Anyone's special interest cars or motorcycles?

[Nitro]

Wow @Nitro , I guess you sort of like cars, don't you?

A little

 

[Nitro]

I have likely registered over 300 of them and taken possession of thousands of them.

Sometimes I bought a ride at an auto auction just to sell it at the next one later that same day.

 

[Nitro]

If I can find a picture of it, I had an '81 Yamaha IT 425 I tuned that we called the Psychobike

It tossed every rider that ever saddled her up
The last owner of it now rides 4 wheels.................................. on a wheelchair

 

[Nitro]

I had a standing order for plastic at the Yamaha shop and bought clutch and brake levers six at a time


That bike ate plastic and levers like it was never going to eat again

 

[Nitro]

OMG!!

That bike was evil.
But not as evil as the 125 I used to tune for a boy.
That Honda actually scared me so much I refused to ride it.

 

[Raggamuffin]

I like cars. I've owned quite a few in a short space of time. Never had a big salary, or the knowledge, or desire to learn how to tinker with cars myself.

I was forever pulling things apart as a kid to see how they worked. But then I usually got bored or distracted and never re-assembled them. I'm good with my hands though, unfortunately I'm also heavy handed when I become frustrated (and that doesn't take long). If something doesn't fit or work I tend to "rage quit" or I'll make it fit and often breaking things because in the process.

In the UK fuel prices are 3-4 times higher than US, so the dream of owning a V8 will probably never become a reality.

Cars are something I am keen on, and yet; like most of my interests, I'm outmatched by most people I meet who are genuine petrolheads.

Told myself I can't have another project car until the house is done. Cars tend to be a money pit, so I want to get my home all done before anything else. This means I probably won't have a project car until 2023.

Last one I had I got for £550 and spent 10 times that on an engine rebuild, sports camshafts, custom made inlet manifold, poly bushings, larger throttle body, front and rear strut braces and cold air induction. I had got a stage 2 clutch and the door panels/cards from the special edition Puma which had an all black interior. There were also black heater controls instead of silver. As the Puma shared the same chassis as that generation Fiesta. I had wanted to go further with the project. I'm tempted to get a 4th Puma as it's a fun project car - light, amazing handling and a neat little engine.

Pretty unforgivable that Ford remade it and went from a small, sports coupe to a mini SUV

Ed

 

[Nitro]

 

[Unclewolverine]

Wow! I wish I had the finances to do what you do nitro! I have the ability and a lot of the tools but never the money and usually not the time. Much like ragamuffin I have finally had to resolve myself to not having a project car, at least until the house is done and my wife has big plans! Here is my BMW, Xenia.

 

[Nitro]

I have a '79 Chevy Malibu project out in the pole barn with a 454 sitting on the motor stand for it

3200 lbs.of shear street terror

 

[Nitro]

I did a lot of 2 wheel dirt riding.
Some of the best times were on a 90 acre farm where we would take a huge tamper road roller we serviced up on the top field and beat down our dragstrip.
The Psychobike was clocked at over 85 MPH while running beside a Honda 600 dual-sport.
It would dust that 4 stroker off the line, but couldn't match it on top end

 

[Unclewolverine]

Out in the back I have dad's 71 camaro drag car, he built in in 76, raced it until I turned 16 in 96 when I raced it. Blew up the 377 in 98 and we never put it back together. But my oldest is 13 this year so probably about time to start putting it back together. Have almost everything to build a 355 6 inch rod with dart heads, but times have changed, may have to go ls. It's back halved with a 4 link and fiberglass front wrap.

 

[Unclewolverine]

I really need to get to building a new motor for my mail jeep though, it's pretty tired. I have an extra 4.0 block and a 258 crank to build a 4.7 stroker. Strokers are appropriate for work vehicles, right?

 

[MyLifeAsAnAspie]

Yes, but like Elon Musk I always yearned for something better than gasoline cars. I switched to electric soon after they became available. Waiting for the battery to be replaced in my Bolt before it goes up in flames I'm into bikes too, but only the human powered ones.

 

[Nitro]

While newer technology offers much better performance and durability, my fascination with older muscle is taking dinosaur designs from over 50 years ago and extracting the most power out of them possible without detracting from their original intent.
The newer engines are more reliable and offer tons more power than the ones I love to play with, but it kind of destroys the roots of my musclecar experience where parts were borrowed from production vehicles of all the same era with added performance tweaks.
Light the fuse on a raunchy old Buick 455 Stage one and get back to me after the explosion is over and it may just change your tune about the modern stuff. Or not, but it's still my thing.

Electric vehicles are uber quick, but they sure as heck should be. The drawback to them is having to cart the battery around and the lack of power density it has to offer.

Then you have to add in the environmental impact factor of it from cradle to grave.
The last I knew, the cradle to grave efficiency of them was only about 2% greater than a fossil fueled vehicle with a lot of the charging power being derived from fossil fuel generation.
There is no getting totally away from oil as the containment factors in plastics and the added weight and insulation of the wiring.

Yeah they are cool, but the battery tech ain't up to snuff yet either, so I'll pass for now.

I last drove this 1969 SS 396 4 gear El Camino 43 years ago.
52 years ago, I rode to Yenko Chevrolet in Canonsburg in Dad's '63 Corvair Spyder when he took delivery on it.

When I first got involved in it, the musclecar era had ended only a few years before I arrived at the scene, so they were both inexpensive and fairly plentiful.
I remember having stacks on Muncie M22 4 gears that you could pick up for a song because they were so noisy by design and basically unwanted by most who weren't interested in how bullet proof they were.
They wanted the quieter weaker stuff that didn't have the associated gear whine.

Now you will play hell to find one and pay a king's ransom to take it home.

I'm old and stuck in my ways, but it's actually a special interest that I've had since a child

 

[Unclewolverine]

While newer technology offers much better performance and durability, my fascination with older muscle is taking dinosaur designs from over 50 years ago and extracting the most power out of them possible without detracting from their original intent.
The newer engines are more reliable and offer tons more power than the ones I love to play with, but it kind of destroys the roots of my musclecar experience where parts were borrowed from production vehicles of all the same era with added performance tweaks.
Light the fuse on a raunchy old Buick 455 Stage one and get back to me after the explosion is over and it may just change your tune about the modern stuff. Or not, but it's still my thing.

Electric vehicles are uber quick, but they sure as heck should be. The drawback to them is having to cart the battery around and the lack of power density it has to offer.

Then you have to add in the environmental impact factor of it from cradle to grave.
The last I knew, the cradle to grave efficiency of them was only about 2% greater than a fossil fueled vehicle with a lot of the charging power being derived from fossil fuel generation.
There is no getting totally away from oil as the containment factors in plastics and the added weight and insulation of the wiring.

Yeah they are cool, but the battery tech ain't up to snuff yet either, so I'll pass for now.

View attachment 70142
I last drove this 1969 SS 396 4 gear El Camino 43 years ago.
52 years ago, I rode to Yenko Chevrolet in Canonsburg in Dad's '63 Corvair Spyder when he took delivery on it.

When I first got involved in it, the musclecar era had ended only a few years before I arrived at the scene, so they were both inexpensive and fairly plentiful.
I remember having stacks on Muncie M22 4 gears that you could pick up for a song because they were so noisy by design and basically unwanted by most who weren't interested in how bullet proof they were.
They wanted the quieter weaker stuff that didn't have the associated gear whine.

Now you will play hell to find one and pay a king's ransom to take it home.

I'm old and stuck in my ways, but it's actually a special interest that I've had since a child

You are probably around my dad's age and followed the same trajectory, but he fizzed out and gave up in the 90s when you kept going. I wish I had his laundry list of cars. The one he has talked about that I really wish he kept was a white and blue 72 trans am 455 super duty. No one could handle it; everyone but him crashed it, he always says it spent more time in the body shop than on the road! My mom slid it off a curve into a lake once. The final straw was his mom borrowed it one day and went to pass someone, when she floored it she hit the back of the slower car before she could even pull out.

 

[Sherlock77]

@Unclewolverine

I just have a rather large collection of automotive photos I've taken, never been able to afford a classic of my own though... Just back from a cruise night this evening, here is one photo I took...

 

[Neonatal RRT]

@Nitro in 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

But seriously, I enjoy cars. Ride a Concours and the car for play is a 2001 MR2 Spyder. Last week I ran it at GingerMan Raceway. Intense, but fun. Fun for me is driving laps on a tight road course, not at bars or in crowds.

I've raced in the American Iron series, SCCA, and a few open track events with my modified (heavily) '89 Mustang back in the early 2000's. GingerMan is just south of me,...I'm in the Grand Rapids area. Raced at Grattan, Blackhawk, and a few other local tracks.

 

[Nitro]

I started earlier today to mount a fuel caddy inside of a shed area to use for dispensing gasoline into my off-road machinery.
I got to play Hans the Woodcrafter (Sunday Wood Butcher) for a bit but actually despise working with the stuff
Can any of you recommend a sawdust rod that strikes easy and can weld in all positions?
All that is left to do is install the caddy mounting bolts, but Mr. Summer Heat said to stop and take a break in the AC first.

I found a local marina that sells ethanol free gasoline for about a dollar a gallon more than pump gas.
Our mandated ethanol laced fuel destroys rubber hoses and corrodes the heck out of carbs.

At the present, I run thru enough gas a week just in my mowers and off-road toys to justify it and got tired of spilling liquid gold onto the ground when refueling.
I hate wasting money, but who doesn't, right?

In the end, it is only 90 octane, but what it saves me in carburetors and fuel system repairs makes it worth the price.
I suppose I could add an octane booster to it if I needed it too.

I will be able to store 16 gallons of fuel in the caddy and it has a standard fuel nozzle on a longer hose, so it should work out well.
Filling it from my portable cans will be easy with a standard electric fuel pump I mounted near the caddy that I can jumper off a mower's battery that gets parked there or hand carry a battery to it.
I might even run an 115 VAC line out there eventually so it can be plug and play.
That same shed houses (2) 275 gallon poly totes that hold waste oil for my waste oil furnace for my shop too.
That shed, big enough to park three riding mowers and the poly totes is a lean-to on my bigger shed, a 53 foot freight trailer filled with a dragster, a Toyota 4x4 project truck and enough vintage car and speed parts to support even more of my same habit.

I spent a lot of money playing with performance toys, but at the same time made a lot of it by being involved in it too, so in the end, I'd still call it a win.



CNC machined low mounted mini alternator kits I made and sold:

The alts are a tiny, about three and a half inches in diameter 60 amp unit used on a Komatsu that were low mounted where the power steering brackets were hung on 348/409, small block or Mark IV big block Chevrolet V-8 engines used in dragracing.
I made the first set for a '62 Chevy bubbletop with a 409 that runs low 11s in nostalgia class.
Word spread quick from there after others saw the first one and the demand opened up an opportunity.

It has been proven that for each 100 pounds that you leave back at the shop, you will get to the end of a quarter mile a tenth of a second sooner, so instead of trying to find 100 places to lose a pound, you start to look for 1600 places to lose an ounce.
If you are class restricted to a minimum weight, that allows you to to place ballast where it would better serve it's purpose.

The bigger diameter pulley helped slow it down while providing a deeper groove to retain a belt at speed.
The smaller size alt. reduced the weight for better instant centering, placed it nearer to the engine's center mass instead of outside of it and gave it less mass to spin in the process.
Oh yeah, and it becomes a gyroscope while in operation, so smaller is even more better

Each kit came with all the necessary spacers and mounting hardware.
A 5 inch deep groove crankshaft power pulley was included to keep the belt on, reduce inertia to overcome and to prevent higher revs from trashing the alternators.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I've raced in the American Iron series, SCCA, and a few open track events with my modified (heavily) '89 Mustang back in the early 2000's. GingerMan is just south of me,...I'm in the Grand Rapids area. Raced at Grattan, Blackhawk, and a few other local tracks.

Such fun, isn't it. I was looking at Grattan for one of their open track days. I've heard it is a quite nice track.

 

[clg114]

My special interest is machines in general. I spent over fifty years working on heavy equipment and loved every minute of it. Most of my toys have been machines of some kind. At first it was cars and pick-ups. But later it was dirt bikes and snowmobiles. I like to go fast, but like doing it off road. These days, my wife will not allow toys that go fast, so we have 4x4's instead. She likes slow better than fast. We have his and hers Jeeps and a 4x4 pick-up. We both have some precision machines, firearms. We both go to the firing range and poke holes in paper. We do not hunt, but do enjoy shooting. We live in Idaho, where out door activities are the most popular.