27 Jun 09 09:18, Roger Nelson wrote to Roy Witt:


 RW>> I was about 18 when a friend of mine gave me a ride in his XKE Jag
 RW>> (he also had a 1940 Ford coupe with a 292 Chevy (.03 over 283)). He
 RW>> went out on a deserted road and gave it all she had. 150mph, per the
 RW>> speedometer.

 RN> That beats me.

PS - I've had my Z28 up to 137 too.

 RN> Was that a V-12?

I don't think so.

 RN> I know a guy in this area who has about 3 or 4 Jaguar X*s.

A glutten for punishment.

 RN> Impressive looking engine, but the upkeep on them must be horrific.

If you saw how a valve lash adjustment was done on those, you'd think that
the flat head Ford was so simple a baby could do it.

 RN> He even has a couple of Citro‰n (French-made, gangster type cars) in
 RN> a shed and won't sell them.

There aren't very many fools in the world that would want to experience
having one of those more than once.

 RW>> On returning to his gas station, he parked it in the light of the
 RW>> service bay and looked at the new tires he had just put on earlier
 RW>> that day. The sidewalls were cracked from the high speed.

 RN> Those tires must have been US Royal or Firestone, the latter of which
 RN> gave a new meaning some years ago to their slogan, "The name that's
 RN> known is Firestone, where the rubber meets the road."  Did it ever!

Back in those days, there wasn't any such thing as a radial tire with
speed ratings. They were all crap.

 RW>> Remind me to tell you about the night we screwed with the Illinois
 RW>> highway patrolman in the 40 Ford.

 RN> I can almost guess, but I'd rather hear it from you.

Remember the scene in American Graffiti where they tied a wire rope around
the axle of the 61 Ford squad car and then egged them on to give chase?
That's how it worked, only instead of driving by, we peeled out of the
same parking lot and sprayed the squad car with gravel, just as the cop
was coming out of a restaurant. When I saw that movie for the first time,
I started to laugh during the scene where Dreyfuss was handed the rope and
began his stealth crawl under the squad car.  I already knew what was
going to happen.

 RW>> The ride to the airport was in my girlfriends 67 Camaro... :o)

 RN> My ex wanted to buy a Camaro back in 1977.  She came to the
 RN> dealership I worked and I had her get in and out of one three times.
 RN> Then she saw the Monte Carlo and it was no contest.  One of the
 RN> things I miss about the MC is the swivel bucket seats.  I still find
 RN> myself automatically reaching for the swivel release lever when I get
 RN> out of the Mark VIII, but not every time.  A 32 year old habit.  Wow!

I had a 75 Cutlass with those swivel buckets. Nancy and I both loved
those.

 RW>> I'll remember that.

 RN> Good.  You can't always get good grapes.  When I see the kind I want
 RN> at the store, I'll get a big bunch of them, rinse them in tap water
 RN> when I get home, put them in a 5-quart container and cover them with
 RN> water.  Then put the lid on the container and stick them in the
 RN> fridge.  This keeps them from spoiling like they would if you just
 RN> refrigerated them or left them out in a basket or something.  It's
 RN> important to keep them on the stem, too.

Nancy does that with the grapes too. She eats more of them than I do.

 RW>> I've come across deals like that which were stolen property. Crated
 RW>> 327 Chevy engines all lined up like ducks, stolen off of a freight
 RW>> car.

 RN> That's what I figured at first, but this guy who told me wouldn't go
 RN> near anything like that unless he was somehow fooled.

That's possible.

 RW>> Only when it began to make some rpm. That 2bbl probably made it more
 RW>> torquey than even a 4bbl would be.

 RN> I've had three vehicles with 4-bbl carbs and the best one was from
 RN> the Tonawanda plant on the 327 in my '68 Impala.

Quadrajet or Holly?

 RW>> Or car crazy...that black FIed 150 wasn't a Black Widow, was it?

 RN> If it was, that name wasn't on it anywhere.  That's a competition
 RN> car, isn't it?  I think it used the same distributor I used in my '57
 RN> -- no window.

It was a fuel injected 283 w/4spd, 150 tudor...I think it could have been
driven on the street.

 RW>> Plus that year Merc had some nice lines, so it looked great too.

 RN> Yep, but that's gone now and probably because of all the industrial
 RN> espionage going on.

No, that was because of the 52 models changing body styles. The 51 got to
looking too much like the Lincoln.

 RN> Have you seen the ad on the new Mercedes E-class lately?  It's really
 RN> something.

I don't usually watch ads. That's why they make remote controls, don'tcha
know.

 RW>> My dad took me down to look at that car at the local showroom. I was
 RW>> 7 or 8 then and it didn't impress me much at the time.

 RN> I don't believe he made it to N.O., except on the billboards.  I
 RN> could be wrong.  That was a long time ago and some of my recall from
 RN> those times have been blotted out.

I'll never forget the day or the place. That showroom later became the
local Chevy dealership and where I bought my first new car.

 RW>> I meant to type 'were', which is what all GM fuel injection was
 RW>> during the 50s and 60s. Today they get more for a used version of
 RW>> that injection than they do for a TBI/port injected aftermarket
 RW>> system that has a small computer to run it. About $2500 for the late
 RW>> stuff and over $3g for the older stuff.

 RN> A lawer I know bought a Chevy pickup with the 350 diesel.  I pointed
 RN> him in the direction of a place west of here (Lafayette, I think)
 RN> that installed a conversion kit of some kind on it.  He still had to
 RN> use diesel fuel, but the pickup had a lot more torque with that kit
 RN> installed.  Must have been a twin blower assy of some type.  I wish I
 RN> could recall the name and doing a google search takes too much time.

More than likely a turbo and not a blower.

 RW>> Heh...I would have followed her out of the kitchen and thanked her
 RW>> for giving me the incentive to decide against eating the spinach.

 RN> Then I would have been soundly spanked by my mother for disobedience.

Mine too.

 RW>> That works for me too.

 RN> I should have done that to begin with, but I didn't know at the time
 RN> that that much power was going to be a problem with OE head gaskets.

You know back in those days, they recommended that you torque them twice.
Once before you start it and once after it's run a while. The other thing
I recall doing was painting the head gaskets with copper or silver paint.

 RW>> RN> It finally rained here yesterday afternoon cooling things off a
 RW>> bit.

 RW>> I heard thunder and the clap of lightning, then looked outside. It
 RW>> was clear. Then I went in the house and swapped TV channels to the
 RW>> local weather map...there was a storm on the west side of the
 RW>> freeway, opposite our place. Still, the paper reported 0 precip this
 RW>> morning.

 RN> It looked like rain again yesterday, but the rain clouds passed north
 RN> of us.

Andrew stopped by after work and said that it was too hot for the rain to
make it to the ground. It'd evaporate before. The next day I showed him
the front page of the local rag which had a picture of a guy in that
area sawing up the tree that was blown down by that storm...he said it
rained in sheets before the tree went down.

 RW>> It was 92 when I left the house at 9 this morning. It's 100 now at
 RW>> 13:15...

 RN> We didn't get that hot yesterday, but it was hot enough and the dogs
 RN> were barking.  Normally I'm not nosey, but I had to see what the dogs
 RN> were barking at.  I noticed some people in the house behind us and to
 RN> the right sitting in chairs in their patio and facing toward us.  As
 RN> soon as the dogs saw me, they stopped barking.  When I got back
 RN> inside, the barking started again.  (-:

I just let the dogs in about half an hour ago. It was 97 then. It's now 99
and climbing.

 RW>> We'll still be experiencing 100+ at least until Tuesday.

 RN> Wednesday was a little nicer.  At least it wasn't 103F.

Well, well. They forcast 20% chance of rain for Tuesday and Wednesday. Bet
that feels like Houston.

 RW>> Rack that up to live and learn.

 RN> Or act in haste, repent at leisure.

Another new one.

 RW>> Denny's was giving a 10% discount to 55yo seniors before I turned
 RW>> 50.

 RN> I don't think we have a Denny's here.  Nearest one I know of is 50
 RN> miles ENE of here.  Some, if not most of the restaurants, will give
 RN> 50 cents off to seniors and one only does that at certain times of
 RN> the day, one day a week, (Can you believe that?) which is why I go to
 RN> the Italian place. The 15% off any time is good and so is the food.

We don't have one here either. The closest one is in Schertz, about 15
miles toward SA...There's been rumor that the 'Family Kitchen' that went
out of business is supposed to become a Denny's, but I've seen no progress
toward that yet.

 RW>> I didn't believe him...

 RN> Good.

 RW>> His biggest problem seems to be that the car looses traction and
 RW>> then wheel hop, which makes him back off and then hit the throttle
 RW>> again. Meanwhile, his competition has good luck with launching the
 RW>> car.

 RN> I noticed that, too.  I don't remember that happening to him before,
 RN> so something has changed.

That's happened to him and others quite often over the years. John has the
wherewithall to drive thru it more successfully than any of the others.

 RW>> Not like it is in mine. When I was in my teens and twenties, he'd go
 RW>> to the local 1/2 mile dirt track for stock cars and not much else.
 RW>> By then I was at the drags.

 RN> Sombody built one of those on the outskirts of N.O.  It didn't
 RN> interest me, so I didn't go there.

That 1/2 mile dirt track is still being used, although the property is now
leased from the county, since it's been anexed to the fair grounds.

 RW>> So were they. But they made up things like, I missed a shift or
 RW>> didn't get enough traction...2nd time around, same old thing.

 RN> LOL!  That didn't happen to me.

The only time I ever believed them was when I actually saw mechanical
failures.

 RW>> That's one of the things that gets me too. On a Pontiac engine, you
 RW>> can seperate the coolant part of the manifold from the rest of it.
 RW>> When you don't have to drain the radiator to swap a manifold, it's a
 RW>> whole lot easier.

 RN> I'm very glad I didn't have to do that!  I would have done that only
 RN> once.

You wouldn't have any choice with a Chevy engine. Pontiac distributors
were mounted to the block behind the manifold and the thermostat housing
and the front crossover can be seperated from the intake manifold with a
bandsaw. Remove 6 bolts and the intake manifold is off the engine.

 RW>> Too much overhead for that.

 RN> Now, maybe, depending on what you're buying.  The labor rates here
 RN> are in the $70+ an hour range.

Cheap. They're over $100 in California.

 RW>> It might fit that too.

 RN> In that case, I'll definitely look into buying an X pipe.

Ford products use dual cats, so that can make it easy to have true duals.
GM uses one cat and you have to buy another one to have true duals.

 RW>> No...it does sweat a lot and I know there was water in that tip. A
 RW>> bit of carbon mixed with water makes a nice black paste on bumpers.

 RN> And anything else it touches.   (-:

Or even comes close to. :o)

 RW>> I've given up for now. Too many other priorities.

 RN> Okay.

 RW>> I hate it when that happens. :o)

 RN> You aren't ignored here.  (-:-)

I know.

                R\%/itt

Joy lives in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in
the victory itself.

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