8/14/08

I saw a Subaru Legacy 2.5 GT on the way in to work today. I know this one wasn’t my old car though from several visual clues. First off, the driver’s side rear fender wasn’t dented in like mine was. Second, there wasn’t a receiver hitch under the bumper. And third, it was green. It made me miss my Scooby-Doo. I really liked that car. No, I'd go so far as to say I loved that car. Sigh. Oh well. Better to have loved and lost blah, blah, blah. I was going to go on a rant about how horsepower is total bullshit and that what we should be talking about is torque, but then I noticed that my argument didn’t really hold up. It’s still true, but the argument I was going to use was spurious. I was going to say that the torque Versæ make is why they are so much quicker than a stock 1200 when the horsepower to weight numbers are so similar. Of course once I looked into it, I saw that the torque to weight numbers are just about the same as the power to weight numbers. Ok, so it has to be gearing. Yeah, I'm grasping at straws here. Hey, I just remembered I had 4.11:1 gears in the differential of Gil. That might ‘splain why that car felt as quick as the Versæ. Granted, that was an A-14 with a hot cam and a DCOE, whereas George had an A-12 with a stock cam and a DGV. Let’s say I'm full of crap and move on, shall we? Good. Well, I've been re-reading Corky Bell’s book on turbochargers. He has a horsepower guesstimator based on displacement and boost gleaned from his experience with various engines. If I take George’s 78 cubic inch engine at 8 psi, and use CB’s low guesstimate of 92 horsepower and his high guesstimate of 136 horsepower, I get a median of 114 horsepower. My figures yesterday were based on how the boost would ideally affect the stock 68 horsepower. By the way, plugging an A-12’s 72 cubic inches in the same formulæ gives me a low of 85 horsepower and a high of 126 horsepower. Want to take a stab at the median? Go on, I'll wait. Yep, right smack dab on top of my 105 horsepower guess based on pressure ratios! Oh yeah, I'm cool. Who’s your math daddy? Anyhoo, the point is I've been assuming a starting point of 68 horsepower in figuring out the bullshit estimate of possible power for George. Turns out I've been thinking low. Yeah, it’s only a ten horsepower difference, but in a 1,400 pound car that’s a pretty good percentage. We’re talking 12.28 lbs/Hp versus 13.33 lbs/Hp by the way. A mere 12 psi puts George dead even with Shi-Chi in the power to weight race. Oh yeah, now I remember why I love Datsun 1200s so much, they don’t weigh anything! Juan doesn’t have to cram a huge assed engine in one to go fast. Of course this does not mean I'm going to scrap the V6 in the Chickenhawk idea, not by a long shot. I'm just saying it isn't necessary to go really big to make a 1200 fast. For the most part, big horsepower is just overkill in a 1200. But sometimes overkill is just enough kill though. Yes, I’m arguing both sides of this issue, because both sides have merit. Well, I might change my tune when I have 200 horsepower, or more, over the back wheels of the Chickenhawk. We’ll see. Well, it is now 1500 h and I think I'm going to start winding things down for the day. Talk to y'all tomorrow.