strotter

I have a Holley StealthRam in my '72, which is quite a bit taller than a Ram Jet, and there's plenty of room. You may even be able to fit in a strut tower bar, if you can find a "tall" one.

Though I'm not a car thief, I can think of a couple of ways, off the top of my head, to get around such a system, at least for a short while. Long enough certainly to get a stolen vehicle some place to disassemble it. An article in Discover (I think) magazine a couple of years ago talked about the future of "smart" law enforcement systems. Much of the technology already exists, but is too expensive today. In the near future, maybe not. Imagine, for example, a device the size of a modern cell-phone attached to or built into a street sign or light pole. With its' built-in camera, it can both identify your vehicles' speed and photograph your license plate. Not too complicated an algorithm. When a speeding violation occurs, it calls home via cell to report the incident. A week later, you get a letter in the mail, big old fine. You could deploy these by the millions, on every road in the country. Bingo, speeding a thing of the past. It wouldn't take too much more digital smarts to identify stolen, uninsured, or otherwise "unacceptable" vehicles, as the system above. They could also determine if you didn't come to a complete stop at a sign, accelerated too aggressively, or otherwise behaved in some antisocial manner.

I used a pair of those on my swap. They fit well enough, though they're "economy" pieces - fairly thin flanges that tend to warp a bit, no hi-temp finish, prone to rust. They've lasted five years now, though, under moderate use. For the price (I was running out of money at the time) I'd recommend them, but better quality pieces would be, well, better.

Y'all just wait until your local ISP's roll out the new DPI (deep packet inspection) gear. Check this.

You guys get that this is a hoax, right? Please check this link.

In the 19th (I think) picture, the guy has set up a waste gate as an exhaust cutout. That's an interesting idea. How tight do those things seal?

I can tell you with a certainty it's not PVC (or I'd suppose any of the vinyl esters), though PVC adhesive will soften the surface quite a bit, enough to disfigure but not enough for a bond. Also, not polyester as used with fiberglass - not even a surface melt with that. I have not tried "model cement", like you'd use for a plastic model, but that's next on the list. You might guess I have a torn up interior, eh?

And if someone wants to pee on your parade, that's their option. Fair, isn't it? I mean, if you can do what you please, can't somebody else do what they please? You get to annoy others, they get to annoy you too? The problem here is, things you do affect other lives. You seem to have missed that point, and in that sense you do sound like "some 16 year old kid with a Honda Civic". Grown-ups know that there are other people out there, too, and they matter to themselves as much as you matter to you, and their happiness and comfort counts just as much as yours.

You know Raven, that car sounds less like a candidate for "complete restoration" and more like a candidate for "berserk buildup". I'm not trying to be snide, but you picked the wrong place to ask about a restoration. This group worries more about traction control than most guys worry about erectile dysfunction. We have the wrong mind-set. For instance, here's what the typical HybridZ member actually thinks as he/she reads your note: Your words_____________Our translation Needs new tail lights = "JDM all around!" Bad Hood = "cut hole for blower" Hatch Needs Work = "Pantera! Pantera! Pantera!" New Floorboards = "12 point cage" Needs automatic transmission = "what'll take 700 ft-lbs...?" Need New Paint = "Taffeta Silhouettes!" Needs New Motor = "Small Block!" or Needs New Motor = "Big Block!" or Needs New Motor = "ARRRRREEEEE BEEEEEEEEEE!, he11s yeah!" Take heart, though - you've picked a cool car, though perhaps not the most perfectly appropriate forum. And if you do lose your mind someday, perhaps with delusions involving a couple of turbos, limited slip differentials, or megasquirt mpfi's, we're your boys!

dr_hunt wrote: You can't stay young, but you can stay immature as long as you want, right?

I ... must ... own ...

"You can help him by wearing a thong..."

OK. Here's a metaphor. Think of a solid glass cube, say, one foot on a side. This cube represents a volume of spacetime. You know that the molecules that make up the glass are evenly and smoothly distributed throughout the structure. If you had a magic microscope, you could see the molecules lined up nice and straight. A light shined through it, a laser beam for instance, will move in a straight line. Nothing surprising here, it's as we know from the "common" world. Now, lets move some molecules around. Let's move a bunch of them toward some particular area. We move molecules away from all over the cube toward that one area, squeezing the molecules together tighter. The rest of the cube is less dense, but that one point is more dense. It's still a cube, and to the casual eye it looks the same, but if we shine the laser beam through the cube *now*, we'd see that the beam would curve as it passes through. In fact, it would start by curving *toward* the denser area until it reached the tangent, and then it would curve *away* from the denser area as it moved passes - though not as much. The bottom line is that the beam will have been bent in much the same way as it would have been in a lens. In fact, we would have created a (rather crappy) lens, the same way that you can see the surface of a road shimmer on a hot day - the change in density of the air causes the light to be bent. Spacetime is much the same. The presence of mass causes spacetime to become more "dense" (though that's not the right word, you'll get my drift), or to squish down tighter. As a result, spacetime is irregular - not smooth any more. The metaphor is exactly the same as the cube, 'cause if you shoot a light beam near that area you cause it to bend in a lens-like way. As a matter of fact, the effect is called a "gravity lens" because it lets you see things *behind* very dense objects. Einstein proved his General Theory using just this technique back during WW1. OK, now here's the hard-to-get part. Spacetime is the actual fabric of the things we know. If some giant were to come down from space and stretch the spacetime around your house, stretch your house a thousand miles long with you in it, you wouldn't know. Why? Because everything in your house, including you, is "embedded" in the spacetime of your house. As the spacetime stretches so would the molecules of your house, your own molecules, yourself. But so would the "units of measure" - so, if in your spaghetti condition you were to pull out a tape measure (which would look perfectly normal to you), and measure the length of your coffee table it would be the same as before, say 40 inches. Your neighbor, though, looking into your house from outside of the spaghetti would be able to clearly measure your coffee table as being 100 miles long. Both of you would be right, because the length of the coffee table depends on your point of view - it's "relative" to your point of view (thus the term). Also, your neighbor would be treated to an excellent light show, as the gravitational lensing effect (though now it would be a Giant Induced Spaghetti Effect) would cause lensing to occur all around the outside of the stretchy area, probably visible as glowing rainbow light. Gravity is doing the same thing to all of us all the time, but the effect is so small as to be difficult to measure. As you could guess from the metaphor, it's best (but not mandatory) if you measure from the outside to get some idea. Those experiments were some of the first ones done from high orbit. Interestingly, a number of observations of the very edge of spacetime (and thus farther back in time) were recently made by observing the gravitational lenses on the edges of a cluster of galaxies.

I've had a lot of dogs over the years, and to tell you the truth the best dogs I've ever had - the bestest buddies - have been either strays or pound dogs. Really, there's nothing like a mutt. If that doesn't appeal, be careful of purebreds of any kind as they're often so tightly inbred that they're prone to a variety of genetic conditions - hip displacia, behavioral abnormalities, joint and bone problems, the list is long. Very small and very big dogs tend to be short-lived as well. Best bet, talk to a vet about what breed might be best for your situation, in terms of their needs; some breeds are really "busy" (I'm thinking terriers), some *need* to work (think herding dogs of any kind), so on. And don't count out your local shelter; they often have detailed information about the breeding status of their animals. My local shelter (with whom I've had a fair amount of dealings) will get on the phone to all the other shelters around to find an animal to your liking. That way, you get what you need and save a life while you're at it!

Have to agree, a very good movie. Eastwood has managed to morph from a tv-western star (Rawhide), to B-movie star(A Fistful of Dollars), to A-movie star (the Dirty Harry movies) to really awesome director (thinking "Outlaw Josie Wales, Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima). Really, this guy has had a great career and given us some excellent entertainment. His talents as an actor aren't maybe the best, but his skills as a director are world-class. SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT! SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT! SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT! Just to be clear about the movie though, it's not a Dirty Harry thing. The Eastwood character doesn't shoot anybody. I'm tempted to go on, but I'll stop there, but don't expect any "Make my day..." kind of lines!

Wasn't there a video going around a couple of months ago about a couple of guys who surfed on a wave generated by an explosion set off in an urban park's lake? As I recall, it was a very, very well done fake, created as "viral" advertising for some beverage or something. The idea is that it spreads "on its own" around the web, generating excitement, and then at some later date it is revealed as an ad. I would look very close at a company called, or with a product called, "Killa Thrill". Update (before I even pressed "Submit Reply"), check out these Google links.

Yeah, what he said. I had an Opossum leave five or six babies to die in the wall of my laundry room. This was a year ago July. The first hint was an armada of big old Blue Bottle flies, followed by the truly indescribable smell - it was like walking into a wall of stink, or being submerged in a fluid. She had taken a very circuitous route to that particular corner. I ended up having to remove the drywall to get to the poor things, which by then were a puddle of fur, innards, and maggots. I proved my manliness that day, for sure. Next time arson, for sure.

Nice fix!

I read years ago, and I don't remember the reference, that the Celts ( the "oldern people" as my mother used to say) believed that boats were the only non-human thing with a soul. That's why they were named, christened, and buried same as a person. You might laugh, but we still have these practices to this day - you splash her with fine drink at her birth, give her and lady's name and call her "she" or not at all, and decommission her with a prayer. No other object or animal is politely and correctly treated in this manner.

Well, I just got back from the car, and the series relays work perfectly. A/C comes on with the coolant cool, shuts off correctly (no buzz). As it warms, the low fan comes on where I set it (more or less). With the low speed circuit disabled, high speed comes on at the right time. A/C on then off at any time causes no problems. Happy happy joy joy! I'll be looking for a heavier SPDT relay for the high speed, too. Hey, that was easy! I love it when things go smoothy.

The low speed relay. Yeah, I attached a pair of lights to E8 and F8. They popped on when they were supposed to. Aye, there's the rub. When the high-speed fan comes on, it works fine; when it goes off, whether it's from the a/c turning off or the coolant cooling down, the low speed relay goes nuts. I've been researching "buzzing relays" and "relays Taurus", and came upon another configuration for high and low speed Taurus fans by lsejlowe over at digitalcorvettes. I'll be modifying this setup, but you get the idea. This allows the use of only two relays, one spst the other spdt, though I'm thinking I should gang two of the spdt relays I got at the junk yard the other day for the high-power side (I don't know the ratings, though I'm morally sure they're at least 25A). I'm hoping that won't overload the input to the ECM, we'll see. I'll try the configuration this evening on my "testbed" (the new fan, a bunch of wires, and my giant battery charger) and get back to you.

OK, I've been fighting with this thing for more than a week now, but I've come up on the limit of my understanding. I need help. Here's what has been happening: First: I wanted to confirm my understanding of the behavior of the two fan circuits - E8 and F8 - so I spiced the +12 from the binary/trinary switch to C9, the "A/C Request Signal" input, hooked up a couple of lights to the outputs, started the motor, and turned on the a/c. E8 went low. OK. Coolant temp was 50-some degrees C. Second: Understanding that E8 went off with the a/c, rather than F8, I went in and modified the tune and loaded it into the Romulator. The fans were set to: Fan 2 as "low" fan: 87°C Enable, 85°C Disable Fan 1 as "high" fan: 97°C Enable, 95°C Disable Third: To confirm, I unhooked the connections to E8 and F8 to disable the fans, with the engine idling: At startup, Coolant at 70°C, nothing low. At 89°C, F8 went low, stayed low At 99°C, E8 went low, too. I don't know why they didn't go off at exactly the values I set. I'm looking into that, too. Conclusion: "Fan 1" is F8. "Fan 2" is E8. The a/c input to C9 triggers E8. My original assumptions were backward. This seems all pretty easy so far, eh? Not so fast, Masked Man... Fourth: Full of "I'm the man", I hooked all the relays up to the fans as per the information above, started the motor. Coolant at about 60°C. I turned the a/c on, the high fan came on immediately, luxurious cold air blasted out of the vents. Yes, it's true, I rock. I turned off the a/c to wait for the low-speed fan to come on, the a/c shuts off, but there's a buzzing - a loud buzzing - wha? The low-speed relay was buzzing like, well, a buzzer. Loud, 'cause it's a big relay. I'm freaking out, I shut the motor off and grabbed the fire extinguisher, but nothing happened. I checked the wiring, it was OK, so I started digging. Some interesting things came up. I noticed, for instance, that when the high speed fan comes on, there's considerable voltage coming back out of the low-speed hot lead - 7.5 +/- big-fat-spark kind of amperage. I'm thinking this is wrong, so I did some more research on the 'web and came across a reference to a 3V diode being placed by the factory between the low-speed hot lead and the fan. It generally refers to "back EMF", which is voltage generated when a motor has been shut off but is still spinning, like a generator. This can be bad for the relay, I understand, so the diode shorts it to ground. Off to RadShack, bought a big diode, attached it to the leads at the relay. Bzzzzz. OK, maybe bad relays. Hopped in the car off to Pick'nPull, found some big relays (and another Taurus fan just in case), brought them back, installed them, bzzzzz. So now I'm getting ready to pull the current fan and install my new one. I don't want to, it's hot and I'm tired. Am I going down the wrong road, or is this be a problem with the fan, or have I missed some subtle electric thing? Is the configuration of the relays wrong? Is there some mysterious electricity coming from nowhere? I can't for the life of me figure out what I've done wrong. Help!

OK, there's another typo... Yeah, it's 12V. What little I know about this stuff I learned from digital circuitry, where 5V is the standard. It just keeps popping into my head when I think "Positive potential". I guess I'm lucky I don't type "-5" instead of "Gnd"! I'm not going to upload another image with this fix until after I've gotten it installed and tested. I've about filled up HZ's server with bad diagrams, there's no reason to add more "theoretical" diagrams until there's some proof it'll work. Later