Ace-Garageguy

To certain extent, yes. Until fairly recently, automatic transmissions were 3 or 4 speed units, possibly incorporating lockup torque converters. This usually meant rather large differences in gear ratios in forward speeds and low RPM shift points, not particularly conducive to keeping turbocharged engines "on boost". Don't forget the 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire was the very first turboed production car, followed shortly by the Chevrolet Corvair. There were numerous problems with both of them, largely relating to owners' failure to keep the Jetfire's water injection bottles topped up, melted pistons and blown head gaskets as a result, oil leaks due to rapid seal failures from high operating temperatures, and turbos "coking up" on both of them. The Jetfire could be had with a 3-speed slushbox, which was the more popular option on that car. The Corvair was more successful overall, but initially only available with a required 4-speed manual gearbox option. A 3-speed manual box was allowed later, but never an automatic, in large part because Corvairs used 2-speed Powerglides, not at all suited to keeping an engine "on boost". The recent trend to "multi-speed" automatic boxes with 6 or even 8 or 10 forward ratios make high-revving small displacement engines (with turbochargers added to achieve adequate performance in heavyish crashmobiles) a more viable option, but not without consequences. Small high-revving engines with turbochargers generally have much shorter lifespans than larger slower-revving engines with no boost, for what should be entirely obvious reasons. The highly complex automatic boxes, with necessarily small internal components for packaging within a reasonable volume, are collections of problems waiting to happen too...and almost universal unavailability of repair parts just makes everything worse.

I've been up nearly an hour and have nothing to complain about...yet. Remarkable.

I slept OK and woke up feeling OK. That's a lot these days.

Most excellent, sir.

"Story time" in some schools has taken rather outré twists recently.

"Bagger" has a coupla meanings that are not entirely family-forum-friendly.

Must be the impending end of the world we keep hearing about. I wish it'd just go ahead and happen so all the doomers can say "I told you so".

102F in one of the shops today, 95 in the other one. I work in it, no problem. The Blazer's ambient temp readout said 98 as I drove home happily with all my windows down. Only real downside of working in heat once you're acclimated to it is electrolyte depletion from drinking so much water. Probably one of the reasons I tend to have leg cramps at night in the summer. I'm working on a non-"sports drink" solution.

Workers with advanced physical skills...like me...are pretty much immune to AI replacement in the foreseeable future. But because physical skills have been looked down on by the sneering clean-hands set for decades, they are in serious decline in the USA, and most everywhere else in the "developed" world...and consumer-grade AI seems to think it can do what I do fairly soon. Yeah, right. Good luck getting your fancy know-it-all AI to fix your plumbing leak at 3 AM while your basement fills with raw sewage, or accurately diagnose and repair complex vehicle systems. Remember...onboard vehicle diagnostics already don't have a stellar record of actually knowing where problems really lie, hence the "parts cannon" approach of most "technicians". Get two idiot computers talking to each other and all you have is GIGO, multiplied many times over. I'll be laughing until I fall off my perch.

Me feets sometimes smells like 5-day-dead rodents.

Angry Birds was a fad for a while, but I never took the time to find out what it was all about.

More like $2000... Just the decals would be $200.

"Fun" to some people is being jabbed in the eye with a sharp stick, while "fun" to others is doing the jabbing.

Forming replacement "glass" parts that are actually better looking than the thick kit parts has been covered in depth...and it can be done very effectively WITHOUT vacuum-forming.

"Public service announcements" presented by people who sound like they're addressing Romper Room rather than intelligent adults. Hmmmmmm...maybe they have a point.

Employees who lack competence are often bolstered by hiring even more incompetents, not exactly solving the problem.

Knowing what you don't know is at least as important as knowing what you do know.

Exactly. Barney Navarro, famed dry-lakes racer and mechanical wizard, is said to be the first to have used a GMC blower, specifically a 3-71 salvaged from a WW II landing craft engine. But another rodder named Jack Gillis was trying to make a 6-71 from an Army truck work on a flathead in a track car at about the same time. Great stuff: https://www.hotrod.com/features/barney-navarro-982-1647-112-1 https://www.hotrod.com/news/the-first-gmc-blown-roadster-jack-gillis

Parts for the SBC proliferated rapidly because it became so popular so quickly, and the great parts situation made it even more popular...and I still don't really get why GM didn't just put the LS heads on the venerable smallblock bottom end, as though the LS is good, it's just not (IMHO) THAT much better. (EDIT: There is, by the way, an aftermarket smallblock block that WILL accept LS heads; both engines have the same bore spacing, but the water passages and bolt holes are different.)

Like the two guys above me say, it depends entirely on the application and what you want out of the particular car. It's hard to beat the instant HP from a mechanical supercharger, especially on a fast road car that has plenty of bottom end grunt to start with...like a V8. Turbos are better for getting lotsa power out of small high-revving engines that you can keep in boost by keeping the revs up, but can be packaging nightmares with intercooler plumbing etc, and usually tend to dump a fair bit of heat in the engine bay. There's no one "best" solution. .

Chevrolet smallblocks were the most popular for hot rods and engine swaps due to their high specific power, light weight, and relatively small size.

Excellent, simple overview by Ryan. ^^^

We're into one of the standard southeastern summer weather patterns now: hot humid days with popup thunderstorms most every afternoon. Cool (lower 70s) but very humid nights. Mold and mildew and rust paradise.

Looks good, especially the paint. Thanks for the heads-up on the liquid chrome. That really is impressive.

I'd really like to see exactly how they come up with that. My service has been pretty good for months now, but I've also cut WAY back on non-essential purchases in large part because of the ongoing drama provided by eBay and UPS and USPS.