3/14/13

Well, Velocity Channel’s show “Wheeler Dealers” did an MX-5, or as it is known here a Miata, last night.  Well, they did it several years ago but I watched it last night.  As soon as it started I sent John a text saying that I shouldn’t watch it because it would make me want to buy Gregg's Miata and I cannot afford to do that.  Well, it didn’t.  It did make me want to get cracking on the Spit though.  I must remain strong and finish Lil' Wiggly first though!  Now, since I don’t have any Lil’ Wiggly news or anything Lil' Wiggly related to talk about, I will continue gassing on about the Spit.  I've been thinking about the blow-through versus draw-through thing.  I remembered that the blow-through would require a rising-rate fuel pressure regulator… which I have.  Then I got to thinking about how much more complicated a blow-through is.  I may have talked myself back into the simplicity of the draw-through.  Sure, it will be a bit harder to start, but it works.  And as I just said, it is so much simpler.  Yeah, it won't have the cool factor of going, “Vrrrraaaaaaaapisssshhhh!” on every shift, but it is so much simpler.  It probably won't make as much power as a blow-through could, but… say it with me, “It is so much simpler!”  I think we all know where this is headed.  Laziness is going to prevail and the Spit will get a draw-through turbo on the A-14… probably.  I asked John this morning why we were against the IRS in the Spit.  He hasn’t replied yet.  I do think the B-110 axle with welded differential and 4.11:1 ring and pinion is the way to go still, especially with an A-series engine, turbo or no turbo.  Since the B-110 axle is wider than the Spit’s track width, we’ll want to space the front wheels out to “match” and probably run some front-wheel-drive offset wheels.  I'm thinking the black 15” steelies from the Versa.  I think they would look good on the Rat Rod.  It shouldn’t cost too much to have them widened a bit either.  Of course I could get shot down on that idea.  We’ll see.  John wants to put some monster flares on the thing.  I'm not against that idea.  I suppose it is going to come down to how we widen the front track.  Right now, thirty miles away from the shop, I'm thinking we could possibly build our own front uprights and arms and stuff to widen the track, get the right bolt spacing, and put some honkin’ big brakes up there.  Here’s kind of what I'm thinking.  We take Datsun struts, cut the tubes down to the same dimensions as the spacing of the A-arms at the frame, re-thread the inside, make upper ball-joint studs out of strut-tube nuts, build longer A-arms, and use Heim joints top and bottom to join the DLR “Datsun” uprights to the DLR “Spitfire” A-arms… easy peasy.  We’ll probably have to lengthen the tie rods from the steering rack, but that shouldn’t be any great shakes.  My worry is that we’ll hose the handling by building all of this from scratch.  I suppose that there are wags out there who will say we’re hosing the handling by putting the live axle out back.  Perhaps, but… oh, I guess I need to wait for John's reply as to why we’re ditching the IRS before I can finish that argument.  Um, let’s see… ah, got it!  Shut up, it’s my blog!  There, that’ll learn ‘em.  Now, I'm going to reiterate this from time to time, I've got to finish Lil' Wiggly before actually doing anything with the Spit.  As long as it is in the paint booth covered with junk, I think I'll be ok.  As soon as it comes out of there and is available for grokking, I'm screwed.  Must stay the course, must finish Lil' Wiggly.  Speaking of which, yesterday I said I'd found alternator pigtails for $9.00 and up, right?  The “on the intergoogles” was implied.  Y'all got that, right?  Ok.  So now I'm beginning to rethink our decision to go to the Goodguy’s Car Show Saturday.  I kind of want to go to the shop after all.  Of course if we did that we might go into the paint booth and grok the Spit.  We really need to finish Lil' Wiggly before doing anything like grokking the Spit.  I'm going to wait and see what John has to say after he reads this before making any suggestions as to whether we go to the car show or the shop Saturday.  Right now I'm kinda leaning towards shop, but I can go either way.  Pat and Tony are going to the car show so I feel kind of obligated to try and meet up with them.  On the other hand, the shop has cars I'm interested in, the Goodguy’s thing… won't.  Well, it might have a few.  I don’t know.  I'm sure John and I will be discussing this in… three, two, one, brrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!