Why am I putting new gaskets in an engine I don't plan on keeping for much longer? Or replacing a radiator that's gonna be getting swapped out anyway? I dunno.

The WHY-J seems to be a hit with our readers. Maybe because I'm trying to keep it real for a while before I go crazy with it. I realize that in these crappy economic times some down and dirty budget tech will appeal to our readers a whole lot more than if I just shipped it off to a shop to immediately have a Hemi and $20K in axles installed in it. Although that's how some other magazines operate, I'm gonna wring out every last drop of budget tech I can before I pull the trigger on my real buildup plans - which I'll be doing myself in the driveway, by the way.

So, yesterday was a driveway wrench-fest on the little 2.5L for an upcoming story in the August issue of Jp. The factory radiator was literally falling apart, the balancer seal in the timing chain was crusty, the front of the oil pan had started weeping a bit, and so on.

Out came the radiator, off came the fan and balancer, out came the oil pan, and on went the new gaskets and back together went all the pieces. And even though it was Friday the 13th, everything seemed to go smoothly - with the exception of the old pan gasket cemented to the block. It took almost 40-minutes to get it all off with a razor blade wrapped in duct tape 'cause I didn't want to use my pneumatic tools and spray the bottom end with gasket fragments. I gotta invest in a razor gasket scraper with a handle one of these days.