Popular Post bluesman Posted September 5, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 5, 2020 Nomex underwear doesn't come in red. Neither do serious race cars - paint is weight! Until sponsorship money caused FISA to change the rules in the late 1960s, Ferrari told his builders to put only enough paint on the cars to comply with the FISA rule that cars had to be painted the official color of their country of origin - so they stopped spraying as soon as it was sufficiently reddish. Colin Chapman used no paint at all except when racing rules required it. This is the 16th Lotus 7 made. Here I'm behind the wheel at a MidOhio vintage event in 1988 shortly after I restored it. Keeping bare alloy clean and polished is like maintaining your vinyl collection - you have to be equal parts dedicated, enthusiastic, and crazy. I ran him for 15 years with many class wins in SVRA and VSCCA events and only one mechanical DNF (my own fault - I let my parts supplier talk me into using a timing chain with a master link.......and it broke in the first lap). AudioDoctor, sphinxsix and pas 1 2 Link to comment
bluesman Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 7 hours ago, sphinxsix said: BTW do they already make driver shoes with carbon fiber laces.? Laces??? Do you realize how much laces weigh??? We don’t need no stinkin’ laces! But seriously, race cars are often limited by class to specified minimum weights. Low powered cars can benefit greatly from optimal distribution of that weight. So every 5 pounds in the right places can cut a few hundredths from lap times. Sprung vs unsprung weight can affect handling. Lighter wheels and tires can help acceleration, as can a lightened flywheel. As a result, many well engineered cars need ballast added to remain above their minimum weight. Adding it to increase strength or otherwise improve performance is as much of an art as finding and removing weight that contributes nothing to performance or reliability. I raced Formula Vee for many years in SCCA. The cars had to weigh at least 800 pounds with fluids, as I recall. With only about 65 hp, 5 extra pounds in the wrong place (eg the driver) could cost enough thousandths of a second per lap to hand a win to someone else of otherwise equal skill. Most FV and FFord winners in my day were on the small side. Link to comment
bluesman Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 19 minutes ago, sphinxsix said: What I know is that if one is thinking about getting rid of fillings in one's teeth to be 0.oooo3 sec faster during an amateur non-competition ride, things have probably gone too far.. Yes indeed! It’s like spending $10k on an external power supply to save those pesky peaks from the demon’s clippers 😝 I started racing in 1967 (1275 Austin Cooper S). We drove to the track, took off the hub caps, removed the loose bits, raced, and drove home. An open trailer was a rare luxury in the pits at solo events and regional races. Within a few years, closed trailers were becoming common and the first big rigs started showing up at amateur meets. I got so frustrated that I quit - guys were spending tens of thousands a year to win cheap trophies. There was no way for a medical student to even be safe among them, let alone keep up with them. Once we had a house with a garage and shop, I got back into it and have done quite well. There are a few in my clubs and race groups who’ll spend and do anything to win. I just let them pass me - and they often take out those poor saps who resist. But after so many years of it, I got good enough to build and maintain my own cars, stay in the top 5, and beat many in identical cars on which the owners spent 5+ times what I had in mine. At my wife’s urging, I did buy an enclosed trailer in 1987. But I still have all my fillings. And there’s a Raspberry Pi running JRiver and Roon Bridge in almost every room of our apartment. Wow - I think I see a pattern developing here..... sphinxsix 1 Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted September 6, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 6, 2020 2 hours ago, accwai said: If a clean BMW Z4M Coupé appears on the market, I will probably snap it up. I fully support that. I was able to get one of the few Z3 coupes that came to the US. A close friend had a ‘98 M Coupe, and I thought the body was gorgeous. But I didn’t want the intensive maintenance the M required (like adjusting solid lifters and a host of other old school issues now long gone from Ms), and he had a few failures (brakes and electrical) in year 1. So I set my sights on a Z3C. I happened to be passing a BMW dealer in ‘99 and spotted her parked against the wall. I made an immediate U turn across a 4 lane road, pulled up to confirm her identity, called my wife, and told her I’d be a few hours late because I was buying a new car. I truly loved that car even though we came from different cultures. I’m a 42 long and Gretel was a 40 regular at best. She was rather high maintenance when we met, with 13 warranty visits in the 1st 18 months for serious stuff like a failed transmission, a rear sway bar mount that fell off rather loudly at speed in a turn, and 3 episodes in which every warning light on the dash came on at once. I hate unreliability in my street cars. But she was the sexiest car I ever had and true love won out for us both. She softened her attitude and behaved perfectly for the rest of our years together. Our relationships with cars could also support an objective vs subjective forum. My main objective metric for how much I love a car is how many failures I’ll tolerate before replacing it. Curiously enough, that seems dependent on the purely subjective and unmeasurable thrill I get when it’s running fine and whether I still love to see it in my garage when it’s not. I still have a few pieces of audio gear that I never use but love having. AudioDoctor and sphinxsix 2 Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted September 6, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 6, 2020 18 minutes ago, Bill Brown said: I bought a '91 BMW 318is there a year or so ago. My 15, now 16 y/o youngest and I spent weeks on it under the carport- all rubber underneath, axles, control arms, soft brake lines, rotors, wheel bearings, springs, struts, e-brake, etc. Love that it can be worked on at home. My son worked with me so hard that I let him drive it to school (no bus and it is still mine- we never give our boys cars!). I got mine started a bit younger. I bought a ratty MG Midget from one of our residents to do a frame-up restoration with them. “We” spent about a year on it, with each learning to do a surprising amount and do it safely. They grew up with a few race & vintage cars in the garage plus a full machine & welding shop, and it did take effect. Now 38 & 41, they’re both enamored of cars. Having grown up with serious audio stuff as well, they know their way around that too. I even run one Raspberry Pi as a dedicated JRiver server so they can listen to our files wherever they are. Before the Pi era, I streamed to them with Foobar2000 from a simple PC server. And the younger one now has all my CDs. He wants the vinyl & the Thorens too, but that’s all staying with my wife and me until I’m gone. He can afford his own if he wants it 😁 Bill Brown and sphinxsix 2 Link to comment
bluesman Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 2 minutes ago, Bill Brown said: For me I suppose one out of three sons isn't bad. It’s relative. I hoped for a musician, but we only got a drummer...... sphinxsix 1 Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted September 6, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 6, 2020 28 minutes ago, Bill Brown said: Note the Duane Allman memorial chops A fine choice for a mentor, even posthumously! Duane used to wander into the studios and play on whatever was being recorded, entirely without credit. He could play any style and was far more of a musician than most realize. I recommend finding anything on which you can identify him as a sideman. His sound was unique, and most early Allman Brothers albums are excellent “electric” music for evaluating and enjoying good audio systems. Duane had a smoothness to his sound well beyond the even order harmonic distortion of intentionally pushed output tubes. We didn’t know much about cascaded gain stages back then, and few used the reference standard Mesa Boogie (which started the upstream move of output tube distortion to the preamp stages). The Bassman had low enough power to let us crank it to clipping the two 6L6s, which is how most early blues and rock guitarists got their distortion. If you wanted clean headroom for jazz, country, or pop, you used a Twin or other high powered amp with 4 6L6s. A working musician has a hard row to hoe. Nothing beats the feeling of being part of a band and making great music. But working from 10 to 2 even a few nights a week takes its toll. Including dressing, equipment checks & maintenance, transportation, setting up, breaking down etc, a “4 hour gig” is really a 6 to 8+ hour workday. And if you teach, do studio work, play commercial gigs etc on top, life can be very tough on you. Here’s my 7 string Les Paul. I’m using a blackface Vibrolux as my stage amp these days for blues and rock. I’m too old to schlep a Bassman or a Boogie around, so I sold them. botrytis, Bill Brown, Jud and 2 others 1 4 Link to comment
bluesman Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 14 minutes ago, PYP said: our cat deposited her kittens there). She could have deposited worse.... PYP 1 Link to comment
bluesman Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 3 minutes ago, sphinxsix said: I wonder which brands will be definitely safe in the future.. probably Fiats.. ...which have to be red. Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted September 6, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 6, 2020 1 hour ago, sphinxsix said: To remain c..kproof.? To be easily seen by traffic moving around them when they stop running. [just a riff on an old motoring joke about legendary Fiat reliability - the new ones are apparently almost as robust as real cars 🤪] AudioDoctor and Bill Brown 2 Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted September 7, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 7, 2020 21 minutes ago, sphinxsix said: I was probably lucky. Stranger things have happened than finding a reliable Fiat. Here’s my first one, bought new in 1971. It dragged me, my guitars and a fairly large amplifier to many gigs without a problem of any kind. I loved that car! Bill Brown, PYP and sphinxsix 1 2 Link to comment
bluesman Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 6 hours ago, Confused said: I love the GT40, although I suspect I might be too tall to comfortably drive one. At 6’2”, 170 lbs (42 long, 33” waist, 36” sleeve length), I couldn’t comfortably drive the road version GT40. Dan Gurney was 6’4” and did pretty well in his race car - but the interiors are entirely different. More accurately, the street version has an interior and the original race cars did not. The street GT40 has 2 1/2” less headroom, 5 1/2” less shoulder room, and 9” less hip room than the Supra / Z4. Legroom’s within half an inch. Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted October 6, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted October 6, 2020 On 10/5/2020 at 9:28 AM, sphinxsix said: 1. What's the favorite car you've ever had and why it's your favorite one.? 2. Very simple - what's the car of your dreams, and again - why this one.? 1. I bought a ‘57 356A normal coupe in ‘66 for $400. It was the summer before my junior year in college, and I loved that car for many reasons. It felt right. It looked right. It was a blast to drive. And it needed me as much as I needed it. After 9 New England winters, it had enough rust to look “weathered” - but the pan and battery box were still solid enough to keep me and the battery from falling out. 2. I’ve been dreaming of a 275GTB4 NART spyder since I saw it on the cover of R&T (in ‘67, as I recall). The coupe is the most beautiful car I ever saw. But I love topless driving, so the closed one is #2 on the list (tied with a 1600 Carrera Speedster). sphinxsix and Bill Brown 2 Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted October 8, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted October 8, 2020 Here's a rare bird for the discussion. I've loved the Abarth OT1600 since I first saw it described in a magazine article in about 1965. I've only seen one in the flesh, but the sound alone was enough to make me remember and desire it forever. sphinxsix and Bill Brown 2 Link to comment
bluesman Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 On 11/6/2020 at 12:47 AM, fas42 said: Bit of proper racing ... like it used to be, 😉 Ahhh! The good old days......when the tires were skinny and the drivers were fat. fas42 1 Link to comment
bluesman Posted November 9, 2020 Share Posted November 9, 2020 1 hour ago, accwai said: That was then, but this is now I raced Formula Vee in SCCA for almost 20 years. The first Vees were like Cadillacs compared to current ones. At 6’2” with 36” arms, I had plenty of room in Formcars etc. By the time I got into FV from C sedan (1275 Cooper S), they’d already shrunk some - but I still fit into my Zink C4 once I made a custom seat to lower me and stretch me out a bit. And I was consistently in the top 10 at regional races years after most Zinks were on Medicar. As I and my Zinc aged gracefully, the average driver shrunk to fit each new design because every advance in aerodynamics & suspension design left less cockpit room but cut lap times. So successful drivers grew younger and smaller and I fell further back in the pack despite mods like zero-roll, aero and NACA scoops, and lower drag body panels. I wear a 12A shoe, and there’s insufficient room to hold my feet straight up in many current FV (& FF) models. sphinxsix 1 Link to comment
bluesman Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 There's a long and rich heritage behind car engines in bikes. I remember 283s stuffed into various frames when I was a teenager. Here's one of the most beautiful and interesting projects I've ever seen: Link to comment
bluesman Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 4 hours ago, fas42 said: To me, just stuffing an enormous engine pulled out of a vehicle into the frame of a motorcycle is not very interesting ... it's just a variation of what's been done forever - my father had one of these, and he built a very large caravan to live in, while working on properties in country NSW. The 4 cylinder engine didn't have the grunt to pull it, so he dropped a V8 in, which did the job nicely. The big downside was that the cooling system was not up to it, and there was an ongoing need to give the vehicle a rest over hilly terrain; otherwise the radiator would boil over. The owner of the tree service we used for decades was an old hot rodder (not old like me - old like Methuselah). His biggest project was to stuff a rat motor into the back seat of a Renault R8, which he did "because I could". He welded up a perimeter frame from 2x4 box tubing and fabricated an entire 4 corner independent suspension. When his oldest child was approaching legal driving age, he cut it up into tiny pieces and never did it again. My first hot rod project was stuffing a Volvo B18 drivetrain in an MG-TD when Iwas in high school (1962). A good friend's older brother fancied himself an auto guru and started a few very nice projects, none of which he could complete. He got the TD with a very crudely done Ford 60 flatty in it. Whoever did it couldn't mate the TD radiator to the Ford, so he "secured" a bare Ford core in front of the stock radiator with clothes hangars. When he pushed it into the backyard and moved on, I talked Billy's brother into giving it to us when we were 16 (a year before legal driving age in New Jersey). We bought an old Volvo (444 or 544 - I don't remember which) for $100 from Stucker's junkyard on Staten Island. Billy's dad towed it back for us, and we managed to transplant the drive train and make it work. Neither of us had the equipment or experience to narrow the Volvo rear, so the back wheels protruded a bit. So it looked a little funny, but it passed NJ inspection and ran great! We sold it for enough to buy the parts we needed to make his brother's next abandoned project (an XK-120MC coupe) roadworthy enough to get him through 5 years of architecture school at MIT. My biggest project to date has been a '48 Ford F1 street rod with a small block Chevy, an aluminum Powerglide, and a Jag XJ-S rear (for which I welded up a tube cage mounting system). I wanted to rod the flathead that came with it, but it turned out to have a crack in the block. I'd gotten a pair of 283 blocks and the P'glide for $100 from the local "recycling center" where I obtained most of my used parts. I'd planned to stuff one into the MG-TD I eventually turned into a vintage racer (not the same one that got the B18), so I decided to use it in the F1 rather than spend thousands building up a flattie. For me, the challenge in mating disparate assemblies like a V8 and a vintage car or bike are both exciting and stimulating. I never would have figured out a lot of the engineering and fabrication techiniques I've developed over the years without those challenges. For interest, here's the TD racer referred to above: Link to comment
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