Murphy's Law, in case you haven't read the legislation, is generally accepted to go something like this: "If anything can go wrong, it will." Here to demonstrate the principles of this law in action are the similarly named Andy Murphy and his '91 LX.
Awhile back, Andy became the third owner of this Twilight Blue Pearl hatchback. The first owner had kept it bone-stock during his six years of careful ownership, but the second owner jumped into the deep end of the modification pool on a patchwork raft of significant chassis, braking, interior, and engine upgrades. The latter included a Cartech Street Sleeper turbo that was instrumental in the stock short-block, producing a reported 460 hp and some 600 lb-ft of torque. That was without turning on the car's NOS 150hp nitrous system. Sounds good, right? Andy thought so too, until he went through three oil pumps in his first 50 miles of ownership. It seems metal shavings (!) were working their way into the pumps, locking them up. Hmmm, metal in the oil? Andy quickly concluded a new short-block was in order. He also decided to swap to a supercharger.
While on the Internet, he stumbled upon an "injured" A4 block complete with a big stroker crank and billet aluminum rods that, at first glance, seemed like a good deal, so he bought it. The block would need two new cylinder sleeves and boring to 0.080-over to cure its injuries. After this investment, and on further reflection worried about the high machining costs and the stress that such a huge stroker would put on the car's limited fuel system, Andy decided to sell the A4, build a less demanding 306, and top it with a Vortech.
Back on the Internet, he found a set of used 0.030-over Ross forged pistons that were said to be "low compression," along with some Eagle H-beam rods. These and a '70s-vintage Mexican block were soon bundled off to a local builder-with supposedly good credentials-to be machined and assembled into a short-block of around 8.5:1 compression. To make a book-length story short, the resulting engine suffered detonation issues and turned out to be 9:1 in compression-not what Andy wanted when looking to run upward of 17 pounds of boost. Also, after only a few dyno pulls, it was found to have three loose main stud nuts (one completely off) and various other seemingly inexcusable glitches that should not have happened during its $1,200 assembly process. So Andy then paid another builder an additional $1,100 to have it remachined and assembled properly.
In the meantime, he also ordered some new heads that ended up having Murphy's Law issues of their own, although we don't have the room for that one. But wait, there's more.
At this point, Andy was beginning to wonder if he wouldn't be better off going the bigger-cube route, so he traded the 306 short-block and the new heads he had ordered for a buddy's 331 short-block, only to discover the thrust bearing "had eaten a nice groove into the crank." Faced with the prospect of yet another machining and assembly bill, Andy finally decided to start fresh with brand-new components. What is now in the car (as far as we know) is a Ford Racing Performance Parts B50 Sportsman-based 342, using a Coast High Performance Street Fighter Pro stroker kit. We've only scratched the surface of the many times this project has fought Murphy's Law-to recount them all would nearly fill this entire issue-so for a complete look at the sordid story, check out Andy's Web site [http:// home.earthlink.net/~need4speed/], where you may also find some tips that could help you avoid similar disasters.
Through all this, Andy has refused to be discouraged (at least for long), showing saintly patience and perseverance matched only by a compulsive attention to detail. Case in point-he spent 25 hours polishing his valve covers and more than 35 doing the same to his Edelbrock lower intake, only to then ship them off to be chrome plated.