Cars, Computers, Society in General
When we left off back in December, I was waiting on a small base-circle camshaft to clear my stroker rotating assembly. It came. It cleared. Hooray. With that done, it was time to assemble in earnest. The first step was to bolt the heads on and measure for pushrod length. I won’t go into detail …
If you follow my blog, you’ll remember my posts back in August (here and here) detailing the failure of my engine at the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car event in New Jersey. I started my rebuild story in another post back in October. Many may be wondering what happened? It’s been over a …
Most that have dealt with C-clip rear ends from GM and Ford know all about the good things. C-clips are easy to work on. It only takes a few minutes to get an axle out of the car. The bearings on the axle ends can be serviced with a slide hammer and rubber mallet, no …
So, this entry marks the beginning of my documentation of my engine rebuild. Any big project needs some goals. Without goals, you have no idea if you’ve been successful, or even if you’re complete. With that in mind, let’s back up and talk about my goals for next year: Multiple Optima USCA events, possibly as …
So, after my disappointing engine failure at the Optima NJMP event, I was left with the big question: What happened? Well, after pulling the engine and tearing it down and reviewing the data logs from the event, even having an oil sample analyzed, the answer is clear: Several things. Dealing with things like this requires …
I must be insane. Three weeks before I was slated to leave for the Optima NJMP event, I was at the National Street Rod Association Nationals in my hometown. They had an autocross course set up, and I ran on it. A lot. In fact, I burned second gear in the transmission. Oops Not to …
You may remember my post last year about attending the Optima Search For the Ultimate Street Car event at the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park. You may remember that weekend ended with the car on a trailer being towed home after some serious electrical issues disabled the ECM and later, the cooling fans. That is not …
Read More “Optima Search For the Ultimate Street Car, NCM Edition”
This past weekend I had the distinct honor of participating in the the Midwest Muscle Car Challenge, brought us by the good folks at Bowler Transmission. There’s so much to unpack from the weekend, so I’ll start at the beginning. First, the event format. It’s a track day combined with a highway cruise combined with …
Read More “Midwest Muscle Car Challenge 2017 – It finally made it”
Back in December, Amazon announced that IPv6 was finally available in the Ohio region (here). On January 25, they announced it had been rolled out worldwide (except China). If you follow the link in the announcement, you can find all you need to know about enabling IPv6 in your VPC. But the detail that is …
A big theme of the last few years with this car has been fortifying it to survive motorsports better: Transmission kits, coolers, brake work, better seats, the new giant radiator – all of it an attempt to make it easier to drive and more reliable. This post is about another item that won’t necessarily make …