Doing more thinking

Still thinking about the LS powered A/Mod car, so you can get back out from under whatever it was you got under when you read I was thinking again. I was also thinking about making the Sprint-T less expensive by retaining the stock water pump while just using an alternator, instead of installing an electric water pump and just sticking the alternator on the right side of the engine.

The difficulty lies in that the stock water pump is designed to be driven opposite engine rotation with the back side of the serpentine belt. Now for the Sprint-T the problem is that puts the alternator to the left side of the engine where other things want to be. For the A/Mod car this puts the alternator where the driver’s legs want to be. For the Sprint-T this can be overcome by not putting the stuff where the alternator needs to go to drive the waterpump in the correct direction. I’m not sure how to fix the problem for the A/Mod car because the interfering components can’t be relocated away from each other, there are limited options for the alternator and for the driver’s legs. The front of the engine will be about just below the knee which if this engine didn’t have the exhaust going over the driver’s legs the solution would be to have the driver in a knees up position. That puts the driver’s knees in the middle of the exhaust header, which is another unworkable design. Moving the engine forward or the driver back have other problems, like bad balance if the engine is moved forward and hitting the rear axle for moving the driver back.

OK I just got finished watching the NASCAR Gander Truck series and the Indycar series from Gateway, and while I was watching the Indycar race the solution to the alternator problem on the A/Mod car just jumped out at me: if the driver is obstructed on the left side of the engine swap the driver and engine sides and put the driver to the right. It’s so simple, which was probably why I didn’t see it at first. There are no rules about driver position left to right, just that the driver’s feet have to be behind the centerline of the front axle and ahead of the centerline of the rear axle. I can hang the driver outside the wheels in an armored pod like on a Indycar design by Smokey Yunick if I can get it to balance. But this time all I need is to put the driver on the right like I was making a UK road car. The driver’s feet can be in front of the engine without having any issues with the alternator. Now if I had an unlimited budget I would put the electric water pump on it and stick the alternator on the right and the driver on the left like my original vision for the car, but driver right and saving $$ will work, too. I also took some measurements and the left side alternator will clear all the parts I was concerned about clearing for the Sprint-T.

Another thing: at 0119 Monday (tomorrow as I compose this) it will be exactly 19 years since Some Asshole driving a pickup truck tried to kill me for the “crime” of riding my bike on the same street he was driving on in the opposite direction I was riding. He had to drive down to someplace he could cross the median separating the two directions of travel so he could be on the same side of the street and hit me from behind, or he could have just ignored me like I ignored his outburst to “Get off the F***ing road!” and lived whatever kind of life he would have lived. Instead he hit me and then less than 2 years later he died in a single vehicle DUI wreck with either a tree or a telephone pole depending on who’s story you want to believe. I want to believe in Dharma (which is kinda like Karma, but it bites your ass in this life instead of the next), but I also want to believe in a criminal justice system that puts people like that in prison, but they probably were never even looking for him. His dying from a DUI is probably the most “justice” I could expect to get. So anywho, to celebrate the fact that I survived someone trying to kill me, tomorrow we are having brownies and ice cream, and next year to celebrate 20 years [Monty Python]”I’m not dead yet!”[/Monty Python] Mrs. the Poet wants to throw a proper party that we couldn’t this year because COVID and because next year will be two decades, a full 20 years “not dead”. As I explained to Mrs. the Poet, the celebration is not because I died, it’s because I didn’t stay dead. Here’s to another 20 years of “not dead”.

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I earned some crypto today

Now I have to find the exchange rate for Sweatcoin to $. If I’m reading the app right at my current level of membership I made about $0.30 walking to the store and can’t collect the additional $0.18 I earned until tomorrow unless I upgrade my membership. But since I don’t walk 2 miles every day I can just collect my $0.30 and roll with it. I will still collect all the Sweatcoins I earn, just not on the same day as I earn them. As I was saying to Mrs. the Poet, this is still $0.30 a day more than I had before for just doing what I naturally do, walking to and from places and bus stops. $0.30 a day comes to $109.50 a year, just for living my life and keeping my phone charged and with me as I do my thing outside. That’s similar to what I have been making on the one side gig I have a NDA for. I get $100 about every 18 months from that gig. Anywho I earned 8 sweatcoins out walking and I can collect 5 per day, and the current exchange rate is $0.06/coin but it fluctuates rapidly between 0.06 and 0.05 during the day.

I’m not going to be buying many Pentastars with Sweatcoins this year, but I will figure it out somehow. I’m thinking that if I take advantage of the short length of the Pentastar and mount it a bit forward of the rear of the block flush with the firewall I will be fighting for footroom with the transmission instead of the bellhousing which will free up another inch or so of space between the inside of the body and the mechanicals for my feet. If I imitate the installation from the forum article of myduster360 linked yesterday I get even more space, but I would need it because this is for a manual transmission installation and I would need a clutch pedal. This might leave enough room to actually install a clutch pedal in the Sprint-T. I have been looking at pedal units from OBP but I’m still worried about having enough lateral room to mount the unit. The spec sheet lists total width at 245 mm (9.65″) which will be jammed right up against the inside wall on the left and the transmission tunnel to the right if as they say in the UK I got my sums right . I need the DBW throttle pedal to match the DBW throttle body on the engines.

Getting back to Sweatcoin for a min, with the 5 coin max and about 4 coins a mile if I can plot a mile and a quarter loop I can max out in about 40 minutes taking it easy. It depends on how much gets loaded up tomorrow.