9/6/12

I lost the auction for the Stromberg carburetor.  Actually, that isn’t quite true; I was out bid on the auction for the Stromberg carburetor and am not going to up my offer.  I also got an e-mail back from Z Therapy in reply to my question about price for a single Z-car SU.  A rebuilt carburetor from them would be $315.00 plus a $75.00 core.  I think I have a carburetor I could send to them as a core, but I'd have to look.  Also, I'm not sure I want to throw another three Franklins at this project when I'm still not sure why the damned thing started getting hot sitting at idle.  No, I think we’ll stick with the plan I laid out yesterday of installing the mystery carburetor I have and seeing what that does for us.  Sitting here, twenty miles away from the thing, my whelm level is such that I want to get the thing going… of course that will probably change as soon as I can see it again.  I'm sure there are a whole shit-ton of issues I've forgotten about that project, but one jumps to mind: I remember the tachometer not reading right.  It was either reading twice the RPM or half, but it was not right.  I am wondering if the MSD 6AL spark box is to blame.  I'm considering removing it and just going with the Nissan electronic ignition distributor I have on there.  I have for some time considered replacing it with an MSD 6AL with the boost retard function.  I don’t know.  There are already enough tuning functions I'm going to ignore if the thing ever fires up, runs, and drives.  Do I really want to add boost retard to that list?  If I were looking to eke out that last little horsepower from the system… well, I wouldn’t be building a draw through carbureted turbo system, now would I?  Harelip!  Harelip!  Harelip!  If I hadn’t said it, someone else would.  Anyhoo, my point is I'm just trying to build a fun functional turbo system, not something to set any world records.  Well, I've got to take a projector to someone right quick and it is about to be lunchtime.  I may come back later to rant at y'all some more.  Ok, so I've just sat through the United Way pledge drive meeting for the seventh time this week.  During this last meeting, I thought of a great slogan: “I’ve upped my contribution… up yours!”  I almost laughed out loud when that popped into my mind.  That would have been really bad since we were in the middle of the video about some dude’s mother-in-law having Alzheimer’s… and said dude was there to talk about it.  But I digress.  Ok, I see I was justifying my laziness with regards to tuning by saying that I wasn’t trying to build a maximum horsepower turbo engine in George.  I'll be happy if the thing runs as well as Lil' Wiggly does now… or as well as The Seven for that matter.  Sure, I plan to have stupid power in the Chickenhawk with the KA-24 engine, but for the most part I'm just as happy with a fun reliable car Juan can toss around and hoon at slightly irresponsible speeds.  Now, having said that, John texted me earlier asking if I would be willing to trade Barbecue Bob's steel wheels for a Mustang rear axle.  If I have a Mustang axle, I might be tempted to think about a 302 V8 in a Datsun.  So, if the turbo turns out to be a total bust, and I have a Fjord 8.8 or 9 inch axle on hand, George might get some stupid power plant.  Of course what would make the most sense would be to find a 300ZX with a five-speed and blown engine, buy it, and use its tranny and ECU on the VG-33 engine I already have.  Wait, did I just say that made the most sense?  Yes, I think I did.  Hmm, that’s odd.  Anyhoo, I guess we’ll wait and see if the turbo engine works out then start shopping for a four or five speed Mustang 5.0 or blowed-up 300ZX and gopher whichever one shows up first.  I can see George being the wide-body 1200 with some stupidly huge engine I've dreamt about since the Chickenhawk was first on the road.  Tee hee.