  Swapped in spare and now nothing.  Spare was new but had been sitting without use for a few months so I tried jumping it.  Still nothing- no lights, no radio, not even hearing the fuel pump turn over.  Fusible link and all other fuses looked good.  Oh well, hit up the track and call AAA tomorrow for a tow home.  Pretty sad- the only other “tow” was actually a transport across the country when I moved and I definitely wasn’t looking forward to making small talk with Bubba from “Eff up your front bumper towing company.”

I used a flashlight to trace wires near the kick panel Sat night and figured the only thing left was related to my alarm turning off power to the fuel pump somehow.  Mind you, I had this alarm installed when I bought the car in 1997 and it’s probably the only wires I haven’t touched since even after swapping the engine and tranny and building the monster under the hood- besides rehooking it up.  But it was dark and late and I was hungry so I left that fun for the next day.

Sunday morning, I googled a million ways to reset your Viper alarm.  Tried them all- no go.  Just the dead cow sounds of the alarm’s last words.  Last thing left to do- full lobotomy of the alarm brain.  Undid the circuit boards to the “brain” and reset the battery in the trunk- all of a sudden the radio wheezes and coughs.  Hmmm….  Try to start the car- fuel pump turns on but no go.  Just a dead battery now!  Jumped it- all good.  Phew- no tow, all go…