4/25/06

I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t be able to talk to y’all today. There is a big meeting or the “hairpieces of considerable size” across the street today and I was supposed to have a tech to baby-sit them. I sent the request last week but hadn’t heard back when the worrywart in charge called yesterday to make sure. I called again and they said they’d get right on it. I never heard back. I pretty much planned to sit through the meeting and check on this side of campus during lunch but the tech showed up finally. Anyhoo, on to things we really care about. Sunday morning I decided to sleep in. I roll out of bed around 0800 and dress for the Ranch. I refill the cooler with waters and head that way. I get there and roll into my same spot as Saturday. We all hang out and have a general good time all day. I'm telling someone about the SU carburetors when I notice a hole where there should be a screw. Now, I had noticed a bit of a stumble on throttle tip in on Saturday and though I'd investigate it later. It was there again Sunday morning and I worried slightly about making it all the way to the Ranch. What was happening was the rear carburetor was opening before and then more than the front. I knew, worst case, I could drive it back to the shop but I though I'd go see if Ray had any bolts that would work. I take a stroll to his shop. I wait for him to finish writing down setup notes and tell him my plight. We go steal the screw from his SU carburetors with the promise that I'd replace them in the future. As I'm about to leave he remembers he’s a nut, bolt, and screw packrat. We go look through his boxes of machine screws, springs and washers and I find what I need. I thank him and return his SU screw to his carburetors. I also borrow a Unisyn while I'm there. Back in the tech garage I install the screw and synch the carburetors by eye. I set the screw until both carburetors open at the same time. Yeah John, I know that is exactly how you said to do it the first time and I fought you until I had a Unisyn to “do it right” and it turned out to be the coil keeping the car from running right and you figured that out too and made me change it. You were right, I… wasn’t as right as I could have been. So, I have the carburetors set but the tension on the spring doesn’t seem like enough to keep it from backing out again. I go back to Ray and get a few washers to take up the slack. I also return the Unisyn since I'm going to eyeball the setting. When I go to install the setup with the washers though, I drop the whole shebang. While looking for it I find the original screw, the spring however, not so much. I use Ray's spring with the original screw. I get it set again and step back. While telling the story to Dick I notice a tube of red Lock-Tite. I decide to really set the thing! I take it out again and dab on a drop then put it back together. While doing the synchronization I notice someone taking my picture. It is Harold Pace from “Kit Car Magazine”! I finally get it set, because I kept going the wrong direction for some reason, and he asks me to spell my name! Woo hoo! I might get one of those “candid” shots in the magazine! I'm giddy as a little schoolgirl! I'm really glad that screw decided to take a hike on me now. Oh, there were other wags giving me a hard time for having “British carburetors” on my car but I just gave them “the look” then stuck out my tongue at them. Harold had an idea for how he’d like to shoot the cars for the magazine so that the owners would be more visible. He wanted to do each make in an individual photo group. Pretty soon it was time to shoot the Birkin group photo. I roll the car back and head for the shoot location. We get lined up and he shoots the shots. When dismissed I head back to the tech garage. Now, the spot I had squatted on was right next to a support column. Do you see where this is going? When I pulled in under the barrier tape I forgot that a Seven is quite a bit wider in the rear than the front. I heard a sickening crunchy scraping noise as I'm lifting the tape over the roll hoop. I look to see the front half of my right rear fender being drug across the edge of the column. I knew it wasn’t terminal and that painting the whole thing wouldn’t be any tougher than just the front half so I pulled on up and parked. There was a pile of paint, primer, and fiberglass shavings stuck to the edge of the column and a nice battle scar along the outer edge of the fender. Nothing a little sand paper and more paint won’t fix. Then again, I might not even fix it. Juan never knows. It doesn’t bother me that much and it will annoy the piss out of John. It’s just a hammer. After that we hang out some more, watch some racing, eat some food, and do the general racetrack things that we do. I pull Dick Brink aside and we discuss shocks and springs for a bit. He suggests I drive a car with a known setup to get a feel for a good starting point. He tosses me the keys to a green car with yellow racing stripes, and really ugly wheels but that’s not important, and I hop in for the test drive. This car has a Dunnell built Zetec two liter with cams and dual DCOE carburetors. It is quick. I blast out onto 377 and do about four fishtails before the tires finally hook up and it goes. I seek out every bump in the road to get a feel for the suspension. My assessment is that at low shaft speed, my car is smoother but high shaft speed this car is smoother. That means my car doesn’t transmit little bumps as much but this car absorbs big ones better. Big bumps are my car’s problem. I get knocked up and out of my seat on railroad tracks. I want the setup that car has. I drive back and pull in to the garage. I get out and say, “Well, my car’s a turd now!” I ask how much power that car has and am told, “About 216 horsepower.” That’s just about 100 more than my car. I go into my assessment of the shocks and springs and we decide he’s going to work up a price for a set for me. We hang out some more and people start to leave. I'm talking to one of Dick’s potential customers about windshields versus Brookland screens. I tell him my usual story that above seventy miles per hour the wind blowing in your ears gets annoying. Another owner says it is just as bad with the full windshield. I shrug and say something to the effect of, “Well there you have it.” The future owner says he has driven a full windshield car but never one with Brooklands. I offer him mine for a test drive. He hops in and heads out to the road. When he gets back he’s all smiles. He says I need not worry about being down 100 horsepower on that other car since my set up is more fun. “You don’t even have to break the speed limit to have a great time with yours,” he said. It made me feel better about the power deficiency. Not that I was going to do anything about it, but I was a bit bummed. He describes his run and how he didn’t notice too much wind issue until he turned back toward the Ranch and was going into the wind. “It was all ‘dry eyes’ and ‘hat loss’ after that,” he said. He stroked my ego some more about how cool my car was and how I shouldn’t mess with it any more. “Build a Stalker with the Nissan V6,” he suggested, “if you feel you need one with more power. This one is great the way it is.” I paraphrased that in case you were wondering. I don’t have a photographic memory or anything like that. It’s more like a pornographic memory actually, but I digress. As the sun begins to sink in the west and everyone heads home, I pack all of my stuff and head out myself. On the way back to the shop I just about convince myself to go ahead and take the car home to drive to work on Monday. I'm not quite a good enough salesman and decide against it. I call myself a wuss and storm out. No wait, that’s impossible. Anyhoo, I park the car and put it to bed for the week then head home in the Pimpmobile. It is kind of nice to turn on the air and stereo then float home with the slush-box doing all of the shifting once in a while. No wait, I still hate automatics and would rather row my own gears. Never mind. Well, I just started page three of this rant so I'd better call it a day. Toodles.