Ace-Garageguy

Yup. Pre-'65 FIA "Appendix C" rules still required the cars to pretend they were road-going machines to a certain extent. Kinda like the early "gasser" rules in drag racing. Even the later "Group 7" essentially unlimited rules for the CanAm cars required a vestigial passenger seat and a semblance of opening doors.

The first generation Chrysler Firepower hemi is good for maybe something a little over 500HP on the essentially stock bottom end. The problems start with very high compression ratios, high RPMs, or supercharging. The resulting increased forces naturally try to push the crank out the bottom of the main caps. Cunninghams, Allards and the like probably never saw 500 horsepower hemi engines, and they were relatively unsophisticated compared to later CanAm cars. The gen II Chrysler hemi engines built for NASCAR in '64 would necessarily have been cast iron blocks (and heads I believe), but in a big heavy US production chassis, weight could be offset somewhat by brute force (more power). And once set up to do the oval turn-in-one-direction thing, engine weight's effect on handling has been pretty much dealt with. A CanAm car, on the other hand, has to turn in both directions, through many different types of turns of varying radii, accelerating and braking constantly. A CanAm car also weighed in the vicinity of only 1500 pounds, so the hemi's seemingly small increased weight turns out to be a pretty significant percentage of overall vehicle weight...which directly influences acceleration, braking, and handling in turns. Without the availability of alloy blocks as well as heads for the second generation hemi, the potential power gain could very easily be offset by weight-related handling and response issues.

The Corvette at top was a tackyed-up-for-the-movies version of the '59 Stingray XP-87 concept car. Actually raced, it won a national SCCA championship in its class in 1960.

Aluminum Overcast was still there when I arrived at PDK around 11:00, but all the little birds had already left. The sun tried to break through for just a moment.

Sorry...Georgia.

I'm definitely NOT a Mopar engine expert, but to the best of my knowledge, there are no inherent weaknesses or problems with the Gen II Chrysler hemi valvetrain. The long exhaust rocker arms may be a limiting factor as to high RPM, possibly requiring very high valve spring seat pressures to avoid float, but I just don't know. CanAm cars were pretty much unlimited run-what-ya-brung, if I remember right, so I doubt any mods to make a hemi work would have been verboten. There was a minimum weight, and requirements as to door openings and "passenger" seat (to kinda pretend they were cars rather than purpose-built racing machines), but that's about it...far as I remember. The weight and physical size issues worked against the Gen II hemi for road-racing more than anything, I imagine. Factory alloy heads were available from the beginning (again, if I remember correctly) but the blocks were still cast iron. Reynolds Aluminum built the special big-block Chebbys in the McLaren cars, and the iron-block hemi would have still been at a weight disadvantage there anyway. And road-racing is terribly hard on any engine. Constantly running up and down the rev range with varying loads and throttle openings for a half hour at a stretch (CanAm) is an entirely different game than going mostly wide-open-throttle for a 12-second run. Not that drag-racing is easy on engines, but it takes a whole different mind-set to build a road-racer that stays together. Sorry I can't give a more definitive answer here.

Bugger. Sunday's events have been canceled due to the approaching inclement weather associated with remnants of the tropical storm. Smart call on the part of the organizers and aircraft owners. The weather radar late last night looked like we might escape most of the heavy rain, but this AM it looks to be coming straight for us. The forecasters did a good job. Hope all the irreplaceable airplanes got taken out to safe areas. Some of the pix of vintage aircraft destruction in Florida recently were heartbreaking if you love the old birds. A B-25 Mitchell under lowering skies yesterday afternoon, below.

I don't see how mentioning gun ownership is any more of a "political" statement than mentioning a health issue...and health problems are mentioned frequently. Yes, passionate political discussions can arise from either, but surely the simple mention isn't political. And there are overt religious statements and quotes in a number of signatures, and nobody is complaining.

I like the color a lot. It looks reptilian somehow, especially with the black, and brings out the shapes and lines of the Corvette body. Very aggressive, but understated too.

Very nice. I always thought those were great looking cars, love all the Mopars from this era. She certainly looks like you've done a fine job.

Most of the GM cars sold in China are made in China. Most of the money stays in China. The US-made GM cars sold in China are mostly a relative few Buicks, I believe. As China gets more of a handle on mass-producing decent contemporary vehicles, I'm willing to bet that outside players will take serious hits in the marketplace. I could be wrong, but new American cars have only a minuscule market share in Japan. I see China going the same way, once they have the car biz figured out.

A decent, built Merit Maserati 250F GP car... Another decent, built Merit kit, this time a BRM P25 GP car... And a beautiful set of Rudge knockoff alloy wheels w/tires, from HRM.

Pretty cool. Little puppy with big feet.

Same here...though I pay a little extra for "private" domain registration.

Newest twist: today, I got a call from a robodialler selling security systems. No, I never answer unknown numbers. HOWEVER...somehow this one managed to spoof the number of a business associate, so I picked up. This is somewhat worrying because it would seem to imply somebody, somehow, has access to legitimate numbers that I answer.

Do you really think China will be a significant market for US-made cars? Think again. 1) Many of the components in electric vehicles are going to come from China in the first place. They can build their own electric vehicles with the tech disclosed to them, and parts they're making for the rest of the world. 2) China has a history of not respecting intellectual property rights (little things like patents) and can easily build clones of vehicles built anywhere else, for lots less money. 3) Any market in China for US-made cars will be as status symbols, much as old US cars are in Japan. Anybody familiar with the Kawei K1? Why buy a Ford when you can build a copy?

There's been a lot of debate over the past few years, and a lot of people screaming the Gen III isn't a "real" hemi. When cornered, few know what they're talking about. Below is the Gen III Hemi Hellcat chamber. Hemi-like, but more a pent-roof (to my way of thinking...though Hemi sounds cooler and it's arguably still a hemispherical chamber). It does have parallel rocker shafts, like Chrysler's "true" hemi engines that went before it. Below is the Gen I 392 hemi chamber. The included angle between valves is greater, and the dome is more pronounced. Below is the general layout of the big block Chebby chamber. Valves are roughly side-by-side, roughly parallel to the head's longitudinal centerline, rather than across from each other as in the chambers shown above. And last, below, is the general layout of the "semi-hemi" Boss 429 chamber. Here's a pretty good illustration of various combustion chamber designs, showing what the terms actually mean.

Looks like my 1:1 daily driver.

https://www.tapplastics.com/product/supplies_tools/plastic_tools_supplies/tap_plasdrill_bits/161

Nice clean conversion.

All I know is that everyone who has a sealed '59 Imperial repop is asking between $60 and $70.

Hey Ray, good to see you building more again. I knew you couldn't stay away. Really like the dark purple too. I'd drive it.

All entirely true. But happily for those of us who like a little more esoteric stuff, the cost of both high-resolution 3D scanning equipment and 3D printing equipment continues to become more manageable. It's not too hard to imagine a viable business case in the next few years could be made for scanning and producing those '50s beauties shown above. They'd be expensive, probably well over $100 per, but folks who want subjects like HRM offers routinely pay that much, and people happily paid close to a hundred for some of Modelhaus' simplified resin kits.

Bravo sir. This is wonderful. Thank you for stopping by and bringing your work to our attention.

Agreed on every point you make, and all of it part of the big picture that folks who seem to think buying an electric car will save the world have no awareness of. There is still, to the best of my knowledge, no overall energy policy with rational, necessarily-interlocking short and long-term plans to implement it. Nobody driving the bus. Lotsa headless chickens.