3/4/08

Ok, so my laptop pissed me off again yesterday, go figure, and got hard-booted. No, I didn’t kick it across the room like it deserved; I held the power switch down until it shut off then restarted it. Anyhoo, in the middle of the reboot it locked up again, or at least sat there like it was locked up, so I hard booted it again. I mean really, if you are doing something, do something. Show me that you are working. Don’t just sit there like a lump. Whatever happened to that bullshit about, “Most of the computer’s processing time is spent waiting for you to do something,” line of crap? Bullshit. I have to wait for this motherfucker to think about whatever it is trying to do all the time. Anyhoo, when it re-restarted it wanted to run some diagnostic to figure out why it didn’t restart. I could have told it but it is too stupid to listen. I let it have its diagnostic and it reset something. Now there is a friggin’ 198.7 MB update it is trying to download every time I go online. By my calculations it should be through downloading it at 1530 h this afternoon. It is at 38% downloaded right now. It has been downloading for two hours and five minutes now. It has my connection so fucked up I cannot even look at the three or four websites I visit on a daily basis. I… AM… PISSED… OFF. Ok, to calm myself down, I think I'm going to talk about the Chickenhawk some more. I've been looking for information on the cylinder numbering scheme for the VG series engine. As usual, the internot was no help. That information is not out there. I did find that the firing order is supposedly 1-2-3-4-5-6, but that doesn’t really help me all that much. If that is the case, I suppose I can assume that the cylinders are numbered in an alternating fashion since it doesn’t really make sense to fire all three on one bank then all three on the other. The other thing it could be is that the cap is internally staggered so that the wires line up like that in the cap but the firing order is something different. 1-2-3-4-5-6 is just a bit too convenient. It also “knee-caps” my 180 degree header since the two banks are already hitting the collector in a regular fashion. I think “knee-cap” is a hockey term because I hear them use it all the time on “Corner Gas” when they mean “to hamper, hinder, or hobble something.” I'm going to try and use it more often. So, with a 180 degree header out of the picture, I'm giving some thought to a pair of low boost turbochargers! Here’s my thinking. I'll run each bank to its own turbo but will have a crossover between them with the wastegate. The dumps from the turbos will exit through the beaver panel between the taillights and the wastegate dump will exit between the turbo dumps. It ought to throw flames every shift! Of course I won’t do that. I'll stick with a naturally aspirated setup. It’ll still be wicked-retarded-stupid fast. The thing will probably “hang the hoops” if it ever gets any traction. We’re talking wheelies here, baby! No, the turbos are out but I'll still probably build my own headers, just for tradition’s sake. The Chickenhawk has always had a Dimlight Racing header. Hey, I suppose I could make a faux wastegate dump in between the regular zorst tips. If I put a wastegate on a crossover before the mufflers which blew-off at a very high vacuum, it would still throw a flame with every shift. Of course it would also fire off anytime Juan used engine braking as well. No, I probably won’t do that either, cool though it would be. Well, we’re approaching lunchtime. I think I'll sign off for a bit. Well, I've done a little work and been to lunch. The 193 MB download is crowding 60% finally. It might finish today. I doubt it though. So, thoughts of the mid-engine Chickenhawk have been dancing in my head all day now. I'm trying to decide if I want to design in some roll-steer in the rear suspension. I'm running it through my head and the roll-steer I'd want would be the opposite of the bump-steer I'd want. Let me ‘splain. Under acceleration, the rear will want to squat. I was thinking I'd want the tires to toe-out under squat to counteract the fact that the drive torque is going to want to force them into toe-in. But toe-out in bump, which is essentially what squat is, would cause the outside tire to toe-out in the corners, while the inside tire toes-in due to (tee hee, I said doo-doo!) droop, making the car tail happy. I don’t like tail happy. I prefer understeer to oversteer. I want to see what I'm going to hit when it gets away from me. Guess I'm not buying a Porsche 911 anytime soon. Of course I could design the thing with anti-squat I suppose. If the anti-squat were done right the ass end would actually lift under acceleration. Lifting the rear under acceleration, I'd want the bump-steer to toe-out in droop and toe-in on bump. That would dial in understeer. I just had a thumb-through of some chassis and suspension books in my cabinet. I am going to have to read through them much more closely as the time comes to build the Chickenhawk. I also just checked on the download, we’re at 77% now. It seems to be cooking right along. Well, I think I've wasted enough of your time for today. Perhaps I'll come up with more stuff tomorrow.