Why round exhaust pipe?

[jcharliem]

But there is a lot of math that goes into building a motor, more than you and I'd every dream of...

It's comical how this clown thinks he has license to group others into his circle. My bet is he doesn't have more than Algebra I from high school. Sorry...I'll try to be nice.

[TC]

It's comical how this clown thinks he has license to group others into his circle. My bet is he doesn't have more than Algebra I from high school. Sorry...I'll try to be nice.

Sorry to disappoint, I took AP Calculus in High School.......

[dieselgeek]

Sorry to disappoint, I took AP Calculus in High School.......

A lot of good it did. When's all this book smarts and all the Hot Shot posts you make going to translate into at least one finished project you start? just one? the reason no one takes you seriously is because you always PreBrag about the awesomeness of every project you're going to do (remember, you were going to tune EFI for money and get a dyno, right?), then you wuss out with some lame excuse. Then you wait a few minutes and start some other topic where you are the Awesome Guy and then the cycle repeats itself.

Maybe you should log off, go out to the garage and get something done, THEN come back and school all of us about it.

[TC]

A lot of good it did. When's all this book smarts and all the Hot Shot posts you make going to translate into at least one finished project you start? just one? the reason no one takes you seriously is because you always PreBrag about the awesomeness of every project you're going to do (remember, you were going to tune EFI for money and get a dyno, right?), then you wuss out with some lame excuse. Then you wait a few minutes and start some other topic where you are the Awesome Guy and then the cycle repeats itself.

Maybe you should log off, go out to the garage and get something done, THEN come back and school all of us about it.

Doesn't giving me the same old crap about the same old stuff ever get boring for you, you just sound like a broken record..... Blah, Blah blah blah.......

Put it this way, whenever you decide to start a project car and actually finish it yourself, is when you giving me shit about mine not being done might actually mean something.......

[dieselgeek]

Same old crap? for every one post I call out your lack of ability to finish anything you BRAG about, you make ten giving me crap about "where's your car?"

Let me tell you about a few projects I FINISHED this year:

Prepped an Engine Masters Challenge engine in its entirety, hand-built a complete electrical harness, and spent a few full days working through electronics problems (instead of pussing out like others here would do), there's probably 800 of my man hours in that project in just under 3 years. You don't know what's involved because you've never done it, so don't even think about commenting that "my part is easy." You know squat about finishing any real car project.

During the same timeframe I managed to spend another good 400+ manhours preparing a landracing car for bonneville, on our first trip out we set a record (some cars take a decade). I toiled over selecting not only the engine management stuff (pretty easy for me) but figured out a low-buck way to log a TON of other data inputs, set up an affordable telemetry system, and TEST all of this stuff before it makes a pass...

And how many cars are running on DW right now that I installed an EMS on and tuned?

Alex, you've got to be insane if you think you're going to "call me out" on ANYTHING hot rod related. I finished more "hot rod" projects in the last 20 minutes than you've done in ten years.

[MR P-BODY]

I read alot of book and I do apply some of the factors
to anything I'm building.... everything in a car is base
on a math formula.... but you need to weed out some
of the authors in the aspect that its opinion and also
every engine is different so what works on one wont
work the same on the other...... volumetric efficiency
is a factor thats sorta hard to figure and that plays a
big part on each engine.... so I will end this by saying
the book has its place and the hands on has its place
also..... and one last aspect.... I NEVER seen a book
build any engine on its own

[A/Fuel]

I had a pretty cool High School auto shop teacher, not that he was the smartest guy, but after we figured him out we quickly by passed all the re-building starters/alternators stuff. I remember reading a car-craft artical about degreeing cams. By the end of the week we had a 350 with a crank, cam, lifters, timing chain, and all the tools we needed. We spend days degreeing cams. Now, a few years later. I was at a Tech school with an professional a/fuel car. It was in between races so after the race we just cleaned it up and took it to the school. We had a display inside the shop there, and were supposed to sit there and tell these people that we will hire them to work on this car after they graduate. Based on the money they were giving us, we were going to see if we could hire maybe 2.
Anyway, the last day we were done, the teacher was pretty cool. He had his guys help load everything up and he said he wanted to work on one of these things. So I said, "You know what?" Let's push this car over by all those tools, we'll put it on the jacks and tear it appart. It needed to be serviced anyway. We took the clutch out, heads off, oil pan, and had the rack out. We were checking everything out with them, looking at the parts, inspecting everything. We had our lap top out with the last run up. For a unknown reason it just seemed to run out of steam on the last run. So I asked if they all knew how to degree cams, I wanted to see where it is, take it out and look it all over and put it back in. They all had ideas, but I would say just a few could probably do it, they didn't even have the tools there. I had to get them out of the trailer. We tried to give anyone that wanted a shot. It wasn't their fault, most had never tried before. They googled and had books out. I was telling them to look up a small chevy, it's pretty much the same thing. The gear has 12 different bolt holes, the slop in the idler gear, why does the end play not check out now? It was fine 10 minutes ago? It was pretty cool letting them work on something they might not ever get a chance. When we were done we rolled it outside, fired it up, then loaded it in trailer, ready to go!
At Maple Grove last year, our car let out a big bang and a fire ball in the lights winning 2nd round. I remember peeking down the diaper as soon as I got to it and seen a dent on the side of the block.....We will be alright, we should have about two hours, they still have to run the pro's. We got it back and pulled the intake off right away, the cam broke in the back. Pulled the oil pan off to see how bad it is. Just then, an NHRA official said it was going to rain and we were being pushed up an hour. Screw it all, get the other engine ready, this ones comming out!
The moral of this long story. You have to read a little, class room instruction is probably a little better, but nothing is better than actually doing it. There are still a few times where you look at one of these and say "wow, I've never seen one do that before, how are we going to fix that in 30 minutes!"........Oh, remember when we took the clamps loose and slid it forward 2 inches?

[TC]

I have a CompCams cam degreeing kit, without the instructions I wouldn't have ever known how to use it...... Then after reading the instructions and fallowing them and checking my results 3 times, I realized I did it right, now degreeing a cam is old hat to me, though I do reference the instructions if I'm in doubt............. Face it we learn from reading and we learn from doing, and when you do both, your just that much ahead of the game....... It was the same thing when I did the rack and pinion on my '99 Z28, I read about doing it before I did it, which let me know what had to be done, so no surprises... It also made me realize that if I have to disconnect the motor mounts and jack up the engine to get the bolt out of the rack that I might as well change the motor mounts and why I'm doing that I might as well to the headers to, without reading about it, it would have been a learning curve as the job was being done, which is not exactly the best way to work IMO........ Thing is you can read about doing something and be 10x ahead of the game in understanding what your doing, or you can not read and try to figure it out, costing you both time and money if your wrong or don't know that something else needs to be done......... I've been hotrodding cars and building motors since I was 16 years old(43 now), worked as a Tech for 10 years, and just because I don't work on cars for a living anymore doesn't mean I don't have hands on experience, it's like riding a bike, once you do it you never forget........ Now I read books and information from others, so that when I do work on my cars, I have a better understanding of the hands on that needs to be done......... Hands on will only take you so far, learning the actually theories behind what your doing from books is priceless........ And if you can put the two together, you'll be one hell of a car/engine builder........

[TC]

Put it this way I challenge anyone to put together a MegaSquirt install in on a car and tune it without ever reading one bit of literature about it.... Lets see how far hands on gets you.........

[PatricksDad]

Put it this way I challenge anyone to put together a MegaSquirt install in on a car and tune it without ever reading one bit of literature about it.... Lets see how far hands on gets you.........

I'm not entirely sure why I'm dipping my toe in here, but here goes.

No offence, TC, but that's kinda' stupid. It's not a binary thing. You educate yourself through what ever means necessary or available to the point you understand the basic fundamentals of what you're working with. Documentation, classes, breaking stuff, fixing stuff, bench racing, real racing, etc.

Figure out a goal, make an educated guess about what you think should happen and then test the shit out of it. Until you test it, or are perfectly happy to duplicate someone else's work exactly, all you have is a theory.

As a grandson of two engineers I learned lots of junk, but one of the most important was that I could have all my own theories and opinions, but I couldn't have my own facts.

Learning + hands on = more fun

[Ron Ward]

Anyone have a recipe for Orange Julius?

[MR P-BODY]

While I do read alot... I have always found that if I
do the hands on I tend to hold that knowledge better
than if the books said .... thats just me.... most of the
time I have to read the book 2 or 3 times to retain what
they are saying.... and MOST of the books I read are
technical stuff.... plus I have written some tech stuff in
a few of the service manuals (all Chrysler stuff)

[Caveman Tony]

Anyone have a recipe for Orange Julius?

[SuperBuickGuy]

While I do read alot... I have always found that if I
do the hands on I tend to hold that knowledge better
than if the books said .... thats just me.... most of the
time I have to read the book 2 or 3 times to retain what
they are saying.... and MOST of the books I read are
technical stuff.... plus I have written some tech stuff in
a few of the service manuals (all Chrysler stuff)

me too, I just like it when people write stuff down so I can use both to learn.

[TC]

Anyone have a recipe for Orange Julius?

Ingredients

1 can (6 ounces) frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 to 12 ice cubes

Directions

In a blender, combine the orange juice, milk, water, sugar and vanilla. Cover and blend until smooth. With blender running, add ice cubes, one at a time, through the opening in lid. Blend until smooth. Serve immediately. Yield: 4-5 servings.

Nutritional Facts 1 cup equals 156 calories, 2 g fat (1 g saturated fat), 8 mg cholesterol, 31 mg sodium, 32 g carbohydrate, trace fiber, 3 g protein.