NVP66S

I have 4000 build hours on a Defiant that has been sitting for several years. I'm planning to use a pair of IO-320s with cold air induction. The 500 hours I put on the Westfield and refurbishing the donor car parts was a small blip in the airplane project. For you non-airplane folks, Lycoming engines (they have most of the market) mount the updraft carburetor to the bottom of the oil sump and the intake runners pass through the hot oil!!! :puke: I put some thermocouples on my Grumman one day and measured a 28C temp rise of the charge air. The reason they do that is because that 1930s carburetor design needs all the help it can get vaporizing the gasoline. I plan a more modern fuel injection induction, which theoretically is a 10% increase in addition to better knock resistance. As far as engine balance goes, many years ago I had a M-B 230SL with a marvelous 2.3 liter I6. Recently I had a M-B 230SLK with a 2.3 liter I4. Wow, what a difference in engine smoothness. That 1999 engine was rough compared to that 1964 built engine of the same displacement. I sold the 230SLK to partially pay for the Westfield. No regrets there.

At 100 mph, a well designed intake scoop will add .19 psi to the manifold pressure. At sea level, that's 1.3% more power, so scoops are only really useful above that speed. It's usually more useful on cars such as ours to ensure the intake air is not heated, for example by being behind the radiator. If you can keep the charge air 10C cooler, it adds 3.7% power. (For you nerds, I assumed 283/273 K) Of course, that scoop in the photo would do both. Looks cool, too. Dan

Yeah, mine is down at the moment, as I have it back on the build stands to fix a few squawks including replacing the Mazda factory O2 sensor with a wideband. As for the side curtains, I'm very interested in if you bought them from Westfield or made them, and how big are they? Thanks, Dan

From the article: "The most effective way to reduce that vibration is to use the force of one piston to cancel out the force of another; in other words, as piston A moves in one direction (up), piston B moves in the exact opposite direction (down) at exactly the same time. But that's only possible for engines with an even number of pistons in a single plane, like an inline-four-cylinder." No, no, no. I4 engines have terrible first order balance. It comes from the piston acceleration at top dead center being greater than at bottom dead center. Acceleration of the 2 outer pistons is not balanced by the 2 inner pistons. In a typical short-rod high performance engine, it's about a factor of 2 difference. This is why there are no large displacement I4s. The Pontiac 2.5 liter Iron Duke was about the biggest and it shook like crazy. Adding balance shafts helps, but with added weight and complexity. The O4 engine (VW, Subaru) has no first order imbalance, but does have a 2nd order yaw moment. My airplane has a 360 cubic inch O4 and it shakes, but nowhere near as much as an I4. I3 engines are better balanced the I4, but with a pitching moment, so when you take two I3 engines and glue them together to make an I6, that is cancelled and you get the famously smooth I6. Mercedes-Benz and BMW both made marvelous I6 engines until M-B sold out and made a V6 because it's shorter and can be packaged transversely in a FWD vehicle. OK, I'm cooled off now. End of rant. :jester:

I'm having a hard time just looking at the valve cover. Was that engine in a fire?

I used a 3-pin Weatherpack connector (I got mine from jegs; it looks like you get yours from Casper) on my nose and tie-rapped the connector pair to the chassis. Yeah, I use a new tie-rap every time I remove the nose, which has been once so far. A trailer light connector would be cheaper but I already had the Weatherpack kit.

:iagree: Yes, I see that as possibly the biggest failing of our society. The schools are teaching what to think, not how to think.

A question for anyone who has done both: How would you compare Tail of the Dragon to Angeles Crest or Bouquet Canyon or Caliente-Bodfish?

While I agree with your sentiments, I have to disagree on this fine point. Capitalism is an economic system concerned with creating wealth, and communism is a political system concerned with distribution of wealth. The difference between socialism and communism is that under socialism, capitalism is allowed to operate to an extent. (These are my observations, not from books or scholars) One problem with socialism in all its forms is that they believe in a fixed amount of wealth and therefore the rich live at the expense of the poor. They just don't understand that you don't help the poor by hurting the rich. That may have been true in feudal societies, but technology has shown over and over again that wealth can be created at ever lower cost. But to get back to the OP's question of what to do about ISIS, in the long run, we need to maintain separation of Church and State, and affirm that civil law is not to be subservient to religious doctrine. Any more ideas?

It's been 15 years ago now, but Paeco in Birmingham, AL did a good job for me.

I'll always remember my father recounting how he was glued to the radio during Lindbergh's takeoff. Thanks for the link.

I kinda wanted to come to this, but my SO will be out of town on a business trip. :puke:

There are all kinds of gearheads. I would prefer a killer workshop.

Industrial hardware like this is typically good for 4X the rating, so that valve probably works to 6000. My concern is for the caliper, not the valve. Of course, if there's any air in the system, that will alleviate the thermal expansion problem.

My Westfield uses the brakes from the Miata donor. Simple and easy installation and they work well. To make the cables work, you swap the uprights and calipers left-to-right. This makes the cables come into the calipers from the rear and the cable length is correct. You do not invert the calipers, so the bleeds remain on the top.

Be careful with that. If warms up after closing the valve, the pressure could go well above 1500 psi and crack a caliper. I would plumb a small pressure relief valve across the ball valve to prevent this. Someday over a beer I'll tell the story about how I learned that a Chevy Chevette caliper cracks at this pressure.

Per the earlier discussion of bolt strength, here's a .pdf of a cheat sheet I put together. Note the strength is ultimate tensile, not yield. I use this for rough sizing but do an actual stress analysis for real designs. Have fun, Dan Yes, the same sheet has the various combinations of distance, acceleration, time, and velocity. Doesn't everyone use those every day? ScrewSizeChart.pdf

Different car and different design, but I deviated from the plans and used Rivnuts and screws to hold the tunnel top. Just in case I need access.

I read about it on line. That's more than 300 miles from here.

Congratulations! I'm glad there's another new Westie out there, and it didn't take you very long to build. :party:

If I recall correctly, SAE grade 8 is a bit stronger than AN bolt material. Plus, if you look up the MIL-SPEC for those bolts, it uses the ultimate tensile, not yield strength. When I get back to my desk at work tomorrow, I'll post a spreadsheet I made showing strength of various AN and NAS bolts in various materials. If I forget, just holler at me in ALL CAPS to remember. Also, the calculations I've seen so far are good, but real-world design practice needs to include margin for corrosion, and allowance for things like hitting curbs while steering. Steering loads are unequal and the 'share the load' assumption is no longer valid. Dan

I agree with xcar on philosophy of bolted joints. My preferred source is Wicks Aircraft. Here's their catalog page on bolts. Aircraft bolts come in 1/16 inch length increments and are always UNF fine thread. http://aircraftproducts.wicksaircraft.com/category/aircraft-bolts Nice build. :cheers:

I would own a Zero electric motorcycle, except the price is unreasonable. http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/

Real knee-slapper, that.

Bullets are not really low subsonic drag. The blunt aft end gives them stability, as the ability to hit the target is as important as the velocity. Don't get too greedy or you will suffer in crosswinds or during cornering. Turn that nice slender shape 30 degrees and OMG! (Hey, Shane, how draggy does your plane get at 12 degrees AOA during the landing flare?) Another feature of bullets that is not analogous is that most of them are supersonic. Supersonic drag reduction doesn't use the same bag of reduction tricks. A better example is to look at land speed record cars.