[V8] Arrival of "The Black Mariah"...

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Well, it's here.  I took possession of my '91 20v Avant this afternoon. A
lot has been done to her, and some things...niggling little things...remain
to be done.

First off, the car rides and handles extremely well.  All the rubber gizzies
in the rear suspension have been attended to; the front struts are new as
are front strut bushings and all four tires.  

Some electrical issues remain.  It would appear that the interior lights are
inop, to the extent that I think that a fuse might be the culprit.

The sunroof switch is cooched.  It insists on flipping the lid regardless of
which way the switch is moved.  I don't really care about this, as for the
most part I prefer to have the roof closed entirely, but it still isnt'
quite right.

The instrument cluster is goofy.  To begin with, we knew that there was a
sort of pulsing in the speedometer, and that the trip computer and odometer
was intermittent to say the least.  Well, now, the speedometer, and odometer
are spot on, and there is no "bumping" as was the case before.  But I still
do not have full instrument cluster digital performance, although all gauges
are working normally.  Hmmmm.  The Wrench thinks it is a bad cluster, citing
tha the has had a few clusters that just went bad and needed to be replaced.
Could be. Any comments?

Ah, yes.  The car will need a complete alignment, and I am about two or
three weeks away from the Wrench getting his new alignment machine in place.
I fear not this.

 The radio is inop. It is a Nakamichi head unit that didn't work right on
the trip here from purchase, so I am not concerned.  It will visit the
stereo shop in the next couple of weeks, and I might yank it in favor of an
Alpine if the shop can make the readouts red as they did for me before....

Strange little poltergeist lives in the hvac controller.  It seems to think
that "normal" temp should be 74. Whenever I shut the engine off and the
restart, the hvac readout reads 74, regardless of what was there at
shutdown.  I don't really care, but it is interesting to note that the
controller also returns to "AUTO" from "ECON"....the compressor and
receiver/driver are new, too.  

The car is stinky fast.  Before it went into the operating room a year ago,
it showed 2.5 bar on the digital readout and that was only limited to the
length of road that I had.  I don't know what kind of chip is in the ECU,
but there IS a chip.  I am thinking of a separate boost gauge in a special
cluster...there is an empty place on the dash, and if I can find 1 1/2 inch
gauge, I think I will do it.

The car is strong and sure...much like a new car at this point.  A few
creaks and noises from the body, but at around 144k, it is really tight and
sure.  Next up will be cosmetics, and I will make a list.

I am also very interested in learning more about engine mods that will
maintain livability with even more...ah..."punch"....

I don't know how much into this car I am at the moment.  I think around
seven grand, but the exact number is unknown.  I am seriously interested in
finding a "real" number of 200 20v.Avants that were imported. Is it 2500
20valves entirely, with about 250 Avants, or is it some other number. Any
ideas?

I'll put up more as my experience with "The Black Mariah" deepens....

Roger