6/16/06

I got my first paycheck from the new company yesterday in the mail. So I guess I am employed after all. Well, that’s a relief. Boy, the fried gator tail I had for dinner last night sure is giving me the wind! I'm glad I don’t share an office with anyone! I asked John at what point in the George project can I start hassling him to get me a V8 for Barbecue Bob. He said, “When you drive it down the road!” I asked for a more realistic answer and it was agreed that when George can be rolled out of the way so he can hoist the engines into the shop, and I arrange a pickup truck to be left on his side of town, he would get my engines. So, once the under-car stuff is finished on George and I slap the Cragar wheels back on, he’ll bring me some engines. As for the pickup truck, I guess we’ll burn that bridge at that time. His father-in-law has a little Mitsubishi that John thinks he can borrow so it might actually happen sooner than later. We’ll see. Oops, I need to go look at something on e-Bay right quick. I may have found a transmission for Barbecue Bob but I don’t remember how long the auction had left. I'll probably be back. I'm dumb. I went ahead and bid on that $0.99 transmission on e-Bay. Hopefully I'll be able to back it up to the 305 that John is getting for me. Otherwise I might have to buy a GM V6 and a Brunton Stalker kit. Yeah, I really need another Lotus Seven clone. I'll find a use for it most likely. Oh, remember how I said I was going to get all that work done on George when we went to the shop last night? Well, I didn’t. We went to see “The Omen” instead. It was a very faithful re-shooting of the original version with some updated gore. I'm not going to get into a whole racial stereotyping situation, but the audience we saw the movie with left something to be desired. Anyhoo, I asked John his opinion on the cam I have decided to use. He and I are on the same page about it. We both feel that Edelbrock has done their homework and the cam that they suggest to go with their intake is probably my best bet. Having said that, I am going to go with the Edelbrock, um, I don’t remember what their marketing department calls it now. Anyhoo, it is the cam the goes with the Torker II manifold. It’ll have the lumpy idle I like and make power from 2,500 to 6,500 RPM, in theory. I'm also going to use a noisy gear-drive for the cam just because I want to. I know I said all of this the other day, get over it. We also discussed the exhaust tip situation. We agree that a pair of turndowns just in front of the rear tires will be the way to go if I can’t get the forty-five degree slash cut tips under there for some reason. If I can get the forty-fives under there, I might look into some of that oval exhaust tubing for the final section of the pipe. I'd come out of the muffler with 3” round forty-five degree bends and then transition into the oval pipes for the exit tips. It’ll be very NASCAR looking, I think. Then again, I might just go with some of those big 4” slash cut tips like the one on the Pimpmobile. I keep saying forty-five degrees, I mean I'll angle the pipes so that the slash cut is parallel to the side of the car, whatever angle that turns out to be. Well, now that I think about it some more, turndowns might be the better choice. We’ll see. Dang, I can hardly wait! Did I mention my plan to use a shortened Chevy drive shaft with Chevy Hugh joints at both ends? Well, Jags That Run, which is a company specializing in Chevy V8 conversions for Jaguars and Datsun Z-cars, has an adapter hoozis that converts the input flange of a Datsun R-series differential to a Chevy Hugh joint. I'll invest in one of those and then have a drive shaft made for this application. That will make two more parts that won’t be special to Datsun on this vehicle. Chevy Hugh joints are available everywhere, just like small block engine parts. While designing the exhaust system for this car I had a thought, it will act like a drive shaft loop, sort of. At least it would prevent a “pole vault” situation upon Hugh joint failure, Juan would hope. I'm betting there are other parts in that driveline that will break before a Chevy Hugh joint though. Well, I'm bored with this. I think I'm going to call this a week and go do something else. Talk to y’all Monday.