8/18/09

I just realized that I have only five more weekends, or ten shop days, before BNSF Family Day. That means I'm going to have to get cracking on doing that carburetor swap on Shichi. John wants help clearing out his garage this Saturday so there’s one day dead. I'm not trying to back out of that commitment, I'm just getting things into perspective. Roku-Hyaku needs to get moved either to the paint booth or out back so I can have the main bay for Shichi. I guess I need to make that car roll again on Sunday. There’s two days, or one weekend, gone. I'm going to have to forgo the gun show on the 29^th and 30^th or that will be another wasted weekend. So, if I can get to work on swapping carburetors next weekend, August 29, I will have four full weekends to make it happen and get the car sorted. Barring any unforeseen calamities, it should be doable. Of course, here is another thought. I liked the way Shichi ran with a stock cam and the dual SU carburetors. I could always rebuild that A-15 bottom end, swap the $1,000.00 head back onto it, and reinstall it in there then use the big cam bottom end in Lil' Wiggly under some head I can scrounge up. I won’t do it of course, but it is another idea. No, I'll probably go ahead with the dual Mikunis on the $1k head with the big cam A-14 in Shichi plan. Well, unless the thing just won't run with that setup either. If it still runs like it is now when we do the carburetors, then I might be willing to ditch that bottom end for a mild cam version. Hell, I suppose it is entirely possible that the $1k head won't flow what the cam wants. That would be a pisser. Of course it would make the “Clark Kent engine in Shichi” plan more palatable. But we won't know until we do the carburetor swap. It’s making my head hurt thinking about it. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Well, I have to go take a projector to someone right quick. I may have more when I get back, but don't count on it. I'm back but I don't really have anything new to add. I think I might readdress the “Lil’ Wiggly needs more power” issue. I'm not sure we need to jump right into an engine swap. I think the wiser course of action... wait. I should have said, “Barring the hot cam A-14 coming out of Shichi, I'm not sure we need to jump right into an engine swap.” Yes, that’s better. So I think the wiser course of action would be to go with the original idea of installing the dual SU carburetors and a header on the existing engine and see what that does for performance. We can always install an L-series at a later date. No, it won't be as fast, but it ought to be considerably quicker than it is now, especially if I go with the standard DLR treatment of ditching the air conditioning. Then again, John seems to be really on board with the L-series swap. I might let him talk me into it. Again, I'll probably ditch the air no matter what winds up as the power plant in there. In fact, I think I have pretty much made that decision already. I just haven’t made the commitment to remove anything yet. I don't know what I want to do. I do know that I don't want to talk to y'all any more today. So there.