Dward Farquar's Blob
• Oct. 28, 2007 - Time flies and you forget stuff.
I just realized it's been a year since I wrote anything here. I had to retrieve my password to even get in. Updates to the Bimmer include a quicker steering rack, short shift kit, and a dandy leather shift knob with an illuminated shift pattern that dims with the interior light adjustments. It now has 200,000 miles and the motor pumps good compression and still doesn't burn oil. I've been working on cleaning up and detailing the engine compartment and painting a few things under the hood. I also have put Bilstein Touring shocks with a set Tokico lowering springs that are a bit stiffer than original and put M3 style sway bars arms for improved geometry. The arms increase the amount of twist put on the sway bar per degree of body roll. It's about the way I Iike it handling wise. It's soft enough to keep the wheels on rough pavement and has little body roll when turning. I have picked up a transmission and differential with 80,00 and 100,000 miles respectively but haven't installed them yet. I have upgraded the headlights to the Euro type and have an electric fan to increase air flow. It doesn't move enough air over the A/C condenser for good cooling in the Texas summers.
This car has been such a pleasure to own and drive. Newer BMW owners look at it sometimes and I can also hear them thinking "How come mine looks like a Mitsubishi?"
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• Sep. 1, 2006 - Backwards Ho!
So I put coilovers and stiff springs on it when lowering the car. It rides like a sled. Am now going back to slightly stiffer than stock springs with a stiffer sway bar for the twisties. It's not a total loss though. There is a thriving market for performance parts for the E30. Those coilovers will sell in a heartbeat.
Since the last entry I have replaced all of the suspension bushings in the rear. Next is an E36 rack. It's a direct bolt in and gives the car quicker steering. More, more, more to follow.
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• Jul. 16, 2006 - My little Bimmer!
About five years ago I was looking for a car for my youngest daughter when I saw this nice 1991 BMW 318is. It's a four cylinder model that's a little down on power but handles like a dream. It is quick but not fast. I've gradually been fixing it up. It has been repainted and has 17" chrome alloys with low profile tires. About a month ago I lowered it about 1.5" and have decided to leave it original otherwise, It's a dark gray almost black color that BMW calls diamondschwarz metallic. I have included some pics.
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• Jan. 26, 2006 - K-Boy's Kruzer
It's a wonderful world when you have wheels. My friend Keith has them on his wheelchair and on a very cool Toyota Sienna van. The traditional transportation for wheelchair user's has been a full size van built on a truck frame that was a small version of a city bus. The wheelchair occupant rode in the back like freight in a commercial vehicle. Not anymore. With the advent of the mid-size and mini-vans, we are now in the world of style and cool. (photo attached). The reason that sliding door is so low - drop suspension. A push of the button on the automatic opener and the door slides back while the right rear suspension drops like Roy Roger's horse, Trigger.
Then a lightweight ramp swings out and down. It's a piece of work. The traditional ramp was like a Tommy-Lift on the back of a 5-ton truck. Real handy for getting a pallet out of a local delivery truck and on the ground. Then you notice that the floor is lowered to the level of the rocker panels - what! - and perfectly flat to make a good surface for rolling the wheelchair. And a gotta get me one of those upscale interiors. No rubber floor mats here. You won't be hosing this one out. Although there is no middle seat, the rear bench is the stylish and comfy Toyota cloth with nice carpet and seat belts. There's separate rear A/C controls and it looks like it's just a waiting for the kids with their very own cupholders, headphone jacks and LCD screens. And, of course, you gotta have the deluxe stereo with CD and a plug for your I-Pod.
But getting back to the floor. It's the element that makes this van so different. Dropping the floor 4-5" is a major structural modification. This is a unibody, remember. There's no front passenger seat so the wheelchair rolls all the way up there to "SHOTGUN" Not only can the K-Boy see everything any other passenger sees, there's no visual cue that he's anything but just another "scrub". A scrub that owns the ride.
This car thing - it's a mystery - just sing along with the Beach Boys:
"round round get around, I get around!"
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• Jan. 3, 2006 - My Formula 1 Race!!
Drivers are, to a certain extent, prima donnas. No matter what, they are convinced that they are the best. A lot of them are around 5'5"-5'7". The English driver, Nigel Mansell was an average sized guy. He stood head and shoulders above Prost and Senna. In the early 90's the last Gran Prix to run in the US (before the parade at INDY) was in Phoenix. TransAm was a support race. We had to pit at the far end of the course and tow our pit carts and cars on the track for about 3/4 mile to the paddock/pit area. The city of Phoenix had built a garage area for the F1 teams that was a city garage the rest of the year. We were right in front of the Formula 1 cars and could see their garage areas up close. There was a crowd of 10,000 for the race and most were from foreign countries. The course was on the streets with barriers at the curbs and 10'-12' fences between the curb and sidewalk. We walked all around the inside of the course and were less than 10 feet from the cars at times. Back to Mansell. He went out with mechanical trouble right in front of us and walked through an opening for those with a Photo Pass. He seemed a small man but was still gainly and awkward looking on the podium when he was there the likes of Prost, Senna, etal.
The Honda/McLaren team had a bank of mainframe computers about twenty feet long against the back wall of their garage. When the car came in, about 15 very young Japanese guys began pouring over print-outs as fast as they came out. It was rumored that old man Honda had given specific instructions when they started the McLaren deal that there was to be no one over 25 years of age involved in the project. Most of them looked like they were just past puberty.
The pit crew put setup plates on the cars instead of wheels and raised them up like go-cart racers do. They had a lot of special tools including laser alignment guages. They manually changed springs and shocks but everything else seemed to be done in those little black boxes.
I have heard that ordinary drivers have to be coached to drive ground effects cars. They have to be guided at first to go beyond what they think are the cars limits and become confident that if they go faster, the car will stick better. Indy cars generate their own weight in downforce at 85MPH. At 86MPH they could be driven upside down and stick to the ceiling. The designers of the bodies have to focus on strength to withstand 1400-3000 pounds pushing down on the car. Brakes are carbon fibre pads on carbon fibre rotors. Some are ceramic components. Aerodynamics are a factor in motor design.
To see all of this so close was very rare in this world. In almost every other country there are about 200,000 spectators, all loyal to their national teams and if they are Brazilians, their almost god-like drivers. There were only a few Americans at that race in Phoenix and they were hard-core racing fans. They like the leading edge technology, pageantry, excitement and sheer competitiveness of auto racing at it's highest level. Why wasn't there a larger American presence.
It's obvious. There are no American drivers, cars, or teams. In a word-NASCAR. A particularly American form of racing that has become a high dollar spec car series. Great pains are taken to make the cars equal. It's Rusty, Dale, and the good ol' boys.
Not since Ford entered endurance racing with the GT40 forty years ago, has there been an American manufacturer with the nerve to compete heads up against the rest of the world. It's been said that Ford's motivation was being laughed at by Enzo when they tried to buy Ferrari. It's been said that the Lotus Mario Andretti won the world championship in was so advanced that a monkey could have won races in it. His son Michael, a first class American road racer, couldn't hack it at McLaren. He would fly over and drive for a few days and fly back home. Finally they cut him loose. He was slower than their development driver. At the same time, Senna had a personal relationship with everyone on the team from the money men to the crew. He would still be at the track going over data print outs, sometimes until 11:00 PM. Six million people were at his funeral in Brazil.
No American manufacturer has the stomach to lose for 10 years while they do the development work nor the ability to let the type of people it would require have that much control and money. Their bureaucracy is too entrenched to do that sort of thing because it doesn't lend itself to management by committee. It's too bad because we have done it in soccer and the rest of the world is rapidly doing it in basketball. Too bad it takes more than a good pair of sneakers and a love of the game.
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• Dec. 4, 2005 - Q: What's wrong with American cars?
A: The American auto industry.
The answer lies in the nature of corporate America
and the qualities necessary to succeed in that environment. The
established corporations, like GM, Ford, and Chrysler, are made up of
men that rose to the top by being managers rather than innovators in
design and product. Just think Edsel as opposed to Henry Ford. Of
course these fellas can change, but the areas in which they excel are
cost management and maximizing return on investment. Unfortunately the
investment is in facilities to make traditional American sedans and
trucks. They have coasted on the success and stability of pickup trucks
and truck based SUV's while market share has shrunk and the very nature
of the industry has change dramatically. Take away those trucks and
SUV's and all that's left is a burned out shell of former greatness.
Even their economy cars are of Japanese design with slightly different
trim and nameplates.
The man in
charge is a committee. It is made up of homogenous WASP, middle age (or
older), upper middle class men. They are not the kind of people that
love cars or are passionate about them. For decades their styling
departments have produced new concept vehicles for auto shows that were
never produced. The success of the American auto occurred in an era of
cheap fuel and pre-European and Japanese competition. Foreign cars were
ridiculed in the fifties and sixties and branded impractical due to
lack of a service network and parts availability. They were the
vehicles of geeks and eccentrics. The failure of the Americans to
respond to the gas crunch of the early seventies was a continuation of
a long running phenomena. Almost every innovation in design and
technology came from individuals rather than the industry. Even the
design of the van came out of southern California
car culture. When people began to customize them, the auto industry
introduced factory packages based on the same concepts. The force for
innovation came from that peculiar American trait that results in
wondering what would happen if you put a chain saw engine on a
skateboard! They have been years and even decades behind in fuel
economy, safety, and styling. The age of their typical customer has
risen steadily to where they are making cars for 50-60 year olds.
But eventually
foreign cars made inroads as a result for of the need for fuel economy
and a smaller size to fit in the city. This led to another trait of
American industry. When faced with real competition, they fall back on
the one sure thing they have, Politicians in their pocket. They cash
the check and call in the markers. They hold off safety standards, fuel
economy, and anything else necessary to maintain their survival and
protected status. They needed to squeeze the last drop of utility out
of their aging industrial base.
In contrast,
the Japanese industry has way fewer mangers, they make about 10-15%
more than the line workers. They are masters of incorporating new
technology in product. Of course the western industrial world is the
innovator in new breakthroughs but they are really slow in the area of
incorporating them into products. The Japanese have it in a car or a
piece of consumer electronics by next Tuesday. American corporations
have a whole bureaucracy of management making 50- 300% more than the
folks on the factory floor. One other aspect of resistance to change is
organized labor. They want to keep making the same thing in the same
place in the same way. This is "job security" And let's not even
mention robots and automation. The deserted factory towns and the decay
of cities like Detroit are the social manifestation of all of this.
Every now and
then an exception comes along like Iacocca and the Mustang. But the
future, it looks bleak. Can it be salvaged? Probably not. It is running
counter to the most significant economic change since the dawn of the
industrial age. The west is a small percentage of the world's
population that consumes the overwhelming majority of the world's
resources and production. If you think that won't change then you are
living in a world where 4500 pound Roadmaster's will rule eternal. The
one big "if" is whether this change can occur without ending in the
same way these conflicts were resolved in the past. In that area the
big technological breakthrough has been nuclear. Nightmares about the
"bomb" anyone?
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• Nov. 28, 2005 - The Awakening
In 1972
my brother and I came upon a Triumph TR3A on the front lawn of a
dilapidated house with a For Sale sign on it. We pulled right in. The
car wasn't drivable because someone had put DOT brake fluid in it and
it was eating all of the natural rubber cups and seals. It started
right up and we drove it around the block using the emergency brake to
stop. The car was complete including side curtains and for $700 it was
ours. We rebuilt the brakes with newer type rubber, replaced the cork
in the carbs with neoprene. And finally, an idler arm and what would
have been a ball joint on the right front. It was like a horizontal
king pin of sorts. After figuring out that we had the battery hooked up
backwards, the liitle car was amazingly reliable and a blast to drive.
I'll never forget the first time I put the tail out about a foot and a
half, went a little to opposite lock, and stayed in the gas.
Over
the next two years we redid the interior, repainted, and had the wire
wheels redone. British racing green with tan interior - beautiful. The
TR3A was the end of era - the last of the traditional post war British
sports cars. It was a schizoid mix of technologies. The four cylinder
engine had a primal roar due to the inherent vibration. In the gas, it
was accompanied by gear whine and the reverb of two side draft
carburetors sucking air. Nobody put radios in them. It was in it's
element as an open roadster and became claustrophobic with the top up
and the side curtains snapped into place. Side vision was through
lexan. You grabbed the door handle and twisted it to open a door with
no glass. To open from the inside, you pushed down on a cable through
an opening in the door trim. It rode like a sled and cornered like it
was on rails. The lever action shocks would have been quite at home on
a late 30's model. And that hole in the grille - it's for the crank.
The Triumphs were a blast to drive. They overwhelmed your senses. There
was none of the isolation from the environment that cars
have today. You felt every rise and fall of the pavement and the wind
on your face. The handling was summed up in the word "tossable".
After a period in my life when cars were uninteresting, The Triumph
awakened a feeling. It can't be described. The photo below was
downloaded from the internet. It's a good restoration and communicates
an attitude and affection for automobiles that is completely different
than anything one might feel about contemporary cars. It is possible to
over restore them. The fit of the body panels was constantly changing
as the cars were driven due to what the British call "scuttle shake".
There was no detail finishing like one sees on more expensive British
cars. Triumph, MG, and Austin Healey were the low end of sports cars.
In the late fifties all were making the change into the modern era.
Door glasses, bigger motors, better suspensions.
But the British
were stodgy in their attitude. They hung on to a concept of the "proper
motorcar" and the way they should be built that mirrored their
retention of the Royals. Materials reflected the eternal supremacy of
the Kingdom, were from the colonies, and were made from natural
resources . No petrochemicals for these boys. There was also a bit of
that World War II austerity in their lack of features. You can't allow
the common man too much comfort. Extravagance and luxury were the
exclusive domain of the upper class. They, of course, could ride behind
their chauffeur with their vintage wine in cut crystal. The isolation
of a Rolls-Royce reflecting the class distinctions of their society. A
Lalique hood ornament being the only out of place element. A little too
romantic and passionate for their reserved manner, but it was art and
that cost money and required refinement for "proper" appreciation.
A gentleman's sports car was the Jaguar - pronounced "Jag-you-are" Then there were cars like the TR3 and MG TD. A look at the picture sums it up nicely.
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• Nov. 27, 2005 - Yes Virginia, hippies had cars too.
From
1964 until the mid 70's, there were an assortment of unusual cars that
came into my life. I think back on these as "hippie cars" They were
acquired as part of dope deals, abandonment, and other unorthodox means
and never really belonged to anyone in the sense of title, insurance,
etc. A major consideration was the amount of unexpired time on the
license. The first was a Saab Staion wagon with a 2-cycle engine. One
of those Saabs that you poured a quart of oil in the gas tank to make
2-cycle mix. I think it made about 8 trips from Ohio to San Francisco,
northern California and back. Then came a baby blue Nash Rambler 2-door
coupe, a 1954 Hudson Hornet and a 52 Buick Special. The Buick was dark
brown and called the "Roach" The Hudson had more room in the back seat
than any car ever, was green and, of course was called the "Green
Hornet. I also owned collectively a Volkswagon bus with 2 hinged doors
on both sides. The steering components were worn so bad that the wheels
would shake violently due to slack in the tie rods and every other part
subject to wear. All would be fine until a change in the road would put
the wheels in that zone. The only way to drive the thing was with
constant left or right pressure on the steering wheel or just get lucky
following the ridges in the road. Top speed - 55 mph. Of course we
drove it to California and back and then around local for several years
before it became a large garbage can for 3 months. In it's last days it
was a "motor home".
Somewhere in between all these cars was a
50-ish BMW motorcycle. A 500cc vertical single cylinder. Starsky once
said to Hutch, "It's not how fast a car is, it's how quick it is". The
Beemer was slow and slow. It ran 62 mph flat out. It lasted six years
with absolutely no maintainence at all! Hippies didn't seem to own
tools.
It's easy to see what this assortment of vehicles had in
common. They were 10+ years old when cars lasted five and were
undesirable in a pre energy crisis 70 mph interstate world. The little
Nash and Volvo were the epitome of automotive counter culture. The
Beemer's nickname was "stodgy" The Volkswagen van went to
California and back on the interstate and was passed by every other car
on the road. The Hudson was in that automotive limbo of being a car
that wasn't made anymore and the Buick - well it was Buick.
These
things became part of the lifestyle with constantly changing
affects. The Nash Rambler ended it's days covered with concert
posters from the Avalon and Fillmore Ballrooms. The Hudson's swan song
was a short stint as a demolition derby car since no one could get a
title for it.
I'm sure there are some aging hippies out
there involved in the "Art Car" scene. There's a parade in Houston. TX
every year with the strangest assortment of - well Google "art Cars".
 
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• Nov. 26, 2005 - 1961 Darlington, the Nationals, and homemade sin.
The summer of my high school graduation (1961) I went to my first real race -Darlington! We left Ashland, Kentucky on the Ohio river about 11:00 AM on a Saturday and were at the track late that night. I had a Chicago boxcar haircut, a pack of straight Camels rolled up in the sleeve of a white t-shirt, and Levis with a double cuff. We slept in the car and on the ground in the parking lot of the track. When we went in Sunday, we had two coolers full of Falstaff beer, bologna, cheese, and white bread. We drank all of the beer and ate all of the food. It was a lot different then - we sat on bleachers. We were all Junior Johnson and Chevrolet fans. He went like hell and , as usually happened with the 409 engine, blew up. That engine was a colossal mistake with it's wierd valve train geometry and failure prone everything else. Later the 396-427 tried to make up for it. There is really no way to describe the experience of seeing a superspeedway for the first time. Not only new to me but to thousands of other people too. A little later Nascar was propelled into the mass media by the live Saturday afternoon WideWorld of Sports broadcast featuring an all out brawl. It started with Cale Yarbrough and one the Allisons getting into it on the apron of turn three and four after spinning each other out. Bobbie Allison went all the way around the track and stopped right beside all of this. He unbuckled, got out, and joined in the melee. Peolpe talked about it for weeks. Nascar and TV.
In September, Butch Ackerman (a whole other story) and myself left about 6:00 PM and were in Indianapolis for the National Drags about midnight. We had a lot of our local beers - Falls City made in Huntington, West Virginia, Burger and Schoenling Little Kings from Cincinnati. We stayed up all night on truck stop speed and had a beer tasting with about 20-30 other people in the parking lot with all their local brews. We had Coors from Colorado, Rheingold, Rolling Rock and I don't remember after that. All the California cars that we had only read about in Hot Rod magazine were there in real life. Our local favorites were the Matney brothers in an A-Gas Chevrolet powered Anglia. I had a summer job in the same foundry where they worked in a dingy liitle town in the Ohio River Valley. They blew up real good as they say.
The other car that we absolutely loved was George Montgomery's '32 Willys coupe in A-Gas Supercharged. The big showdown was Montgomery against Stone, Woods and Cook from southern California in a '40 Willys A-Gasser. To us it was bigger than top fuel and all seemed right with the world when that little baby blue '32 Willys blew off those big time California boys. Good had triumphed over evil and all was right in God's universe.
Back to the Matney boys. Their car and everyone else's was homemade. Now you can buy everthing to make a hot hod and just bolt it together. We even made our suspension brackets and motor mounts.. They were cut from 1/4" steel plate - stolen from the foundry of course - using an acetylene torch., ground on a bench grinder, and oxy-acetylene welded to the frame. Hence the homemade sin.
There was an old dirt track racer from Ashland Kentucky named Charlie Schwartz. He never liked the nickname "Mad Dog" although it stuck with him for years "Just because I drove that car with the axle welded together" Another "Mad Dog" was named McGurk from Columbus,Ohio. He put a Chevrolet small block sideways in a Harley frame. At the old Raven Rock dragstrip near Portsmouth, Ohio, he was going through the timing traps at speed when the motorcyle suddenly went into the air in one direction and "Mad Dog" in the other. They both rolled a long way before stopping. "Mad Dog" walked over and kicked the bike. We thought he was dead for sure and just stood there with our mouths open.
Then my world changed as dramatically as Mad Dog's should have. In the nowhere world of Ohio University, I discovered drugs to go along with sex and rock and roll. It was time to be a hippy.
When I became aware of racing again there had been a sea change. There were professionals, foreign cars, and Rob Walker's writings on Formula One in Road and Track. To me there was an aesthetic element to the cars and romance in races with names like Monte Carlo and Spa. Nuvolari and Moss were of epic proportion. There is one photo of Jim Clark that says it all. Like he's face to face with death and not blinking; a hint of fear in his eyes.
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• Nov. 22, 2005 - Build a fire under it!
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My
first memory of cars is from the farm in Appalachia where I was born
and lived until I was age 6. In the winter it would go down to 0-20
below for about two weeks every year. In 1949, my
dad had a 1946 Chevrolet four door fastback. Often, on cold nights, he
would cover the car with a tarp. In the morning he would carry out a
pan of glowing coals from the stove we had for heat. He would lift up
the tarp and shove the pan under it. Then, after about half an hour,
the oil would warm to where the six volt battery could crank it over.
If that didn't work he would roll the car downhill and try to jump it.
Everybody knew to park facing downhill.
If you had a liitle
money, you could buy an electrical heating element from J.C. Whitney. A
110 volt cord stuck out through the grille. Twelve volt electrical
systems put an end to all that.
There were no repair shops or tow
trucks - no emergency road service. People were jacks of all trades and
masters of none. We were pulled up hills by tractors when the roads
turned to mud and once were pulled out of a ditch by a team of horses.
After about ten miles, you were "out on the hard top" as
paved roads were called. You were responsible for maintainence
from the county road to your house. Our road was about a 1/4 mile long
and ran along a hillside. It would "slip" at least once a year. The
county would park the grader by the end of the driveway for a day
because my dad was a school teacher.
But everyone knows this sort
of thing so what's the point? For me it is that people helped each
other and stopped for someone on the side of the road. So what again,
they all knew each other. But did they help because they knew each
other or know each other because they helped? People cooperated with
each other because it was necessary to survive. They still do today but
something is different. Our progress seduces us into an illusion of
self-sufficiency. The shattering of this illusion may come with
devastating consequences. Well maybe not - I'm spending more than the
annual income of a significant number of people on this planet for
cable and cell phone and I think it is because of some kind of natural
superiority.
Geez, I thought this was a car blog.
Any
way, in the late 80's we ran the SCCA Runoffs with a TransAM/GT-1
Camaro. They were at Road Atlanta in October. It would be 40 degrees
before the first session at 8:00 AM. Before we left from Texas, we put
a heating element in the dry sump tank to warm up the 50 wt.oil. At
7:00 AM, we covered the tires and wheels with a tarp and pointed a
portable jet type heater under it. We hit the track with 200 degree oil
and tires. Now the big buck boys have electric blankets to wrap around
the tires and dry ice coolers for their qualifying fuel. Now that's a
real fancy J.C. Whitney oil heater.
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