Jack -- travelogue of the trip so far

You might want to grab a delicious and refreshing beverage. I left Baltimore on the 11th, after spending a few days on and under the car trying to make the exhaust work better. All the usual little stuff was knocked out before the 11th hour, and the pipes threatened to kill the trip. I posted on those headaches, but what I found before the morning of the departure was that not only was The Wrench his old usual self -- sober and cheerful -- but motivated also. My car had been so thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom that I almost didn't recognize it. Fresh EVERYTHING -- and the exhaust was quieter than it had ever been. There was a legitimate tool box in the passenger's side floor area, too, with all kinds of goodies in it that I hope to not have to use. We'll see.
I left Baltimore on 66 West, aiming toward 81 South. That was a straight shot to Knoxville, and I figured it would be about seven hours from when I made the turn. Tom Raymond was set to meet me on the southern end of it, in Bristol, and take me to meet this ace mechanic and racer friend of his there before dinner at a Cracker Barrel. That almost went according to plan.
I was a couple hundred miles from Bristol when a blue-eyed distraction driving a red pickup started playing with me on the Interstate, and I wound up being a little behind schedule. She was pretty easily talked into going the couple extra miles to Mark the Mechanic's place, and we seemed to be hitting it off pretty well, so I invited her to dinner with Tom and his bride. We got to the Cracker Barrel a little later than we wanted to, but dinner was nice, and it was late.
Weeeeelll, I got up a little later than I wanted to the next morning, too. Tom had already jammed, since he wanted to get to an aquarium en route. He gave me some killer directions to get to the Talley Ho Inn, and I had a pretty easy time getting there.

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There have been a bunch of posts on the site already about the Dragon run, but not a lot of what the cars were doing technically on the roads. I wonder about things when they happen to me the first time, and then I tend not to think about them if there's no problem afterward. So far on this trip, there haven't been any disasters for me or anyone else, barring Kevin's non-start, but there hasn't been much written for guys who haven't done a road trip yet.
Practicality in a Speedster is a must, right? Our cars aren't exactly built for storage, so I decided on three changes of clothes and a Visa card. If there was something I didn't have, I planned on using the card. So far, each tank of gas has cost an average of $25. I've filled up about eight times since I left Baltimore, and I know two of those tanks were in the Smokeys. I've had three nights in hotels, and neither of the two had security problems. I didn't cover the car until the third night, and that was more on account of the dew point than security concerns.
Engine-wise, my carbs popped a bit more at 4,000 feet than I expected them to. My exhaust makes a popcorn popper noise on deceleration, too, but that seems to be "normal." My linkage has held up really well, as have the new throttle cable and the brakes. My tires are still at the same 20 psi front and 24 psi rear pressures they were at before I left. My windshield is cracked a tiny bit more than it was, but the ride is a lot smoother than it was. In the Midwest, and I had forgotten this, the highways seem to have the seams in them that make that ka-dunk-ka-dunk sound. Those would have given me a backache in short order if I hadn't softened up the tire pressure.

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I followed some bikers for a while, and met up with a one-armed man in a hot-rod '47 Chevy on the road from Knoxville. I learned a couple things about life there, so I guess they're worth sharing.
The '47 Chevy was a resto-mod, and the owner-operator-restorer-welder had one good hand on mis-shapen right arm. There wasn't much of a left wing on this guy, either, but some vestigal fingers growing out of his shoulder instead. He was driving that car at about 80 mph when I came across him on Interstate 40. I stayed with that guy for the better part of a tank of gas, thinking he was a good guy to run with and it was nice to see something other than Toyotas and SUVs out there in hill country. We took a break at a rest stop before I hit 24 North out of Nashville, and we talked for a good 15 minutes while we got gas and stretched out. He was on his way to Ft. Campbell, KY, to see his son come home from Afghanistan. Apparently, he and his son had started to build the car, and Dad was going to deliver it, finished, as a present. I was touched beyond words. That m-f had to be determined and driven to make something like that happen. It was really touching.
That's another thing. I haven't been a proponent of putting radios in these things for a lot of reasons, but chief among them now is that I've really been able to clear my head.

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Sorry -- got a bit sidelined by some things here. I'll add to this as the trip continues. Engine temps have been in the 200-210 range, I've burned a quart of oil in 1,500 or so miles and the mean rpms I've been cruising at have been between 3100 and 3200, roughly 70-75 mph.
No problems, lots of time to think and my old Type IV hasn't let me down yet.
More tomorrow. The local PCA chapter president, a guy named Manalos, came by to look at the car tonight and then took it out for a drive. Good stuff, but it's 3:00 a.m. now, so I'm going to bed.

Driving an open-car on open road with miles to go, COOL!

I'm traveling with you vicariously through the pics you're posting,
Be safe, my brutha!

Peace - Out!

Sounds great. Have fun.

Cory,

It's starting to sound like a "Country Song". You won't mind it we hum the chorus with you, eh?

Cory - got your voice mail - sorry I missed the call!

Cory sez: The sloppy jalopy is running great....

Like we expected anything else? Keep pedal down my friend - road trips are the bomb!

angela

Cory, this story is all well and good but do you have any pic's of that blue eyed piece you picked up????

Cory

You da man! Keep us posted on your trip. When you get back we'll have to see if we can schedule a long overdue local gathering before the leaves are gone.

ECB

Cory,
First date with Kim included a high class dinner at none other than Cracker Barrel.
Followed by marriage at a later "date"... a word of caution here my friend :)............. Be safe and have a ball!

The Road Warrior Lives

Via con dios... sounds like an awesome adventure. Have fun. Keep posting, and err... the blue eyed blonde......a pic for the Speedster bretheren?

Cory: Have faith in that T-4!

The more you drive it, the better it feels!

For all of you following the exploits of our Road Warrior, here's a cameo from th Dragon Run (complements of wife Kathy):

http://s49.photobucket.com/albums/f254/speedster356/?action=view¤t=IMG_0150.jpg

Keep in touch, Cory!

gn

Another update for you guys. Went out today to my old driving favorites. There's road west of St. Louis that leads past a Saint Alban's Catholic Church. It used to be undeveloped, and I thought that would be perfect for a 70-something-degree day. I headed out that way this afternoon, fresh up on oil and only minor noises coming from the engine compartment, and it turned out to be a development now. Every house was beige or white, all stacked up on their neighbors and nobody with a view.
I kept heading west, eventually ending up in St. Charles County. Most of St. Charles is undeveloped still, and there are some GREAT twisties in the Missouri River flood plain. There's a drought on now, so there wasn't any risk of flooded river roads, and the foliage was spectacular. Sadly, my camera is officially broken. I will be buying another on tomorrow for the remainder of the trip.
Route plan has changed. No longer going to Chicagoland; it seems I'll be able to kill two birds with one stone in the greater Columbus area; I'll be stopping there Friday night instead. Seven hours to get there from here, and another seven hours to get home from Columbus.
On the woman front, Tom wasn't all that taken with her, but she's kinda shortish, like 5'3", and is a blue-eyed brunette. She called last night, and she's looking forward to a visit when I'm back in the home range. She's in New York City, so that's not unlikely. I smile every time I think about that.
Why does this stuff happen when you least expect it?
More later. Mom made some spaghetti.
:)

Cory,

It

I'll be in CHI-town through till Sunday. Hope they have enough beers!!!

And then it happened ... just kidding.
Serious question, though. I had the Sloppy Jalopy out again tonight. Weather is in the mid- to low-60s, header is tight and intake manifolds are seated well. Try this comparo; tap a Mason jar with a crescent wrench. That metal-on-glass noise is coming from my pipes.
It sounds like there's cold air going into my exhaust, maybe from the muffler and through the short header, maybe from a gap I can't plane off of the head-end of the pipes; maybe it's just that the car hasn't run in cold air in so long that I forgot about the noise. I don't know.
Whatever it is, it doesn't make any noise on startup other than the usual and very quiet (c'mon, it's MY car, so it's relative) idle. I can kill the car by putting a towel over the muffler and choking it, but once I'm on the throttle, it makes a series of popcorn noises, just like the noises it made in the Smokeys, and it doesn't pop-pop-pop on deceleration.
My assessment is that there's GOT to be cold air getting in somewhere. Since it's cold air, and it affects the exhaust note like it does, I'd ordinarily assume there was a leak at the head. Since I can block the outlet and not hear gasses trying to leave the pipes in a wheezing whistle, I'm kind of stumped.
When I get on the gas, it sounds throaty and loud, with that glassy noise intermittently occurring throughout the rev curve in all four gears. I took out my idle jets, thinking maybe one of them was obstructed. Nope. Tomorrow, I'm planning on taking out the mains and looking them over. I'll be checking the pipes again for any obvious deformity or odd colors in the black paint.
I'm pretty sure that nothing has changed state and that I'll be able to figure this out, but any past experiences would help speed things up.
Thoughts? I don't know how tough my valves are, but if they're as rugged as the rest of my engine, I'll probably survive this even if i let it go. That'd be SO unlike me ...

Cory: Your description of the noise is spot on for Pinging or detonation. I'm sure you remember hearing the same noise when we were in Blackie blasting around the countryside in Easton. Does it do it mostly on hard acceleration?...or after the engine is totally warmed up hot. Timing advanced a bit too much? Is the dizzy locked down good?
Just a thought.

~WB

I'll 2nd the above comment on pre-ignition Cory. More than once I've tangled up with a cruddy tank of gas... Thought I bought 92 octane and found it really acted more like 85 octane. If I recall, you are running a ton of compression. Some stations may have already switched over to a winter blend of fuel. The winter blends ignite more easily in cold weather (that's why they use them) but can cause pre-ignition on a high compression engine.

Roll the timing back a couple of degrees and see if it goes away. You'll lose power, but if the pinging goes away then you have diagnosed the problem. An octane booster might help, but personally, I would just leave the timing back a few degrees and run the tank out.

If this does not immediately correct the problem, then you have another issue of which I am far too ignorant to assist you with...

angela

Thanks, guys! I'm gonna go find me a timing light!

He had some popping in the mountains when decelerating which got worse as we went along. Just before our final stop at the end of the Cherohala Skyway I was right behind and it sounded like classic "loading up" - plus, he's running a little rich anyway.

We left there and headed back to the hotel on windy back roads at first, then a straight stretch of 60 - 65mph for 12 miles and it seemed to (finally) clean itself out and ran smoother as we went along. That might have been one problem (loading up on the mountain roads) and the second problem might be too much advance (seems to mak a lot of sense, given early Winter gas right now). I didn't hear anything resembling an exhaust leak when it as idling (it idles surprisingly quiet) and it doesn't sound like he found a leak when plugging the tail pipe (wonder if he used a Bananna as Eddie Murphy did?) so backing off the advance 2-3 degrees is a good start.

Cory: Next time you have the jets out, remove the idle mixture screws and shoot a stream of carb cleaner, with the small tube attached, up into the mixture screw port (it should come out the idle jet seats, if they're out). That should get anything that might be stuck in the passages, too. Just in case.

gn

So. Thanks for the advice, as always. Time to add a little fun to the thread, now that there's a little octane boost in the tank and I know the timing's right on at 30 degrees.
This is the Gigantillac mom drives, and Dad's van has been made homeless.
Look at the size difference!

"Mom, do you NEED that much car?"
"No."
"Are you hauling the entire soccer team around in the trunk?"
"Not since you left."
"Why so big?"
"I'm from Detroit. That's what we do."
"Oh."

And the Barbie heads have finally been updated. Mom approved. :)

I usually throw the heads away and keep the bodies

Did I miss something,isn't there a miss Cory or an X ??

An X miss Cory and two X main squeezes

Correct-o-mundo. The blonde was a Huntington Beach girl I married in San Diego. Big mistake, but we made a wonderful little boy. The other two? Vince, you've got the right idea -- but I live in a townhouse. ... :)
And the point, natch', is that the car survived all of them. Those heads aren't mine. No sirree. They belong to the car.

Gotcha! good luck on your cruize, them FLY girls take kindly to the OUTLAWS for some reason. Cabanaboy ~ Fly low and avoid the RADAR!!

Howdy y'all!

If you've been reading this thread, then I'm sure you can figure out who I am by my user name. Here's a hint: I don't drive or own a Speedster. And I'm hoping that a Barbie head doesn't end up hanging under the dash of Sloppy Jalopy on my behalf.

Oh, and to satisfy curious minds ...

Cory: Ay Carumba! QQ

~WB

So he shoulda brought you along on the Dragon Run, methinks.

So Teresa (no "H" as in Theresa?...."one who reeps" according to the dictionary), when are you going to get a Speedster and join the fun? The Dragon run was really awesome.
Hoss

Welcome aboard, Blue Eyes Red Truck. Cory will have to bring you along for one of our cruises.

ECB

Now you have done it cowboy!

Teresa,

You are a very brave soul indeed. Taking on the good Mr. Drake AND the demented souls inhabiting this little patch of cyberspace all in one week. Clearly, you are one for adventure. Do you have an older sister?? And don't foget to tell us all about the red pick-up. We may josh and carry on about all sorts of stuff, but at the core, we're all gear-heads, so need to know about the machine.

Kelly,

Adventurous only begins to describe me! And y'all seem like a great bunch, so I'm happy to take you on!

My little red truck ... Her name is Dixie, because we're from the South. She's a 2003 Nissan Frontier. She doesn't have too many bells and whistles (manual transmission, no power locks or windows, no cruise control). She's got two doors, two-wheel drive, four cylinders, five gears (plus reverse), and a six-foot bed. She's got around 65k miles on her, and has yet to need any major service -- but she's getting due for new shocks.

Dixie is the reason I was heading south on I-81 last week. I had to get down to Georgia to get Dixie an emissions test to renew her registration.

It's a pretty good bet that Dixie's the only red pickup in Manhattan with Georgia tags and a blue-eyed girl in the driver's seat.

I'm most impressed that she's been on here for only one week and already has figured out how to include pictures with her posts.

We've got peole who've been on here for years and still haven't figured that out!!

Must be a GRIT.....a Techno-grit at that!

gn

After Dad cruised the parking lot for a few minutes, he suggested I drive the car out of traffic and onto some back country roads in West St. Louis County; he took over at the first turnout opportunity, and he decided to show me some roads that really wound through the hills. The scenery there was dotted with castles -- for a million-eight and up. He lives about a million-five-and-a-half from that neighborhood.
We used some gas on that trip :).
Two days ago, I left -- but had to go past the Arch for the signature (likely the only) "My car made it west of Old Man River" evidence shot. Some really cool passer-by offered to take my picture.
The light was green; how cool is THAT?

So there I was, smelling the autumn leaves in my car with no roof and some SERIOUSLY non-road-trippable seats for all those damned miles when, out of the blue, the hills started. I forgot that I was driving a church pew. What spectacular scenery.
These were taken expressly for you folks in SoCal and Dave in Hawaii. My friends, there ain't nuthin' like fall colors in the Upper Midwest. These were Ohio, past Columbus.
Met with Carey Hines there (Hey, Dude, in case you're reading -- O-H ...) and had a few pints and some laughs. His wife Amy is a hoot. Lucky guy.
I got back on the road yesterday from that stopover. I took these without stopping. I should have, 'cause these don't do the leaves justice: