8/21/08

The phrase “See you next Wednesday” was a running joke in the 1970 Robert Altman science fiction musical comedy “Schlock.” I've only seen it once, and I might have been drunk at the time, so don’t ask for a revue. Look it up on IMDb if you want more. I debated whether I should put that explanation at the beginning or the end of today’s rant. Right now it is at the beginning but I might move it later. We’ll see how much other crap I can come up with to say today. Hmm, it looks like we’re having a bit of a cock-up on the “coming up with crap to say” front. (Wow, another obscure reference. Pat will get it but I doubt many others will.) Ok, I'll give y'all a hint, not that it will help much, “I didn’t get where you are today by not knowing the value of garbage!” How about another? “By being the worst doctor in Britain, I save some other poor soul that ignominy.” What about something smelling like “a Bolivian unicyclist’s jockstrap”? No? These are all from the hilarious British sitcom “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.” It is available on DVD but only in “region 2” format. I wonder if I can get a PAL/SECAM DVD player. Being “in the business,” Juan would think I could. Perhaps a phone call to the home office is in order. Yeah, buy a $1,000.00 DVD player just to watch a 35 year old sitcom! There’s a wise idea. I didn’t get where I am today by buying a $1,000.00 DVD player just to watch a 35 year old sitcom. Hey, I think there is an “All Things British” kind of store in Grapevine or something. Yep, I found it, The British Emporium. Their online store is down at the moment but they claim to have a selection of British sitcoms available. I think I might have to pop round sometime. Ok, I'm officially a douche. I just looked up multi-region DVD players and they are not the über-expensive items I initially thought. In fact, there seem to be so many available on the one site I just visited, I can probably pick one up at Radio Shack or Fry’s, or some place. Interesting. I may have to swing by a Shack on the way home and have a look see. Having a region 2 player would certainly open up my DVD purchasing options. I could probably get real BBC copies of Monty Python, not the edited to hell A&E releases. I need to cipher and figger on this for a bit. Well, I'm getting a headache so I think I'm going to shut my eyes for a bit. Ok, I'm back. While I was away I was thinking “How much boost would I need to double the stock horsepower with George’s engine?” Of course the answer, “Duh, 14.7psi,” came to mind first. Then I remembered I'm not dealing with a turbo on a stock A-12. My math shows that this engine should/could/might make around 75 horsepower naturally aspirated versus an A-12’s rated 68 Hp. So, to get 136 horsepower from George’s engine, I'd need to cram 12.4 psi into it. While I don’t doubt that the system would be capable of it, I do question the longevity of it. Perhaps someday I'll make a “Dial-a Bomb” boost regulator for it, but for now we’ll stick with the assumed 8 psi of the Mitsubishi wastegate. Now for the depressing news, while I was in the spreadsheet I recalculated the Chickenhawk’s assumed horsepower. My 150 Hp to 165 Hp estimate seems a tad optimistic on further examination. Of course that means the 175 Hp I'd been quoting for some time was truly a pipe dream. Anyhoo, a much more reasonable 136 Hp still doubles the stock A-12’s rated figure and with the car weighing a measured 1,499 pounds we still have a power to weight ratio of only 11.02 pounds per horsepower. This still beats Shi-Chi by one pound per Hp making the “butt dyno” numbers fit a little better. By the way, I recalculated Shi-Chi as well and it comes out to 12.11 pounds per horsepower. George’s potential is really starting to look pretty good! I guess his numbers should be thrown out for comparison now: 12.72 pounds per horsepower. I think I can live with that. Yikes, I just did the math for the Chickenhawk with the stock Z-20 and George should be just about as quick as that! I know I can live with that, especially since George now has the 4.11:1 rear end gears from Gil. Whew, ok, this car might give Shi-Chi a run for its money after all. I really need to stop building this car up in my mind or I'm liable to be severely disappointed. Of course, when push comes to shove, when the rubber meets the road, when the pearl is in the river, all of this “bench racing” is meaningless. The car will do what the car will do and that is about all I can say about it. Did you catch the “Under the Rainbow” reference? Sure you did. Well, it looks like the explanation of yesterday’s obscurity will stay at the beginning of the rant. And on that note, I will end the rant. Have a day.