It seemed like such a great idea a few months ago: Over here, we had a $100 Volvo 244. Over there, a free Ford 302 engine. A little welding, a bit of cutting, some duct tape, and voila! Easy for the , you betcha! Actually, we all knew we were taking on a ridiculously ambitious somewhat challenging project, especially since sweat and ingenuity would have to substitute for dollars in order to get under the $500 budget, but we've got the junkyard scroungers and fabricatin' maniacs to get the job done. Here's one example of the many critical details that must be dealt with when putting together a Frankensteined beast like ours: the throttle linkage.

Our '84 Volvo DL's original Red Block engine had an elegant cam-and-linkage throttle-control setup that involved a 90° shift in rotation axis before getting to the throttle body, as shown in the photo above. However, we're stuffing a V8 with an ancient Holley 600 into the engine compartment. Everything's different. How to connect the gas pedal to the carb in some way that won't fall apart on the race track no matter how enthusiastically our leadfooted team members stomp on the pedal? Not only that, how can we do it for free?

Here's where the value of having veteran hot-rodders on the team once again becomes obvious. Wayne put the Holley on the workbench, grabbed the Volvo throttle components and some other bits discarded from the car during the gutting process, and proceeded with the drilling, bending, welding, and pounding.

In less time than it took for us to listen to all the songs on "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" on the garage boombox, he had the throttle mechanism working like it came that way from Göteborg. One item checked off a very long list!