6/14/06

Well, I had to skip lunch today since the service dude, who is also my new “boss” by the way, came out to look at the ‘sploding lamp situation. It is 1300 and I'm finally sitting down to talk to y’all. It’s no big deal, the skipping lunch issue, since I'm not the type of person who is going to drop dead of malnutrition any time soon. I've had a cookie and a few sodas today so I'll be fine. Let me see, what do I have to tell y’all? Oh, I remember! I stopped off at Robert's shop to visit Mr. Wiggly last night out of my way home. I arrived to find it up on jack stands with the rear wheels and brakes off. He told me that he was going to replace the wheel cylinders on the rear then kit the front calipers and replace the pads. The only issue with the brakes will be the bad parking brake cable then. He said he had a look in the tank and it appears to only need a good boiling. He’s having that done today as well as dipping the carburetor. The lines appear to be good so the fuel system is up to snuff. The alternator issue should be fixed with a replacement unit, which he’s also planning to do. His goal is to have it ready for a state safety inspection before he goes home Thursday night and have it inspected and ready to deliver to me on Friday. I'm looking forward to having Mr. Wiggly back! Oh, I am also buying Pat's Subaru. Have I told you about it? I'm not sure of all the details about it but I do know it is a carbureted 1985 wagon with four-wheel drive. Mom asked what color it is and I drew a blank. It is either silver or blue, I honestly don’t remember! I plan to drive it and stop putting miles on the Pimpmobile for a while. Hopefully someone will come along and want to buy the Pimpmobile so I can get out from under that car payment. We’ll see. Some parts from Summit arrived yesterday. I was planning to go to the shop tonight and do some more plumbing work on George but John has stuff he needs to do. We’re moving shop night to tomorrow. The dual-inlet/dual-outlet muffler also came. It is kind of cool but it might be too quiet. It is a “turbo” design which is slightly less restrictive than a “stock” muffler but not as free-flowing as other designs. The slightly more restrictive part is what makes me think it might turn out to be too quiet. I really need to get a V8 and five-speed installed into Barbecue Bob soon or I'm liable to loose interest again. I've got too many parts sitting there for that to be allowed to happen. John was telling me about the event I was supposed to go to with him this last weekend. He said that there were two 510s with over 375 horsepower at the wheels there. From what I've been seeing in the catalogs for small block Chevy stuff, that number should not be too tough to achieve in Barbecue Bob. I'm not building with an eye towards maximum numbers mind you; if it only makes 250 I'll probably be happy. I think the next thing I'm going to buy for the Barbecue Bob project will be the cam that goes with the Edelbrock Torker II manifold and a set of timing gears. Hey! Shut up! I like that gear whine that they make and it is my car so poo to you with bells on! Anyhoo, the cam I'm talking about has a lumpy idle and makes power from 2,500 through 6,500 RPM. I have said all along that I'm building this engine for top end rather than torque because even if it is a “gutless” V8 it is still going to make twice the torque of the L20-b that came out. Not to mention this car will weigh about 500 pounds less than anything a small block Chevy V8 ever came in. I know that last sentence was a fragment, why didn’t tiny and flaccid? I guess it doesn’t matter. Anyhoo, I'm still in a quandary about heads and valve size. I want aluminum heads for weight savings and, by golly, cylinder heads should be made of aluminum! Unfortunately, the best price I've found for new heads is crowding $1,000.00 for the pair. I'm not ready to buy a pair off e-Bay just yet either. I'm not sure why though. As for the valve size, Gregg leads me to believe that the stock 305 valves are the limiting factor for revs in that engine. I want to run 2.02” intake and 1.60” exhaust valves but John says they aren’t necessary. Actually, I'd like to run a smaller displacement engine with a shorter stroke to help those revs as well. I'm probably going to be fine with the 305, but a 283 seems like it should rev better. Of course I could be dead wrong and the 283 might have a longer stroke than the 305 but much smaller bores. It could be that a 327 has a shorter stroke but more cubes due to bigger bores. I keep seeing a 260 listed but it must be a “hen’s teeth” engine. I'm sure it was some very early engine that fell out of favor for some reason and disappeared. The whole argument is moo however since John has a pair of 305s lined up for me to buy cheap. At least he had a pair lined up for me to buy; they could have gone away since then. I need to ask him about them again. Oh, I guess I just did! I had another thought with regards to the exhaust for Barbecue Bob. I think that instead of coming out of the muffler with two ninety-degree bends and running to the side of the car, I'll come out with two forty-five degree bends and use a pair of slash-cut tips pointing back just in front of the rear tires! I think that would be really cool! Of course I need to see what the landscape under the car is like before I can make any final decision. I may have to do the nineties and come straight out. I guess with some straight tips it will look fine. We’ll see. Well, I'm running out of things to say and I'm getting bored. I think I'll call it a rant.