4/16/12

Well, the car we went to look at Saturday morning was really cool. I'm not ready to tell y'all what it was yet though. Suffices to say, I will probably bust John's balls for it if the deal goes through. But… well, we’ll see. After looking at the car, we did a few other things then headed to the shop. While we were putting the wheels on and jacking the car off the stands, I had the battery charger hooked up. When the time came to fire it up, it cranked for a while and then barked to life. John did have to hold the “chokes” for a bit but once warm it settled into… well, and idle. I am a bit concerned that it does not want to idle down after releasing the throttle, but I'm sure we’ll finger that out. We removed all loose articles from the engine bay and roof then rolled it outside for a test drive. I took it around the building and it ran well. Not great, but well. It needs some more tuning, of course, and the semi-open header makes it hard to drive the way it needs to be driven. Also, the rear brakes might still be a little too tight. I think it seemed to roll well enough when off the throttle, but I don’t really recall. John took it around the building a few times and declared it to be good. I'm afeared my “butt-dyno” is too attuned to the 11 pounds per horsepower in Fiona and therefore Lil' Wiggly's 17 pounds per horsepower doesn’t seem adequate… especially for all the “sound and fury” involved with the open zorst. You know what? The more I think about it, the more I think those brakes ARE dragging the thing down. At least I hope that is the case. The plan is to take it to Steve/John first thing Saturday morning and have the zorst done. We’ll probably have a look at those rear brakes again before/at that time. So, the long and the short of it is: Lil' Wiggly moves under its own power again! I know I should be more excited about it, but… well, I hate tuning. I wanted it to be “righter” than it is because that is how they usually turn out… if you know what I mean. I can't ‘splain it other than I've been lucky in the past that all of my projects have run well enough that they didn’t require a bunch of tuning to satisfy me. Anyhoo, the one thing we forgot to do was hook up the speedometer cable. All the rest of the gauges appear to work fine. I may go back in and rewire the relay for the headlights though. Right now I have the park lights and low beams hot whenever the key is on and a separate switch for the high beams. I'm wondering if the added load of the lights when cranking the engine is what is “killing” that battery. I think I'll just run another wire to a switch for the lights after all. Or, I might put in a momentary bypass switch that can be pushed when cranking the engine if the lights are too much drain. Yes, I like that better. I'll also have it shut off the radiator fan and fuel pump relays for that short period of time to get all the juice I can to the starter and coil. Besides, and they are all on the same signal wire and I don’t want to do all the work to separate them out. I think once the fuel bowls are full there otter be enough in them to make firing. It will just be while the engine is cranking over anyway. Once it barks to life I'll release the switch and supply fuel, cool air, and light again. Wait, why am I trying to justify this to y'all? A) It will work and 2) it is my car. Screw you guys. Ok, I was just rereading and had another thought. I might put in a master kill switch under the hood like I had in the Chickenhawk originally and I currently have in The Seven. Right next to that switch I'll put a momentary switch to fire up the fuel pump (and lights and fan of course but mainly the pump) to fill the float bowls. Here’s my thinking: if the car has been sitting for a while, the fuel in the floats will evaporate. If I'm under the hood to turn on the master kill, I might as well run the fuel pump until I see the pressure come up on the under-hood gauge. Then I'll know I have the float bowls full. I can then close and secure the hood, hop in, and hold the “starting cutoff switch” while cranking. I suppose I could also put in a remote starter button under the hood as well to spin up oil pressure before adding spark. No, because I would need an oil pressure gauge under the hood for that to work. Ok, how about a PAIR of switches for when you are cranking the engine? One to shut off the lights, fan, and pump, the other to shut off the coil for cranking up oil pressure? You would hop in, turn the key to the “run” position, push both buttons, crank until you see oil pressure, release the “ignition” bypass, and when it fires, release the “LFP” bypass. Of course an alternate, automatic, method would be to have the ignition bypass on an oil pressure switch… which would also kill the lights, fan, and fuel pump. Hmm, I wonder if that would be enough. No, probably not for the first start of the day since THAT will require a bit of cranking after the oil pressure comes up. I think the “LFP” bypass is still a good idea though. Hmm, I do have Barbecue Bob’s oil pressure switches. I could do the ignition bypass that way. It would have the added benefit of killing the engine if oil pressure drops too low. I do have a lot of money in that engine. That might not be a bad plan… someday. Well, I think I've rambled on long enough for today. I'll tell y'all what we discovered about the Crossbow project tomorrow.