In a message dated 6/21/2006 3:15:59 PM Central Daylight Time,
John.Deikis@va.gov writes:
Although this may be of minimal interest to most on the list, I'd be
curious about WST's comments on the politics behind this in VSCDA.
This makes me wonder "will the Flounder take the bait"?
Here's my two cents... Many of the engines we're running in vintage are
'30's designs. We all know the path to horsepower - displacement,
compression,
breathing and rpm. These old pieces of junk blows up pretty easily when they
run really high compression and are spun real fast.
If vintage racers prepped their engines to a reasonable state of tune (and
you gotta admit the Flounder does this) with mostly stock parts (nitride
original crank, rockers, etc) and if they keep the rpm to a reasonable limit
they
will get reasonable power and reasonable longevity. It wouldn't take $ 5,000
or more to build a competitive engine (keeping in mind vintage racing is not
really a competition, unless it's for who spends the most) and we could all
go reasonably fast and have fun with our old cars at a reasonable cost.
But racers aren't generally known for being 'reasonable'. So if they spend
vast amounts of coin so they can spin an antique tractor engine to 9K rpm,
they shouldn't be surprised when it blows up. I think it would be great if
our rules were to (over a period of time) prescribe a state of preparation
that is fairly conservative. When Racer Joe's hot cheater motor eventually
blows up he can replace it with a motor prepared to the more conservative
rules
and philosophy.
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