My book finally got here yesterday. Hundreds of pages about fuel injection… for other kinds of car than the donor vehicle for the Thunderbolt Grease Slapper 2. For the make of the donor vehicle it had 3 pages, none of which applied to the year my car was made. So basically I spent $9 and a week of waiting for some interesting light reading and a bunch of stuff I already had elsewhere (on my computer).
I think the local library will be getting a donation.
Something I have been looking at very hard lately is the Holley HydraMat fuel pickup and pre-filter for fuel injection systems. What it amounts to is my car will never run out of gas as long as there is gas still in the tank. Also the pre-filter on the donor vehicle is basically a screen to keep large debris out of the pump, while the latest permutation of the HydraMat is a 30 micron filter that is way better than the 100 micron post-filter on the donor vehicle. So in theory I could install a HydraMat and just plumb from the pump directly to the injectors without additional filtration. I won’t of course, because the pump could break down sending junk down the line to the injectors, but I could if all I was concerned about was the gas in the tank. Now there is the competing parameters of maximum size to allow minimum fuel for racing and minimum cost. The cheapest one is the 8″ X 3″ that for this application would mean I could get maximum fuel endurance on the highway between fill ups. If I was running a tiny tank like a 3 gallon this would make sense. Even the 10 gallon tank could use this, but for anything larger than that it doesn’t make sense. For the larger tanks the mat acts as an extended pickup to allow racing with just enough gas for the course, so it has to be large enough to catch most of the fuel slosh. The largest mat that fits the tank I have selected is the 24″ X 15″, and the cheapest that will work is the 15″ cross. How this is good is I can use a large gas tank/fuel cell for getting there, offload almost all the gas to another container when I get to the race and only have enough gas to complete the run in the car while I race, further reducing the racing weight of the car without the bother and expense of multiple tanks/cells and support systems, or finding a place to put them.
On other parts I just found out the smallest adult-length seat I can buy is gonna be too big for my backside. I think I mentioned a long time ago I did some width measurements to see about buying a streamlined shell for the Stratus and basically the only way I would fit would be removing an arm or two to make my shoulders narrower. Well I also measured my butt width, and to fit the 14.5″ wide seat on my build list I’m going to have to fill 3/4” on either side of my butt with firm foam of some kind. I think maybe the seat insert kit will fill the gap? It may have to because smaller seats are pricy and will still need the insert kit for things like back support. Although it would be nice to not have to buy the insert kit, the fact that selling the car will become necessary at some time means a removable insert to fit me can be removed for a prospective buyer to see if he or she fits. Otherwise a new seat at $300-500 for a home-built car could be a deal-breaker. I know the seat I had in my last car was too tight for most people but gave me a lot of wiggle room on long trips.
And it’s getting late and I still need to take my walk so I’ll see you later dudes.
Witch on a Bicycle 