4/27/10

OK, so we’re now up to Sunday morning, right? I wait around for mom to come home from church and we go to Olive Garden. Back at the house, I walk around back and attempt to fire up Lil' Wiggly. I'm almost out of ether, and in fact run out while spraying the air filter, so I don't have high hopes of it going well. It does not. The cranking becomes slow before enough fuel reaches the float bowl to sustain life. I pull Ms. Clio around and hook up the jumper cables. One of these days I really need to get a new battery, and cables, in Lil' Wiggly. But I digress. With the jumpers attached, I spin the engine on the starter until it coughs to life. A few more tries and she’s idling. I disconnect and park Ms. Clio then head out in Lil' Wiggly. I take off around the loop and go to Blood Bath & Beyond to buy a new belt. The old one was too long and it pissed me off the other day to the point of getting cut in half. I buy a belt and then look at other stuff. I handle a Mosin Nagant rifle but decide that $99.00 is still too much for that dinosaur. Eventually I leave and go to the AT&T store on Western Center. There I ask the little girlie if she can download the update Blackberry keeps telling me I need to load but can't because I'm not using a Tiny and Flaccid computer anymore. She can't do it either so I ask again about an upgrade. If I'm not going to spend 100 clams for a rifle, I'm sure not going to pay it for a new phone. I leave with the exact same setup I walked in with. From AT&T I head back around the loop to Quebec street and visit the knife store there at the top of the hill. I'd bought my Spiderco knife there some years ago and still carry the free sharpening card in my wallet. I show the dude my knife, the tip of which has been broken twice now, and he says, “No problem.” I wander the aisles. I overhear a couple kids, tweens or perhaps actual teens, looking at something in a display case. One of them says, “I think it is an AK.” The other says, “Those are illegal here. It must be a fake.” I walk past the case in question and inside is what appears to be an AK-47. I'm going to agree with kid 2 that it is probably a replica since there were no other guns in the whole place. I wanted to tell them a) they are NOT illegal here and 2) that $500.00 could buy them a brand new one at the store I'd just left, but decided to leave it alone. Oh, there was one really cool thing there as well. It was a sculpture of the Xenomorph from the Alien movie franchise made of old car parts. If I'd had a spare $300.00 I would have bought it. It was whey cool. Eventually the dude handed my knife back to me and I headed out. I went for a hoon. As I drove, I realized I really like Lil' Wiggly. It just needs a little more “oomph.” I eventually made it around to the shop and hung out for a bit. While checking, and adding to, the oil and coolant, I started thinking about that engine. I went back inside and had a look for something. Yep, I did have a single DCOE manifold for a round-port A-series engine. I also have a single DCOE sitting on the shelf. I looked some more and found the header originally used on The Seven. “You know,” thought I, “that would liven Lil' Wiggly up some.” Would it be enough to satisfy me though? I don't know. It would have to be better than what’s on the car now, right? Juan would think. I shot a text to John and asked him to compare and contrast the performance benefits versus “speed” of that versus an L-series swap. Of course, by “speed” I mean how quickly can we make the swap. It was agreed that the DCOE on the existing engine would be the most expedient, but the L-series would make a faster car. I'm sure we’ll discuss it more. Once I was done at the shop, I headed home again and parked Lil' Wiggly on the back porch. I don't remember anything else happening Sunday evening so we’ll assume that was that. Yesterday I got an e-mail from the Triumph dude telling me about the Regional meet happening this week in Oklahomo City. I texted John and asked if he wanted to run up there Saturday. It looks like we will. Their Concourse show is from 1000 h to 1400 h on Saturday so I think we can make that and be back at a reasonable time. Who knows, maybe one of the TR-3 owners will let me take their car for a quick jaunt to see how they perform. We'll see. So, having said all of that, I think y'all are up to speed on the things in my life. I'm going to be stuck in an all day meeting tomorrow and I'm not sure if I'm going to bring my laptop with me. I may or may not have anything for y'all tomorrow.