7/20/2026

Been a busy month since I last checked in! Family went on a trip for a long time friend's wedding and I volunteered a week helping out at a community event. Nevertheless, car things still happened as they tend to do. The big excitement was a new-to-me car show that takes place exactly a month after back to the fifties called Street Machine Nationals. That managed to worm its way into the calendar this summer. Its a 3 day event at the MN State Fairgrounds, roughly about half the size of btt50s but very well organized and very cool! The event kicks off with a QA1 Lakeville facility cruise in, a site tour with coffee and doughnuts, and a cruise to the show on Friday morning. I had things to do that morning but I still made a point to get up bright and early bringing the 94 Camaro there. The facility itself was super cool, it was neat to see the behind the scenes of a local MN legend in the community: QA1 makes high end suspension replacement and improvement systems for a wide array of USDM cars and trucks. Ever the marketers dream, I think I know where my needed strut upgrade on the camaro is going to come from (coming soon to a site near you? Exhaust has also been ordered but is on backorder). Joining in on the entire group cruise out, and Qa1 had photos of everyone's cars taken. Honestly this event alone was worth the car show entry.

On saturday, went to pick up the camaro's entry pass and we were ready to go for Sunday morning. I parked next to some mustangs and a corvette right on the corner by the entrance so my kid and I could watch the parade of cars coming in go by! While I just said the QA1 event might have been nearly worth it, I would be remiss in telling you that it was all the weekend had to offer. Street Machine Nationals has some of the craziest car projects I've seen in the state, all together in one place. Low Rider Isuzu Hombre to crazy HotWheels lookalike machines with giant chrome intakes jutting from the hoods, everything was here. Beyond just the cars to see, (over 5000!), there is an Autocross event, a burnout comp, and a Dyno challenge. The kid REALLY liked the dyno challenge and was disappointed I didn't want to find out how measly the 94's stock HP has become over the years. Nonetheless, it was a super fun morning and I definitely will be back next year to make a proper full day run at the event.

Finally, a bit of news on the datsun front. We have the front headlights, corners and turns prepped for install (still can't find the driver's headlight bucket hardware) as well as their grounds laid out. A grounding plan is made and I am quickly understanding the depth of the problems the stock wiring was encountering. The remanants of the last wiring job on this car bedlined the engine bay THEN installed the grounds. Half made zero continuity at all. Small wonder the thing wanted to burn itself down headlights first. Next is tail lights, where the grounding shouldn't be so bad. I have high hopes of a fall return to drivablility, even if thats just a bucket on the floor and no dashboard! The kid and I were hard at work and that mostly meant I got about 1/4th the amount done in the three hours we spent as planned but at least the labor was free.

6/22/2026

Still working on that Datsun, though got a bit hung up suckin' mice nests out of the a/c on the camaro, and that surely provided an unpleasant distraction. There was not much to see other than me writhing around the passenger footwell trying to vacuum that which was stuck behind a blind corner, so no post to be made there. Not to bury the lead further here, the big news was a successful Back to the Fifties show in the Corvair and my FIL's MGA! I brought the polaroid 600 and went to town...but got carried away and gave most of my shots off to the owners of the awesome cars I shot. Still, heres what I kept for myself:

in rough order from the top - An Isky cams gasser (RIP Ed, check out his obit by C&D here: Ed Obit ), some rusty but beautiful studes, a bug eye, two shots of the vair, a purple cad with all the fins one man can handle, the MGA, and the awesome flyover by ww2 Era fighter/trainers that goes every year!

Some further highlights included: Olds 88 interiors that I cannot get enough of, creative Rat Rod nonsense, 9000+ cars, 100k+ attendees over the weekend, and most importantly there were a grand total of 5 turbo Corvairs (surely a new record) parked up on "Corvair Corner" on Dan Patch. All in all it is a must attend if you're anywhere in driving distance of the twin cities. The event occurs the 3rd weekend of June every year and makes for the perfect Father's day for the car-obsessed. Learn more if you're interested: BTT50s MSRA Home Site

Thanks to Ken for most of the digital photos

6/10/2026

Just a quick sneak peek of what I am about to undertake! A buddy of mine and I both have datsun s30 Zs we got in highschool and did some real hooligan shit in. Usually mine was the one broken all the time, but his finally tried to burn itself down with a failed combination switch and before long all the wiring was shot. Hes a whiz with a welder, I've got holes in the frame of the Celica and leaks in the exhaust on my datsun. So he's gonna metal fire wizardry those projects for me this summer and I am going to tackle the great electrical pixie spaghetti. Stay tuned, I am sure it'll be an adventure!

Heres a shot of both of our Z's noses in 2014! They go back together and deserve to be back on the road together! (also Feat. the OJ White 93 Ford Bronco. Miss that truck)

5/28/2026

Greetings finders! We have a very special guest this week, a 1957 MGA, in beautiful red. Picked up last summer by my Father in Law, its spent most of the year toodling around, getting shined back up and small tidbits getting fixed up. The real big debut we were aiming for was the Spring Kickoff Intermarque Club Show. It takes place in (somewhat) nearby Osseo and is a must see every spring. Very unique showings! Unfortunately, due to life being the way that it is, he was not able to attend that weekend but asked me nicely to bring it instead. I was more than happy to, its such a fun little car to enjoy; hardly an ask at all. Despite it being bulletproof all last summer, I figured the smart money was on driving it around a few days prior to the event. Test for the classic British Motoring issues, as it were. Perhaps that was a jinx in and of itself... ultimately the car broke down about 2 minutes from my house. Crushingly close to home but I had to tow it the rest of the way home. No addition fuel or starting fluid got it going beyond sputtering on the ether so it had to be a fuel issue of some sort. A short amount of digging around revealed dry carb bowls and it turned out predictably that the carbs we're not getting fuel at all from the line. Perhaps silt at the bottom of the tank, and clogged the filter. Perhaps I was little too spirited in a corner, and the pump sucked wind instead of fuel and gave it up right there.

I won't bury the lead any further, and we all read the title! Fuel filter made no change so it was back to Oreilly's for a new 3psi pump. I am suspect that its the correct pressure, I feel like I am loading up sitting with the clutch in, but thats a future me problem. I did my best to tidy up the wiring a little bit but the car has been converted (blissfully) to neg ground 12v, so a fellow amateur electrician can't be blamed for a bit of scuffed grounds. I was just elated to find out that fuel happily pumped all over my garage floor once it was swapped in! After confirming fuel at the carbs once the hoses were correctly affixed this time, we pulled the start lever (one of the coolest mechanisms on the car, in my opinion) and it was like nothing had happened.

Just like that, we were back on the road. Bummed we did not get to get the car to the Intermarque show, but the in-house wife's Field Find, the 82 Alfa, showed off her paint repair with aplomb. Now it is more than ready for its replacement big debut, the Back to the 50's! I will be bringing my 63 corvair to the show, and the MGA should be right there with us...presuming they both work on the big day.

5/8/2026

Happy May everyone! With the lengthening days and (slightly) warming temps, I thought it would be a fab idea to get the Datsun out of winter storage and get after it a little bit. I had one pending project in mind once I got it home, a new engine filter as well as a new assembly to put it on. However, upon getting it out and letting it warm up while moving some things around, I noticed a bit of a fuel smell and it turned out the old filter, still bearing what looked like OEM katakana marking from Nissan/Datsun in 1976, had finally given it up. Turned the car off post-haste, and ripped it out!

I was able to successfully strech the top half of the fuel line to meet the metal line from the tank in the meantime and limped it gently to the nearest O'Reilly's. There, they were able to get me a MicroGuard 33022 which fit perfectly in the OEM clamp, and was rated to deal with the some random number over 50 psi of fuel pressure these cars require. Hooked back in with fresh line, and it fired right up!

With the crisis averted, I spent the following morning replacing the intake made mostly from Home-Depot grade DIY parts (had served me well for over a decade and a half) and the most cooked K&N filter I have ever seen in my life! Probably was a solid 5 years overdue on this project let me tell you, clean or replace your filters BEFORE they look like this!

The kit here is from Godzilla Raceworks, and they sent me a collection of parts, two different tube lengths and all the band clamps I could ask for. I have a non-stock Bosch Intake/MAF/TPS on the car so I wasn't sure what would work and the guys at Godzilla were super accomodating. Either way, once I got the correct combination assembled, easy as tightening it all down. Turned out great, check for leaks with a bit of carb cleaner, then while I was in there gave the rad support a spray of black as it was showing a bit of surface rust in a few spots. The engine bay doesn't match the paint anyway, and I care far more about fighting the rust than keeping the OEM silver engine bay that has been scuffed up by many prior owners! Let me know if you think that I ought to actually someday tape it all over and paint the bay the exterior green or a nice flat color.

4/27/2026

Not to leave a quiet weekend relaxing, we decided to tackle a 70s Suzuki GT185 that my dad and I brought home for him this winter.

The big plan for the day was just to get the carbeurators on, the tank on, and the rest put back together. To our absolute shock, the lights and electrical all functioned the moment we got the battery in. With that windfall fresh in our minds, we decided to go all the way and fully reassemble the bike. We didn't expect much but it looked really good. The only thing we managed to get ourselves stuck on is how the tank strap works on these bikes. I don't think there was a more embarassing thing to have gotten stuck on but we managed to solve it temporarily with a zip tie. If you have ANY idea how it works by ANY chance, please drop me a line via email.

Once it was all buttoned up, we gave it a few bajillion kicks. The starter isn't working, but it coughed and sputtered. After many small tweaks with zero change we figured we ought to maybe check if the prior owner left the spark plug wires reversed as there is no other easy way to make symptoms so closely resemble an engine's timing being 180* out. Sure enough, it fired! What a glorious sound it was too! We spent the rest of the time tweaking the idle. With a real battery and some air in the tires, this thing might just be a runner. Either way, huge progress and a great way to close out a fun weekend.

4/25/2026

Howdy all, as promised, we took the rides mentioned in my last post to autocross. We were both entered in XB, which is normal for me, but is a far overcompetitive class for my dad's Shelby which we will be reclassing to GST in the next event. The weather wasn't super ideal but we managed to get very lucky as the second and fourth run group of the day to get more or less dry surface conditions. Not super warm and we struggled mightily getting warmth into the tires of either car. That being said, by the afternoon, we managed to get our times down from the low 40s to 37 seconds for the Celica and 38 for the Dodge! This was good for roughly ~100th place out of 150 entrants, which is a pretty solid day as far as we were considered and we managed to not break anything.

The mighty 1980's combatants showing up to grid.

The big changes for the day were on my Dad's Shelby where he dialed in a 25psi front 40psi rear that really helped him get SOME grip at all. I meanwhile, mostly shredded my poor 4th season bridgestones half to death sawing through corners trying not to lift. Tons of fun and autocross will always be a good way to spend a saturday! I did manage to cut a cone and DNF myself for one run, but that was a real mystery on how I let that happen. It clocked in as a 37, which I definitely worried was too good to be true. Was very proud to have gotten down to 37 by the end of the day as a result.

Ultimately, though we never tend to post impressive finishes, it was fun knocking at the door of some very very fast cars with our very, VERY slow ones! A few more degrees, fresher tires, and any parking lot with better grip and I think we might have cracked the top 100. However, that might just be wishful thinking... We will have to see how the cars compare and stack up later in the summer. Take a quick peek at some of my competition in the image below, overall it is such a great group that runs out here. If you're in the area and interested in trying Autox out sometime, check the club out at MNAutox.com.

4/24/2026

Long haitus as I was out of the country visiting family in Argentina. Thanks for checking back in. The Celica is out of storage with fresh gas, newly checked over fluids, and the Bridgestones-on-Rotas back on for my impeding failure to compete in XB!

Photo Credit: J.E. Simonson of the MNOddball FB group, thank you for the lovely photo!

For the always necessary pre-autox shakedown, drove to a car meet at a burger shop. The meet in question was MNOddballs' season opener, (which one can search up the group on Facebook or Instagram) and its a fabulous little club of weird, outcast cars, and their cool owners. This was the first meet I managed to get the Celica to, and I loved it! There was a Lada, a lifted Smart car, RHD awd vans, a very cool Mitsu minitruck, a Toyota Sera...the list goes on.

All being said, the Celica did great, its running well. An additional Field Finds Alumnus, my dad's Dodge Shelby Turbo Charger, came with! It, arguably, fit in far better than even the junky Celica ST rust bucket to the show's vibe. It is my dad's faithful Autox chariot as well. All in all, wish us luck at Autox tomorrow, and we will see what sort of projects we create with our questionable driving in our questionable cars.

P.S. Weigh in via email if I should come up with a clever term for the FF fleet and "alumni". Perhaps they are the "Found" as a group... brainstorming will happen while waiting between the AutoX runs.

4/1/2026

Thanks for visiting Field Finds! Heres the first project since the founding of the site this week. Hopefully this is one of many to come!

The project at hand started with the cool, albiet broken, Bose Delco CD Radio in the z28. I tried a few different things to clean the connections and the buttons with contact cleaner. This revived the volume knob but the display was hopeless. Ultimately, the plan for this car is a road trip machine so the plan b of a new (unfortunately touchscreen) double DIN unit from Crutchfield was a go. The first step was removing the panels and cutting out this subdash support. After trying multiple different cutting tools, I settled on a removed hacksaw blade to saw it out as cleanly as possible.

Following that, I could get the USB port I purchased drilled into the top of the "cassette holder", which I still don't understand why the CD equipped car came with. The idea here is a low profile look should I decide to remove the cables and phone mount for a car show.

Finally, connected up the supplied harness, adjusted the levels for bose-amp-compatible connector that Crutchfield sells (an absolute godsend!) and got to wiggling the dash back together. I am pretty happy with how it turned out, it looks very clean with the radio sitting receded within the dash, and the dash being the same shape as factory. Additionally, besides the cut out subdash, the install is entirely reversible and that subdash will not affect the mounting of the factory radio. It may squeak more without it, but I don't really intend to find out. The added benefit of the phone mount location besides not sticking an ugly mount on the dash with a wire hanging down, is that it is out of the way, to not distract, yet easy to hook up.

Thanks again for checking out my first post, and hopefully as the weather warms this summer I will get more up!