9/23/10

1435 h Mom just called, my wheels and tires have arrived! It is all I can do to not cut out of here right now to go put them on the car. I’m as happy as a little girl. OK, I can wait at least another hour, maybe an hour and a half, but after that I'm out of here. So, what else is there? I think Larry and I are going to actually skip this weekend’s gun show. I know, it is hard to believe. Thing is, it is the small show and neither one of us wants to pay the $8.00 to get in and $5.00 parking for the small show. Not to mention I can't afford the 3” Magnum Judge I want right now anyway so I'd just be frustrating myself. Hopefully by missing this show I can begin to wean myself off of guns and get back into the car hobby. We'll see. OK, so I've been thinking about Barbecue Bob some more. Remember how I said something about a 5.0 in it yesterday? Well, now I'm thinking 5.0 in the Chickenhawk and a Mad Max supercharged VG-30 in Barbecue Bob. I've got a design to make the off-shuttable supercharger work on a VG. On top of the lower manifold of the VG, Juan would install a throttle plate assembly. It would have six throttles shutting off the six individual runners going into the heads. Above that plate there would be a plenum topped off with the supercharger. On the front face of the plenum there would be two one-way flapper-valves drawing through a pair of air filters. When the blower is off, the vacuum in the plenum would draw open the flappers and feed the engine. When the blower is on, the pressure differential would force the flappers shut, sealing them off. Opposite the flapper fed filters would need to be a substantial blow off valve system for when the throttles are shut under boost, but that ain’t no big deal. I'd feed them back into the top of the blower and recirculate that air. Well, I just had to erase the bit where I described the cool-assed flat-slide throttle system. I realized the... well, it wouldn't work. Let’s leave it at that. Butterflies ought to work fine, and they won't require the intricate “air bearing” I had designed for the flat-sliders. So anyhoo, yeah, that’s what I've been thinking about today. Of course I'll never do that, I'll probably go with the 5.0 in Barbecue Bob and a naturally aspirated VG in the Chickenhawk. I'm thinking mid engine again though. Oh, and just to be weird, I'm thinking a six to three, triple exhaust would be neat. Three tail pipes poking out between the taillights in a pyramid? Oh yeah. It would sound odd as hell I'm sure. Yeah, I probably wouldn't do that either. What I might do though is get two sets and run both banks with, say, the driver’s side manifolds. That way one manifold dumps to the rear of the engine while the other dumps to the front. Then they would be on opposite sides of the car, you see. Would that make any difference? I don't know. It might make the dual zorst easier to build. We'll see. Well, I don't know what else to say today. Tomorrow is the BNSF Family Day Picnic so I'll be driving The Seven to work. The only thing that would keep me from doing that would be if it is actually raining when I go to leave the house. Oh, there is a chance of rain tomorrow I believe. If it rains on me halfway to work, yeah that would suck, but I could deal with it. If it rains during the day before the event, no big whoop. If it rains during the event, meh, I can deal. If it rains on the way home, who cares? But I just can't see me intentionally hopping in the car in the rain to go to work. I guess I'll plan to bring a change of clothes in a garbage bag just in case the “rains on me halfway to work” scenario plays out. Whatever happens, I probably won't have a rant tomorrow. So, there you have it. Talk to y'all again Monday.