02/05/12
In poker, there's something known as "The Slow Play". Basically, it's the opposite of bluffing: in the slow play, you have a strong hand, a tremendous hand, nigh unbeatable, and you attempt to downplay your hand to keep other players (who presumably have weaker hands than yours, and will lose to you) in the hand, betting, raising, and seeing. Then you crush them with the awesomenicity of your Royal Flush or 4-of-a-kind or whatnot. (Tuna Note: I am not, nor have I ever been, a professional gambler, or even a marginal gambler, so if my terminology or description is off a bit, please, bite me.) Earlier this week, I was accused of slow-playing on the LeMons forum when, within the course of a couple of a few posts, I boasted about the hot 460 Big Block I'd found in a '68 Continental, then bemoaned the knocking noise the engine made when we first fired it up, saying we were going to stick with our lowly 400M engine...and then, magically, announced we'd diagnosed the noise to a simple faulty water pump, and the 460 plan was back on. As sneaky, underhanded, and conniving as that play-out sounds, it's all true. This weekend the gang came over and we confirmed that yes, we are going forward with the scheme for excessive displacement. Here' s an ersatz-timelapse video of Saturday: I even figured out how to embed video! Horray! Next weekend, the engine swap continues. We'll be roughly doubling the horsepower available to the rear wheels in the LTD Landau, and there's a good chance we'll have, in the process, the most powerful car at the race in March. Of course, it'll also likely be the worst handling car there, with the worst brakes. And it'll undoubtedly be the heaviest car there, too. In short, this is possibly the most profoundly perfect plan ever conceived. 01/30/12
We started off 2012 planning on sticking with the LTD Landau and it's 400M Cleveland-esque V8 for the forseeable future. However, the future clearly did not forsee me stumbling across a 1968 Lincoln Continental on Craigslist... Yeah, it's a heap. Its an absolutely unrestorable, stripped out, rusty, derelict hulk. However, it has one very desireable feature: a high compression 460 cubic inch big block Ford joined to a nearly-indestructible C6 transmission. The plan formed quickly- snatch the 460 from the Lincoln, drop it into the LTD Landau, and hit the race track with nearly double the horsepower and torque as before. The seller claimed the 460 ran...two years ago...what could go wrong? Well, the dipstick wasn't too promising: But, after draining what looked like Greek dressing out of the crankcase and refilling with actual motor oil, the oil pressure came up to respectable levels and the compression checked out OK. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq7gYBITzAg [I'm not real adept at embedding video...just click the damn link] So, Saturday morning the gang - Anthony, McCall, Brian, and Rob - came over to see if we could get it to run. We screwed on a spare carb I found in my collection, plumbed some distilled petroleum to it, and hooked up a radiator and the battery from the LTD Landau. Crank crank crank crank crank...nothing. What's that? Spark? No spark? What? 40-year-old points aren't working? A points file and a dwell meter later and we were ready to try again... Spark, Squeeze, Suck, Smoke...they're all there now...unfortunately, there was something else. Intermittent clanking noise. Not one of the beter things you want in a, uh, race engine. I pulled the valve covers and watched the valves do their dance while the engine ran (and clanked periodically) and saw nothing out of the ordinary. So it was probably bottom end related. The noise, that is. Not good. Not great. Not acceptable. With about a month left to go until the big weekend, I had to make the call- the 460's out, at least for the time being. We stick with the 400M. The team was disappointed, but took it in stride. Hopefully we'll have better brakes than the last race (another thing we're working on) and we've been aggressively removing weight (anything that doesn't make the car stop, steer, handle, or accellerate) everywhere we can. So even if our big power plans are up in smoke, we've still got things to look forward to...and a 460 to overhaul in the off-season. Anyone interested in an engine-and-transmission-less '68 Continental? Cheap! 01/29/12
01/09/12
Seems to work fine for me. I'm creating a post. Everything seems sooth so far. How about I link to a picture of my car even to show you what it looks like:
How about a look at the carb for this beast too, shall we?
Wow!!! But, in any event, I don't see any problems with posting on the blog at all. Yes, I will admit the SPAM has been an ongoing problem (I love your diatribe on that subject too - why don't you let us know how you REALLY feel about it???) But as far as posting or editing on the blog, I just don't see any problems at all right now. What problems were you actually experiencing with posting to the blog? -Ye Olde Admin. 12/18/11
Well, all you spammers, congratulations. You've officially pissed me off to the point that I have completely disabled comments to this blog. SO much for the free exchange and marketplace of ideas. The internet sucks. People suck. I wanted a nice, simple place where my friends and I could banter on about car stuff. The spammers ruined it. I hate them, I hate them with the burning passion of a thousand giant stars. They are everything that is wrong with the internet, and society in general. Furthermore, they are the pariahs of the world- NOBODY likes spam, EVERYBODY decries its existence. Even being a libertarian, I think it's time this sort of crap be outlawed. Ban spam, send spammers to prison. Take all their money and use it to feed the poor. We should not stop until this scourge is eradicated from the earth. END SPAM NOW. In the meantime...Kevin, can we put one of those CAPTCHA phrase things on the comments? |
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10:42:00 am, by 
That's WAY bigger than your throttle plate on your wimpy little Honduh tooner car, eh? That's what we call REAL muscle, baby!
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