There's an old saying that goes, " the first 10% of a task requires 90% of the effort...the other 90% of the task requires the other 90%"...or something like that.
In this case the first purchase in the project took like 60% of the planned budget. The planned budget never works out anyways right?
Here's how I justified this purchase:
-After all fees/taxes/etc. I bought the entire car for $1500 less than the other 6.1 engine/trans was going to cost (counting sales tax there too).
-It's got usable seats so I saved money and keep Mopar seats in the Cuda.
-It's got 85% of the body parts to sell off.
-It's got special wheels/tires/suspension/brakes to sell off.
-It's got a couple hundred bucks worth of high-end aftermarket stereo wiring and speakers in it I can use (radio is gone).
-I found $2.35 in loose change in the seats and around the floor...this thing is already making me money!

Drug it home, checked the fluids, ripped off the bumper, and fired it up to see what we had. Hmmmm, it runs and has oil pressure but nearly every warning light is on and there's no power steering. The sensible thing to do is pull it into the carport until I'm ready to start stripping it down. I tell my other half ("the hottie") to put the dogs in the house...we're going for a ride. No front bumper/grille, one headlight with no bulbs, no power steering, the rad/fan is zip-tied to the broken core support so it doesn't get eaten by the pulleys, I'm pretty sure the hood latch has enough bite and we roll down the driveway. We live in the country so to you city folk... don't try this at home. This thing riiiips! I'm not sure who was cackling more....us or the exhaust every time I wrestled it around a corner and laid into the throttle. At one point something fell off...Roadkill would be so proud of us. Just for good measure I did a nice little "tire-warming-session" in the driveway to ward off any late-summer mosquitoes. Hey, they're not my tires for long right?

The Cuda transformation has begun.