02-12-05  09:23, Wayne Chirnside told James Bradley about Tap tap tap...

 Well, how do, Wayne?

 -> I've read NASA was stockpiling 486MBs to send up with
 -> the shuttle. To think how
 -> shortly ago, engineers were trying to break the 66MHz barrier with PC board
 -> design...

 WC> Did you follow Burt Rutan's venture with SpaceShip One?
 WC> 20 milllion from idea to two flights a week with the same
 WC> spacecraft!!!

I've been watching Burt for some time. He reintroduced the Ascender (A play
on ...-ender.) canard wing with the Vari-eze, or something named like that.
The popularity of home-built composite with a canard wing is due to his
company, Scaled Composites. His brother Dick was flying one of his designs
when they went un refueled around the equator.
 
 ->  WC> of neighborhoods I try not to advertize my disability and so become a
 ->  WC> mark for a mugging.
 
 -> I hear that! 
 -> When starting my car in the winter, I have to hang my butt out the
 -> door, (No need to crawl in, just to crawl out again to scrape the windows.)
 -> depress the clutch with a hammer (There's a switch on 
 -> the clutch that prevents
 -> solenoid engagement.) and then I get to turn the key. 
 -> Having that hammer, and a
 -> can of WD40 handy is a little bit of security of mind for me. When I was
 -> withdrawaling, I even had a lighter around my neck, JIC. 

 WC> I've a few martial arts moves I've picked up over the years from
 WC> various sources but they're all rather deadly so I'd hate to have to
 WC> employ them.
 WC> Nothing wrong with my upper body strength as long as the spine doesn't
 WC> give out dropping me to the ground at an inopportune moment.

I feel the same. I was only trained for a few months in elementary school,
but quickly got tired of the repetitive nature of the instruction. Shortly
after stopping one fellows heart in a 'non-contact' sparing match, (He
walked into my foot! The Sen-see even saw it that way. ;-) they asked me
not to come in any more.

In my day, as I mentioned, I was often walking a mile to my car after
working 'til midnight. One fellow and his 'droogs' just about received some
damage one night, but I wasn't sure about my legal right to do so. Today,
I'd have to use the cane, and work quickly.
 ->  ->  -> My car gets 50 miles per gallon! Four wheel drive 
 ->  ->  -> too, not just one. <-; 
 
 ->  WC> They're packing 146 H.P. into 1100 cc machines these days!!!
 
 -> MPFI! Now, if we could just EPROM those 'puters, we 
 -> wouldn't have to spend $500
 -> a pop when the logic chip goes South. (I know we can do that now with an
 -> on-board laptop.)             

 WC> I used to just hit Cycle Salvage for good used parts as required.
 WC> Actually of all my assorted motorcycles over the years only the last
 WC> had a _black box_.
 WC> I preferred something one could repair on the road and I never once in
 WC> 20 years was stranded.

Tell me about it. The weather up here keeps even the most ardent of riders
off their mounts for eight months of the year, so a 'beater' is a
necessity. Problem is, the only beaters available today have been so
over-engineered, that my buddy almost had to remove the front windshield,
and wheel-wells to change two spark plugs. If he purchased a larger engine
in the pig, he would have HAD to!
 WC> I LIKE points with centrifical advance weights and no some
 WC> really nifty tricks to extend point life a few hundred percent.
 WC> I did have to remove the point plate in the Suzuki to file it down a
 WC> bit with a round file so I could get the timing exactly right.
 
 ->  WC> Interesting URL for crazy attractive biker lady and
 ->  WC> Chernobyl:
 ->  WC> www.kiddofspeed.com                             
 WC> ( not a typo, that's two dd's in kid)
 
 -> Biker Ladies in Chernobyl? Oh, baby! I'll have to check 
 -> that out one day. ;-)

 WC> I highly recommend it.
 WC> Her father's a nuclear physicist so she gets into the "dead zone"
 WC> around the Chernobyl disaster.
 WC> She carries a geiger counter and camera with her and has documented
 WC> the extent of that disaster as no news account ever has.

 WC> She gets to open up her bike all the way because there's no other
 WC> traffic on the roadways for 40 kilometers around the site
 WC> and rides alone as another vehicle would kick up radioactive dust.
 
I thought that was a typo, OTHER than the extraneous "d". Sounds
like a hoot! Next visit to the library, I'll have to logon to check it out.
 ->  ->  WC> I was going to detune it but the wreck eliminated
that project :-(
 ->  
 ->  -> Now, that would be done by leaning the fuel-air mixture? 
 ->  -> Wouldn't that build up
 ->  -> carbon in the cylinder heads?
 
 ->  WC> Exactly the opposite.
 
 -> Burn the heads? Forgive me, but dad instilled the voodoo factor regarding
 -> combustion engines into me when I was growing up.              

 WC> I'm careful.
 WC> The trick is to closely observe the insulators on the spark plugs.
 WC> White is too lean and hot and can put a hole in a piston, black is too
 WC> rich and cool and a light tan color is just right.

All I've really learned to date, is from what I read on an engine article
as it pertains to home-built aircraft. Sure would like to still do that one
day.
 WC> All my bikes were tuned and maintained to the MAX with very brief
 WC> but comprehensive maintance distributed throughout the year.
 
 ->  WC> As was I had to do "Italian tuneups" on it on a
regular basis or it'd
 ->  WC> be a dog to start and run smooth. 
 ->  WC> With that high lift cam and oversized jets fuel just poured into the
 ->  WC> combustion chambers.
 
 ->  WC> Just doing around town driving I carried a brass wire brush to
 ->  WC> clean the carbon off the plugs regularly.
 
 -> If they run rich, they burn cooler, and don't burn carbon as readily?

 WC> Yup and that carbon on the plug insulator bleeds off the spark's
 WC> charge so the motor misses, runs rough and is a bear to start
 WC> and warm up.
 WC> Light tan is the color you want to see on a plug's insulator.
 
As it pertains to aviation, they were talking about monitoring the Exhaust
Gas Temperature, and the like while leaning the mix. It's *starting* to
sink into this nogin.
 ->  WC> I was going to replace the high lift camshaft with a more stock item,
 ->  WC> rejet the carbs down a size and replace the tuned 4 into oone exhast
 ->  WC> with the stock pair of 2 into ones on either side.
 ->  WC> Added benefit of latter far better cornering clearance
 ->  WC> on right turns.
 
 ->  WC> I'd lose 10 H.P. or a tad more, gain gas mileage and cornering
 ->  WC> clearance.
 
 ->  WC> Just hitting the throttle on that beast had you holding onto te bars
 ->  WC> for dear life or you'd be off the bike.
 ->  WC> First two weeks with it I had to learn how to keep from lofting the
 ->  WC> front wheel which was odd as 72 percent of the bike's weight was
 ->  WC> shifted forward to it.
 
 -> That's impressive, I'm sure. I think my car comes in 
 -> somewhere around a ton.
 -> Doublings the HP, and what, one-third the weight... Sheesh!

 WC> More like 1/4 the weight.
 WC> The XS-1100 Yamaha Special came in at 534 pounds dry weight.
 WC> Today's bikes come in lighter with more horsepower.

When I was considering a bike, I was more interested in a street-legal,
cross-country mount. We have more open spaces than pavement here.
 WC> Friend tried to race me one time on his 750 and without even shifting
 WC> I just blipped the throttle and left him in the dust and slowed having
 WC> made my point.

A friend told me about the time he took some Asians out bow hunting in the
mountains just West of us. He and his buddy were on a couple of Honda 50's
or so, and the clients were all geared out with the latest off-road
'cycles. The gearing on the toys were such that the big bikes lost control
with an excess of speed, where the little bikes were able to gear-down slow
enough to stay on the paths. Needless to say, there were quickly two riders
on each 50-cc, and two high HP mounts in the raveens. According to him,
they *were* warned. ...Guess it depends on the right tool for the job.



... Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power.

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20

--- Maximus 3.01