2/28/08

I don’t really have anything to say today but I'm going to say it anyway. I know I say that fairly often but I like it. I was thinking about the Chickenhawk this morning. That’s pretty much it; I don’t have anything to add. Ok, I do too. Gregg wants me to build a set of 180 degree headers for it. 180 degree headers, I believe, route the zorst pulses in such a way that they hit the collector in an evenly spaced interval. What it will do is convert the collector pulses from bang-pause-bang-bang and bang-bang-pause-bang to two collectors “seeing” bang-bang-bang pulses. Of course the official reason is for performance but I'd actually be doing to for the weird sound 180 degree headers make. They just sound odd. I'll build a shorty dual zorst system with the tips poking out between the taillights. John and I were discussing it and agree that flame throwers in the zorst might be a necessity in that car. We’ll see. I think I might commandeer some of the parts I have collected for the V8 in Barbecue Bob to use in the Chickenhawk now. That bitchin’ aluminum radiator, for one thing, will now go to the Chickenhawk. I think I might use that Summit two-in two-out muffler as well. It is kind of big for 3.3 liters, but then again it should make oodles and scads of top end power. It’s not like the car will be hurting for torque. The “bundle of snakes” 180 degree header will, by necessity, have rather long primaries. If I keep them on the smaller side, the loss of exhaust velocity after the collectors shouldn’t hurt as much. Yeah, that’s the theory I'm going to work with. I guess I should have Burn’s Stainless run their header builder software over my plan so I can build a proper header for it. I won’t, but I probably should. I did blow the cash for someone to run the numbers when I built that header for the Z-20 in the original Chickenhawk. Of course the only thing I did according to their recommendation was make the primaries 29 inches long. My primary size was bigger than they recommended, and my collector was not what they recommended, but my primary length was 29 inches by golly. Ok, I think I might have fudged by half an inch here and there, to tell the truth. But they are all very close to 29 inches, that’s my point. Damn, now I want to put Marty on a back burner and get to work on the Chickenhawk. No, I should probably sell Marty and get to work on the Chickenhawk. I know, “after George is running.” You don’t have to remind me. Oh, another thing I was thinking about with the Chickenhawk, I want to make the hood have one of those huge exhaust vents to route the radiator air up and out instead of under the car. I'll have the fuel cell and battery under the hood too for weight balance of course. I don’t know if I've ever mentioned it before but we’re also thinking of using 300ZX struts and big brakes up front with Maxima front struts and brakes out back. I'll have to come up with an auxiliary caliper system for the parking brake but I don’t think it will be a big issue. I'll probably go with five-lug struts because I believe the biggest ZX brakes are of that variety. Oh damn. I think big assed aftermarket ZX brakes on the front and stock Maxima front brakes on the rear will be sufficient stopping power. Don’t you? This thing is going to kill my ass, isn't it? Well, something is going to kill me some day and it might as well be doing something I love. Ok, I think I'm just about through for the day. I'll talk to y'all again tomorrow.