6/9/06

I went ahead and bought a dual inlet dual outlet muffler from Summit yesterday. It was cheaper than two Flowmasters, by about one Flowmaster plus, but only slightly more than two glass packs. It isn’t the one I was talking about but a Summit branded “turbo” muffler. It has two 2.25” inlets and two 3” outlets. I went ahead and bought one 3” Hugh bend as well to make the exit turns. I looked at tips but decided against them for the time being. I'm getting excited about Barbecue Bob with a V8! Ok, so I've been excited about Barbecue Bob with a V8 for some time now, but I'm really stoked about it now. I'm seriously considering the black paint scheme. Perhaps I'll do what I always want to do when I watch “Mad Max” and paint it gloss black with matte black racing stripes. How badass would that look? It has air conditioning so a black paint job won’t cook me in the summer. I'm planning to tint the hell out of the windows as well. That is going to be one ultra bitchin’ car! Crap, crap, crapity, crap, crap! I should have bought the fittings for the upper radiator hose while I was at Summit. Well, now that I think about it though, I'm not sure how it’s going to be done. Never mind. Here’s the deal, that Ron Griffin radiator has four NPT threaded fittings in the top tank and no radiator hose inlet. I'm going to have to make a manifold of some sort that goes from the upper hose neck on the engine to the four bungs. I don’t think it is going to be rocket surgery. I suppose I could come off of each head with a hose and then “Y” the last two into the water neck at the thermostat. It might not ever warm up though if I did something wacky like that. No, I'll bring the upper hose out of the thermostat and into a log with four nipples attached to the four bungs in the radiator. Well, I'm sitting here in this cart, is that the horse way back there on the horizon? I wonder how I'm going to make the tachometer work in this contraption. It has a four-cylinder tachometer obviously and I'll need it to be an eight. Will the tachometer read half speed or double? I think it is double speed. I don’t think it is a 10,000-rpm tachometer in the car so I really need it to read right. Surely someone makes a converter for putting a V8 in a four-cylinder car and retaining the factory tachometer. Then again, most folks doing an engine swap will put in an aftermarket set of gauges. There has to be a way. I need some sort of solid-state “gate” that passes every other pulse. Perhaps Painless Wiring has something. I think I need to do an internot search for this sort of thing. I've been trying to wrap my brain around a way to make it work; I'm not having any success. I need to pee. And I'm back. I'm still in a quandary about the ignition switch situation in George. At this point, I'm thinking that I'll fabricate a knob of sorts for the rotary switch that used to be activated by the key. Of course a pair of toggle switches and a push button would do the trick just as well. Hey, I just had an idea! I'll use that DPDT latching switch I bought for the turn signals in the Seven! I'll wire it so the down position is “accessories” only and the up position is “accessories” and “ignition” together. Of course the middle will be the “off” position. I've been thinking about it and that won’t work. Well, it will with either a relay or a diode. I think two switches will be much easier. Well, at least two plus the starter push button. Actually, the easiest would be carry a screwdriver and just go ghetto. I think I'll look at the knob idea some more. Ok, I'm not even sure why I wrote all of this since Spiderman is out of town. I'm debating whether or not I'm even going to send it to him today or if I should wait for Tuesday. I think I will go ahead and send it just in case. Have a day.