| *Disclaimer: This post is the entire story behind my Z. That being said its pretty long winded. Feel free to skip over the fluff and look at the pretty pictures. I certainly wont take offense as I often do so myself :).* I first got my beloved Z in Feb of 2006 while I was stationed in Washington state. I drove it for 2 years until a turbo went on May 29th, 2008. I "knew everything" about the Z that there was to know back then. But now I know I had a miss and that I was burning a lot of oil. At the time I thought my oil sending unit was going out because I wasnt getting oil pressure readings on the oil press gauge. Then I checked my oil and saw it was low. I was an E4 in the Navy at the time and didnt have much money to address the problem, so I kept topping it off with more oil. Live and learn :/. This is the first day I got her:
 Engine bay circa 2007(I was in the process of replacing the hood prop and the weight bar worked well to hold it up in the meantime)
May 29th...Disaster struck - blown turbo
 As I got out of the Navy I progressed financially and professionally and was able to afford to resurrect her from Washington. By this time I had moved to Chicago, then Texas and settled in Denver. I had a good friend in Washington who had done some builds for other guys(including his own 1200whp foxbody) and decided to go with him. I had seen good work from him, and it was certainly geographically convenient considering thats where my Z was being stored at. I made arrangements for them to pick up the vehicle so they (my friend and his ASE certified partner) could get to work on it.
 During this time, I shipped them my stash of parts which ended up being 2 large Home Depot boxes of stuff. Dual JWT intake, Z1 TBs, Zemulator, Wiesco pistons (which are now with a TT.net contest winner lol), etc. Half of the parts came up missing. By the time I found out, I no longer had the tracking info for the parts I shipped out because I had initially been told that everything made it there. I gave them the benefit of a doubt and wrote it off as being lost in transit. So I bought the missing parts AGAIN and had them shipped directly to him. I upgraded to a Selin intake and decided that I was going to go with RobZ modified TBs, so I wasnt *too* heartbroken over some of the bigger things that went missing. I made arrangements with SpecialtyZ to do a full build on the motor. While I was hanging out on the waitlist I had my 3" downpipes (which I just recently found out are probably AMS :( DPs ) and MS Manis ceramic coated at a local shop in Washington.
 I finally got the go ahead to have the motor shipped over to Specialty Z and the guys in WA started pulling the motor and getting it ready to ship out to CA.
Also found a good excuse to buy BDE motor mounts :D
Also went ahead and bought 2.5" intake piping and a triple plate Exedy clutch kit.
Side note on the clutch: I tried getting what I wanted from IPP, but that ended up in disaster. I later talked to Coz and he suggested that I go with this particular clutch (which he didnt have in stock and I got from another vendor). I wanted something that could hold a lot of power, had minimal chatter, OEM pedal feel and could stand some wear and tear. This clutch is NONE of these and costs what a comparable Southbend clutch does several times over. While the motor was getting Specialty Z'd in CA I had the guys in Washington powder coat some odds and ends. I had insisted on them sending me some swatches so I could pick out exaclty what I wanted, but they assured me that I would like what was done. I wanted what I currently have (pics of this are at the end of this post), and what I got was almost purple. I lost over a grand undoing and re-doing everything, just for powder coating.
 Talking to Greg and Seb, I decided I was going to go with JWT 500 cams, bore .20 over (later OEM sized wisecos!), adjustable cam gears, larger valves, JWT springs, their extreme port and polish, etc. They did a fantastic job and were very helpful getting me what I was looking for without me even knowing how to properly get there. Another thing that surprised me was how reasonable the price was for all of the work done. Its not very often you get top-notch work done for a very reasonable price.
All wrapped up and ready to go :)
 The motor made it safely back to Washington and it was assembled there.
Right after this point in the build, my builders said that they were through with working on it. Long story short: I paid them and had it shipped to Woody75 in Denver. While the car was being prepped to ship, they also found the missing parts that I already repurchased that were "lost in the mail". I dont have many pictures of what all Woody did with my car, but we pretty much re did EVERYTHING. When the car arrived, there were parts missing, tons of things done improperly, etc. He basically started with a Z and a motor from Specialty Z. Example: the DPs didnt have gaskets, they were sealed with RTV. We took the OEM TBs and had them bored out by RobZ who did a fantastic job. We then took all of the powder coated parts to get stripped and re-powder coated.
Here it is getting put together at Woodys garage:
I bought a stoptech BBK and had to buy wheels to clear the front brakes. I bought some Volk wheels with Toyo R888s on the front (the rears were sold separately). This ended up being a nightmare. I had the rears ordered and mounted. At first I couldnt find the spacers for the wheels, so there was some confusion there. Then there were some issues with those as well. The spacers that came with the wheels arent your traditional hubcentric types. These spacers go inbetween the lip on the barrel that the spoked portion sits on and the spoked portion itself. Not only did this require longer bolts (that I didnt have) to fit with the spacers, but the valve stem wouldnt clear the outside of the rim either. We had to get new valve stems and have Fastenal make the bolts we needed.
Valve stem issue:
Without spacers
With spacers
While all of *that* was getting done, we(read: Woody) replaced the wiring harness, all of the hoses, threw in the exhaust, 1pc DS, installed a chip from SZ in lieu of the Zemulator, Ashpec Massives in lieu of the spare set of Stillen SMICs I had (which now belong to Russ), Defi Gauges, Blitz i-color Spec R boost controller, Koyo radiator, etc. The bolts for the wheels came in and Woody finished everything up that day. I finally got the car back from Woody just a couple days ago and drove it home.
Passed emissions! :D
current engine bay shot:
 Hoping to be able to do paint and other cosmetics this winter. Id like to give a huge shoutout to the guys at SpecialtyZ and Tim (Woody75). Tim was extremely patient with all of the issues we were running into, honest, easy to work with, reasonable, and does top notch work. Without these people, NONE of this would have been possible. If you have the means, make it a point to START with these guys when it comes to working on your Z.
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Almost 6 years in the making...Got my Z back(Pic Heavy) - 
18:25:12 01/23/14
