7/31/07

The car looks sad with its amputated headers. But flanges are due tomorrow from Miller Gaskets, and Gary can then wade into the fabrication of the flanges onto the headers. I need to acquire the 4 truck mufflers I intend to use for the exhaust. I'll work on Ebay tonight regarding that.

I will also call Kenny at Sepulveda Muffler and see what he might have or suggest.

I refilled the one CO2 bottle, the other was full, and the lift system is working just fine. I reconnected the Battery Tender, so the batteries are remaining topped off. I feel VERY good about finding the starting problem. Here's hoping it holds up.

I still have not tested the Cool Shirt. Roy and I did find a tear in the Parker Pumper breather hose, however, and a wrap of duct tape on one section helped that a lot. I'll need to fill the Cool Shirt reservoir and the Parker Pumper with ice, and try them both out.

8/5/07

Gary finished welding the flanges onto the exhaust system, but not yet the muffler portion. So we have the zoomies bolted back together, although without the 2 outer bolts at each end of the flanges. Turns out the double-wall construction just above this area comes too close to where Miller's drilled the outside holes. We'll either have to find REAL short bolts, about 1”, or cut the heads off and weld the bolts in as studs. The other bolts all make it through, and we'll probably just tack on each head to hold them in place, providing for future removal should some necessity mandate.

Here's how they look in their amputated state:

I'm going to search for two more Suburban mufflers, and see how 4 of them work out as a first step. I've got two, so why not?

Meanwhile, I'm going to stuff the car back in the trailer. The body clears the flanges, so that's GOOD.

I'm going to empty out the garage of all unneeded tools, and make room for a purchase of 6 new (used) tools: spot welder, bandsaw, mondo planer, mondo sander, Beverly shear (a powered roller sheet metal cutter which works amazingly), and a series of bolt cribs. These were all purchased from a hot-rod widow (massively sharp woman) a few blocks away, as a result of a stranger calling me. This fellow, Don, drives by my house every day to and from work, and noticed all the hot rod activity. Thanks, Don. I took Brett and Gary over there yesterday, and Brett bought two pieces of equipment. There is MUCH more there, but I need to hold back and think about the reality of attempting gather MORE stuff.

8/15/07

Roy and I did some nice things for the lady, Barbara Boone, regarding getting her already-sold 32 3-window running. Turns out the carburetor was gunked up from sitting for 6 years, and the ballast resistor to the coil was broken. The car would start with a few pumps of gas, but then would not continue to run. She gave mea plastic standup oil drain reservoir foor being a nice guy.

I spoke with Chris Kaufmann at Borla today for a long time, and the short of it is that he will try to push my project as a rearch and development thing. This is a rather lengthy and paper-intensive process, but we've started with a couple of photos of the cut headers. I will further photograph the re-bolted headers and the shorties with mufflers which I used previously. Of course I JUST put the car back in the trailer. I was having trouble with the camera being unable to take any video nor more pix. I emptied the memory, and loaded a new tape and all seems good now.

It turns out that Fontana restricts cars to NO blown alcohol, BUT the wording indicates muffled would be allowed, OR blown but on race gas. Perhaps both gas and mufflers might be needed to comply. Whatever, I put a call into Mel Roth of PSCA for his opinion, and I will attempt to reach the power-that-be at Irwindale and Fontana (actually the same guy according to Chris Kaufmann).

It is about 105 degrees right now, so I am not even THINKING about getting in the car, even if all conditions were allowed right now.

9/21/07

I spoke with people at three dragstrips: Famoso, California Speedway (Fontana), and Irwindale.

Fontana and Irwindale have 80 dB noise ordinances in place, meaning the car must be quieter than that 200 yards away, about 1/8 th mile.

I spoke again with Borla and they are looking into a discontinued model for which they have empty shells, no guts. They are considering making up some for me.

Famoso will not have any test and tune until February 2008.

So mufflers appear my ONLY hope of running the car in the foreseeable future.

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