Car
The year was 1991. The car was a primer black 1973 Pontiac Firebird Trans am ram-air (the one with the scoops at the front of the hood). Dip-shit Brian cut a hole in the stock hood to accommodate a normal carburetor. It turns out that stock hood would have been worth far more than the rest of the car. I've blogged before about the trip to Florida I took in the early nineties. This was the car we took the trip in. It was primmer black. It was beat up. It needed shocks. It should have  been fast, but wasn't. Well, I think I found out why.
It had a Pontiac 400 in it. It had a different engine when Brian bought it. He rebuilt the 400 using pretty good parts and paying attention. The car lost power at higher RPM and I finally figured out what was probably wrong. First off, it had a high gear rear end. Second, you have to use different timing on a 400 than on a 350 or 455. it turns out Pontiac used a slightly different throw sequence on the pistons with that crank. The engine was timed to spark when it expected the pistons to be in the right spot for a 350. That only works on the first piston in the 400. We had the correct cam shaft, but were telling the plugs to fire at the wrong time. The engine ran, but lost power when put under stress.
In retrospect, it is a good thing that car was not as fast as hit could have been.