DISASTER! &@#%£!!

Pic three is awesome, great photography.  Who's the famous person in the last (B&W) print?

James Deannie.  

Marty the best roads in Phoenix is under the Palm trees or under a good hat  

Marty:  When we were out there, my favorites were 88 East out of Phoenix into the Superstition mountains, past Tortilla Flat and keep going.  When you get tired, turn around and it's just as good coming back.  Next up is rt 87 to Payson and into the Kaibab Forest, left on 260 over to I-17 up to Sedona (don't miss Montezuma's Castle) and then north on 89A to Oak Creek Canyon and on up to Kachina village (don't miss the Indian trading areas, although the really good turquoise stuff is by appointment only these days and a really good "Squash Blossum" neckless is $$$$ now).

Beware that some of the roads shown in the Superstition Mountains east of Apache Junction (a town established the year I was born) are still dirt.

The Catalina/Mt. Lemmon Highway, just east of Tucson (starts in Tanque Verde) is amazing, too.  Plan on an entire day out there, maybe two.  Spend the second day on Redington road  

Marty Grzynkowicz posted:

Cory,  I am assuming you have some good roads near your home?  Where are the best roads outside of Phoenix? 

Marty, I'm looking forward to trying every road that Gordon mentioned! It's tough to do much long-distance driving here during the summer, although that didn't stop me from horsing around the city just about every darn day, regardless of the temp.  Now that the weather's broken (nearly), it's time to log some real miles!  I did a three-hour tour up and back what's called the Beeline Highway (Rt. 87 - Gordon referred to it) last weekend to Payson (past the aforementioned Testicle Festival), and it was terrific! It got nice and cool on the way back (before I descended again into the barely-cooling kiln that is Phoenix in October), but I'm psyched for some actual Autumn temps.

I'll defer to Gordon's travelogue, Marty...  He's had a lot more Arizona Speedster experience than I -- I'm just getting started!

On another note...  I'm at the TV studio this evening, covering the weekend weather gal's vacation. I drove the Speedster to work, so I decided to take her out for a spin through downtown PHX after the early news, to get some dinner.  Holy crap!  The downtown crowd on a busy Saturday night LOVES a Speedster!  I felt like I was in a Porsche commercial! My head was swiveling like Linda Blair's trying to keep up with the comments from passersby!

I can't blame them -- I've been doing the same thing for 35 years...

 

Strong the force is with this one.

Ummh

I know exactly what you mean. I have a company car but drove my Speedster
downtown several days. With Cory's car though, its hard to know if they
recognize him or they're checking out the little silver car. The car
definitely makes me feel like a celebrity. My son took mine out tonight and
came back all smiles.

Cory, we have to get together for an outing, perhaps Sadona?

PaulEllis posted:

I know exactly what you mean. I have a company car but drove my Speedster
downtown several days. With Cory's car though, its hard to know if they
recognize him or they're checking out the little silver car. The car
definitely makes me feel like a celebrity. My son took mine out tonight and
came back all smiles.

Cory, we have to get together for an outing, perhaps Sadona?

For sure, Paul! I'm itching to get to Sedona, and beyond, up Oak Creek Canyon! We ride at dawn! (Well, some dawn soon...) LOL

Hey Corey, I found this weather man on one of our stations... I guess you kept your cool and when you said it's hot where you live, on a previous post, you were not kidding  

http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertai...c-forecast-1.2213498

Cory,

It does my heart good to see somebody so clearly smitten with a car. Good for you, man!

IaM-Ray posted:

Hey Corey, I found this weather man on one of our stations... I guess you kept your cool and when you said it's hot where you live, on a previous post, you were not kidding  

http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertai...c-forecast-1.2213498

Boy, Ray, we got a LOT of mileage out of that little glitch! I think that, between YouTube and the FOX10 Phoenix Facebook page, it's up to about 16 million+ views!

It's just the kind of nonsense I love about TV -- playing with the unknown!

 

I guess your even more James Deannie, in my books lol

Our local new caster made national news with this one:

https://youtu.be/CoMDMrxkx74
>

"I think steel boils at about this temperature". Lol!!  That is great, @Cory McCloskey!  

Stan Galat, '05 IM, 2276, Nowhere, USA posted:

Cory,

It does my heart good to see somebody so clearly smitten with a car. Good for you, man!

Thesaurically speaking, Stan, I'm absorbed, beguiled, bewitched, charmed, dazzled, delighted, enamored, enchanted, engrossed, enraptured, enthralled, enticed, entranced, excited, fond of, hypnotized, in love with, infatuated, intoxicated, mesmerized, overpowered, seduced, sent, smitten, sold on, stuck on, tantalized, thrilled, titillated, transfixed, and transported. 

You might say that the sun rises and sets on her...

You forgot obsessed, Cory. And the difference between admiration and obsession- a pretty fine line, with some somewhat darker connotations...

Hey!   If you guys get tot the Javelina Cantina in Sedona and they still have the teeshirt with the Javelina wearing a sombrero and holding a Margherita, can you get me a Medium one?  I'll pay for shirt and shipping.

Just to clarify, I have zero Speedster experience in Arizona.  We worked for the company who installed the emissions testing stations all over the state back in 1975, so we went everywhere - every county - installing 16 stations and getting them up and running.   Arizona was the first state in the country to incorporate emission testing on a wheel dyno at 55mph.  Worked long hours during the week and had most weekends off so we got around a lot and fell in love with the entire state.....It is truly a GORGEOUS place to be, anywhere in the state.  We did all our running around in a 1975 Ford Granada we called "The Granade".   The only good thing about it was working A/C (and nice seats).

I remember drives to Yuma, Flagstaff or Tucson in about 2 hours each, once we found that nobody local ever drove that ridiculous 55-mph speed limit.  Before 1975, the interstate speed limit between settled areas was Reasonable and Prudent".  We just figured 90-100 was reasonable.......

craig posted:

Pic three is awesome, great photography.  Who's the famous person in the last (B&W) print?

Hey Cory, my wife loved your picture too and said, "right back at ya' ".

craig posted:

craig posted:

Pic three is awesome, great photography.  Who's the famous person in the last (B&W) print?

Hey Cory, my wife loved your picture too and said, "right back at ya' ".

Craig! What a wife you have! You look fantastic in this shot! From the racing jacket to the driving shoes...  Love it!

 

@PaulEllis and I blasted around downtown PHX in our tubs this evening.

Look at Paul owning the night in America's sixth-largest city...

 

 

Looks like the cruising scene from "American Grafitti"....

Where was the T-Bird?

Still waiting for my motor to emerge from Competition Engineering. I've been told, "This week."

Meanwhile, a few pics from last night's adventure with @PaulEllis...

What's CE doing with your engine pieces, @Cory McCloskey?

 

ALB posted:

What's CE doing with your engine pieces, @Cory McCloskey?

 

They're re-honing cylinders and polishing the crank. Also, a complete scouring away of silicone and other impurities from the case.  They have the entire engine, so it should come back like a collection of brand-new parts! 

Hey Cory, I don't know why but the paint on your car gives it some extraordinary shadowing in some pics.  The pic at the gas pumps from the rear gives it some really cool style lines that make it look like it has very interesting, stylized body shape, even more than the car itself.  That is really cool.

I'm not a fan of wide whites, but on your car they are da bomb!  Keep lovin' it.

Thanks, Craig... I gave her a wash and a shine in the driveway that morning, and the lights that help police to more easily ID a convenience store robber sure give her a strong look in the night air!

I don't think that I'd have installed those whites myself (I don't have that much imagination), but boy, do I love the look.

They're very elegant, I think, against that silver and chrome, especially with the rock screens and the Marchals.

Might sound odd, but when I look at her, I see her as a sort of "gentleman's Speedster," in the way that the '57 Chevy Cameo was the sort of truck for a "gentleman farmer." It was a pickup, but unlikely to be called upon to pull a stump, just as my Speedster looks like she'd be more at home outside an opera house than In The Corkscrew at Laguna Seca!

Vive la différence!

Since this is a 10 page thread (and likely to go higher), please indulge me as I opine.

Your car, Cory, has "the look". You nailed exactly what it is, and the entire car is consistent with that look. There are a lot of really, really cool speedsters out there-- outlaws, town-cars, battle-axes, just-a-plain-'ol-speedsters, etc.-- and we'd all really like one of each. None of us has a fleet of them, and it's easy to get lost in our vision of what we'd like the car to be.

This is especially difficult when building a car. Do you want an outlaw? Then lots of chrome goo-gaws look out of place. Do you want an opera-house speedster? Sand-blasted Aluminum what-nots are probably going to look pretty flat. There are some iconic speedsters many, many people have wanted to replicate, which have not really ever been duplicated.

Scott Sloan's stone-gray IM was one of those cars. Stone-simple. Stripped down. Low. Loud. The whole thing had the feel of a car that had one purpose-- to run the fastest lap possible at Lime Rock, and still get back home. It's the only car I've ever seen that looked better on steel wheels than it did with alloys. It was "just right", not too much, not too little. If I had built the thing, I'd have ended up with a rollbar and a bunch of gauges, and alloy wheels, and a bunch of whatnot that would have detracted, rather than added to, the look. It was of one piece.

Dale Bates' "blackie" was another car that hit it on the nose. Really, the car was just a black speedster with over-riders and Fuchs. How many cars have been built like that? A: many. So why, 15 years on, does everybody who sees it say "ooooooh"? It's just got that "certain something"-- not a racecar, just an honest touring car where everything on it seems built to cover ground in style and relative comfort.

Your car looks like it knows what it is, and you seem really, really happy with the look. Wide whitewalls almost never look good on a speedster, but somehow look "just right" on yours. A new, tight, powerful but simple engine is going to be perfect. Well done.

I agree with Stan. I always say that I've never seen a Speedster that I didn't like, but I like mine the best....& I'll keep tweaking it until it's perfect :-)

With that said, some I like better than others that have the IT factor.  Ruby is one of my favorites, Cory's Hoopty, ECB's old ride, the orange creamcickle one, several of Dr. Clock's creations, I could go on and on.

Your car has the look too.  Congrats!

Yeah, yeah.....This car, That car.........   meh.

CORY!  

TWO DAYS without an update?

How ya gonna exceed Lane's lame, 57 pages of "Brass Thingie" BS if you don't keep posting?

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

I'd like to hear a review of the performance difference between your old mother, the temp loner motor and your rebuilt motor!

I went by Competition Engineering yesterday and they were waiting on the machinist, Mike Fischer to finish the balancing. The parts are all cleaned up and hopefully we can collect everything by Friday and start assembly over the weekend. I seriously doubt that we can have it done by October 26th when I leave town for a couple of weeks. That is why I talked Cory into installing the stock engine. These things always take longer than you expect and I wanted him to be able to enjoy his car while the temps here are dropping to a reasonable level.

Even though it's a stock engine, it pushes his car along pretty well judging from what I saw a couple of nights ago. I feel terrible leaving town before finishing his engine but there is nothing I can do about it. I'm sure he'll end up with an engine he can be proud of and can depend on. These things just take time and patience. (as many of you know)

Despite experience, whatever I estimate the time line to be, I now add in another 50 % of the estimated hours and come in just about right  

Jethro posted:

I'd like to hear a review of the performance difference between your old mother, the temp loner motor and your rebuilt motor!

I'd like that very much as well.

I'd like it even better if sometime somebody would do a comparison (with actual data and seat-of-the-pants impressions) of a stock 1600, a Kadron equipped 1915 from Vintage Speedsters, and an IDA or IDF equipped 2110/2276 from Pat Downs or Blackline Racing. As a wild-card, we could throw in a Subaru equipped car and a Porsche 6. If the comparison were written "car magazine style" as an honest comparison (0-60, quarter mile, 60-0 stopping distance), there could be no end to the possibilities (compros of various braking systems, for example).

The downside is that it would put an end to the constant give and take of relative observations ("my 2332 is AWESOME!", "Drums on the back are fine", et al) that constitute a lively forum.

Carlisle would be the obvious place to get together enough different cars to do comparative testing. What would be needed would be a neutral gear-head, who could be trusted to be fair and unbiased, and who can write well enough to be readable and interesting.

I nominate @edsnova.

Jethro posted:

I'd like to hear a review of the performance difference between your old mother, the temp loner motor and your rebuilt motor!

I'M thinking you should probably leave his mother out of this. Them's fightin' words! 

Stan Galat, '05 IM, 2276, Nowhere, USA posted:

Jethro posted:

I'd like to hear a review of the performance difference between your old mother, the temp loner motor and your rebuilt motor!

I'd like that very much as well.

I'd like it even better if sometime somebody would do a comparison (with actual data and seat-of-the-pants impressions) of a stock 1600, a Kadron equipped 1915 from Vintage Speedsters, and an IDA or IDF equipped 2110/2276 from Pat Downs or Blackline Racing. As a wild-card, we could throw in a Subaru equipped car and a Porsche 6. If the comparison were written "car magazine style" as an honest comparison (0-60, quarter mile, 60-0 stopping distance), there could be no end to the possibilities (compros of various braking systems, for example).

The downside is that it would put an end to the constant give and take of relative observations ("my 2332 is AWESOME!", "Drums on the back are fine", et al) that constitute a lively forum.

Carlisle would be the obvious place to get together enough different cars to do comparative testing. What would be needed would be a neutral gear-head, who could be trusted to be fair and unbiased, and who can write well enough to be readable and interesting.

I nominate @edsnova.

I be up for doing those comparsions. I have redone a few of these over the years. Getting several owners together for this test would be fun. All meet at the shop on a Saturday. I got a great course to test the power and drive ability. From the shop down the canyon to the river then up the grade under the forest hill bridge then back to the shop. Who's up for this......?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be sure to invite the Stig

Stan Galat, '05 IM, 2276, Nowhere, USA posted:

Jethro posted:

I'd like to hear a review of the performance difference between your old mother, the temp loner motor and your rebuilt motor!

I'd like that very much as well.

I'd like it even better if sometime somebody would do a comparison (with actual data and seat-of-the-pants impressions) of a stock 1600, a Kadron equipped 1915 from Vintage Speedsters, and an IDA or IDF equipped 2110/2276 from Pat Downs or Blackline Racing. As a wild-card, we could throw in a Subaru equipped car and a Porsche 6. If the comparison were written "car magazine style" as an honest comparison (0-60, quarter mile, 60-0 stopping distance), there could be no end to the possibilities (compros of various braking systems, for example).

The downside is that it would put an end to the constant give and take of relative observations ("my 2332 is AWESOME!", "Drums on the back are fine", et al) that constitute a lively forum.

Carlisle would be the obvious place to get together enough different cars to do comparative testing. What would be needed would be a neutral gear-head, who could be trusted to be fair and unbiased, and who can write well enough to be readable and interesting.

I nominate @edsnova.

So why not invite someone like an editor of a car mag or a producer of a car show to Carlisle to do the testing?  Big time publicity as well.  All interested manufacturers could contribute their best they have...

Gordon Nichols posted:

Yeah, yeah.....This car, That car.........   meh.

CORY!  

TWO DAYS without an update?

How ya gonna exceed Lane's lame, 57 pages of "Brass Thingie" BS if you don't keep posting?

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

You'd better watch what you wish for, Gordon, 'cause Paul and I are about to start loading up this thread with a potent mix of deep knowledge and gross ignorance. 

You'll all be treated to photo after photo of Paul displaying the skills that are making him an SOC rookie standout, as well as multiple selfies of me awkwardly hefting parts and tools heretofore unfamiliar to me.

There will be dozens of videos that will feature a wide range of barely-relevant topics, including lunch orders, pet peeves, childhood regrets, torque-wrench etiquette, dog bites, dropped nuts, dirty cuticles, flattops, DAs, buzzcuts, dry sumps, brand new lifters, and Christmas re-gifters. 

We may offer T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, window decals, cap snafflers, can coozies, bumper stickers, tattoo stencils, and an opportunity to participate in a GoFundMe effort that could enrich both Paul and me beyond our wildest dreams.

So, fear not -- as soon as Competition Engineering finishes its work, Paul and I will over-deliver on our promise to provide endless opportunities for all to weigh in!

Sharpen your swords!

 

That will be most excellent.