Old Enough To Remember?

bdalameda said:
As my father used to tell me back in the 1970s - "Mark my words, gasoline will someday cost $1.00 a gallon."
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I remember - and used to remind him of it often - jokingly - when my dad said -

"If gas gets to a dollar a gallon, I'll just quit driving"

Odie1
 
I remember looking into a computer career in 1984 as a way to get out of being a tin basher, McKay Computer College, monochrome screen, other class mates that I could relate to over a beer, wearing a polyester shirt, sitting in an office with attractive girls ... alright there were no attractive girls
What a drag, I know some of them got rich but I'm glad I chose to become the world's greatest refrigeration mechanic
No regrets
 
dwalby said:
The muscle cars of the late '60s were running compression ratios in the 10-11 range IIRC, which was high at the time, but pretty unimpressive by today's standards. I'm no expert, but I think the difference was the flow efficiency of their cylinder heads was pathetic compared to today's technology so they needed that kind of octane to avoid pre-detonation. And, since I never owned one of those cars, it may be that they ran OK on lower octane, but ran better on the higher octane.
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Variable Valve Timing and computer controlled ignitions help keep detonation in check as well. Even todays turbo cars can have a compression ratio of 10:1 and more. You would need a little monkey under hood to turn the distributer under different loads and rev ranges back then I would think. ;)
 
diferg said:
Don't forget the all-important:rofl1: extended shackels on the rear leaf springs and over sized tires! those would add at least 50 hp!
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I used to have a 57 Chevy 2 door hardtop with all of those!
And Gabriel Highjacker air shocks, Muncie 4 speed, Hurst 'mystery' shifter, and Hush Thrush cans hooked up to my Hooker headers with a Crane Fireball cam add for good measure not to mention Accel Oil coil on the firewall with Accel dual point distributor, Edelbrock highrise and a Holley 650 CFM dual pumper! ;)
 
Uncle Phil said:
I used to have a 57 Chevy 2 door hardtop with all of those!
And Gabriel Highjacker air shocks, Muncie 4 speed, Hurst 'mystery' shifter, and Hush Thrush cans hooked up to my Hooker headers with a Crane Fireball cam add for good measure not to mention Accel Oil coil on the firewall with Accel dual point distributor, Edelbrock highrise and a Holley 650 CFM dual pumper! ;)
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To the latest generation this probable sounds similar to what I hear when my granddaughter orders a cup of coffee at Starbucks!!
Venti iced americano 5 shots decaf with almond milk, extra ice, 8 honey, 7 matcha, double blended, double cupped, and split into three tall cups (x3)
 
Uncle Phil said:
I used to have a 57 Chevy 2 door hardtop with all of those!
And Gabriel Highjacker air shocks, Muncie 4 speed, Hurst 'mystery' shifter, and Hush Thrush cans hooked up to my Hooker headers with a Crane Fireball cam add for good measure not to mention Accel Oil coil on the firewall with Accel dual point distributor, Edelbrock highrise and a Holley 650 CFM dual pumper! ;)
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WoW you must have ruled the strip and drive in! I am jealous!
 
diferg said:
WoW you must have ruled the strip and drive in! I am jealous!
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She even had black spoke mag wheels and a black crinkle naugahyde interior including headliner!
And I had upgraded the windshield wipers from vacuum to electric. ;)
She was fire engine red with black inserts on the fenders.

PED 57 Chevy.jpg
 
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Uncle Phil said:
I used to have a 57 Chevy 2 door hardtop with all of those!
And Gabriel Highjacker air shocks, Muncie 4 speed, Hurst 'mystery' shifter, and Hush Thrush cans hooked up to my Hooker headers with a Crane Fireball cam add for good measure not to mention Accel Oil coil on the firewall with Accel dual point distributor, Edelbrock highrise and a Holley 650 CFM dual pumper!
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Uncle Phil said:
That's the reason you had your heads ported and polished, duel point ignitions, high rise intake manifolds, headers, high CFM carbs with dual pumps ...
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And with all that you probably still were not able to run more than somewhere around mid thirties total degrees of ignition timing advance at best.

Mr. Niceguy said:
Variable Valve Timing and computer controlled ignitions help keep detonation in check as well. Even todays turbo cars can have a compression ratio of 10:1 and more. You would need a little monkey under hood to turn the distributer under different loads and rev ranges back then I would think.
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Because of the above modern technology sedate passenger sedans now run with ignition timing advance in to the fifties using methods that control combustion and pre-ignition that were just not possible back then.
 
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Andrew Shadow said:
And with all that you would probably still were not be able to run more than somewhere around mid thirties total degrees of ignition timing advance at best.


Because of the above modern technology sedate passenger sedans now run with ignition timing advance in to the fifties using methods that control combustion and pre-ignition that were just not possible back then.
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Well, she was still pretty quick ... ;)
 
Uncle Phil said:
Well, she was still pretty quick ... ;)
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They sure were. I wish I had been smart enough to keep some of them. I wasn't disparaging those old cars as much I was musing about realizing as much of their potential as what is possible now.

I used to build and run high performance cars, things like 426 Hemi, 440 Six-Pack, 429 Cobra, Pontiac 455 HD, etc., mostly big block muscle era cars. If it was possible back then to realize anywhere near as close to the level of combustion efficiency that is achieved now it would have resulted in staggering levels of power produced from those big blocks. As inefficient as those engines were they still produced so much power that getting traction was always a major struggle with every build.
 
I'm old enough to remember :thumb: Tempo Standard 150 cc (and I'm sitting on the bike) this was fun and the start on two wheels, with a pedal bike to the gas station to get gas in a can to drive. At that time you chose the percentage (4 %) for oil mixture at the gas pump and the liter price was USD 0.14 :inlove:

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Andrew Shadow said:
They sure were. I wish I had been smart enough to keep some of them. I wasn't disparaging those old cars as much I was musing about realizing as much of their potential as what is possible now.

I used to build and run high performance cars, things like 426 Hemi, 440 Six-Pack, 429 Cobra, Pontiac 455 HD, etc., mostly big block muscle era cars. If it was possible back then to realize anywhere near as close to the level of combustion efficiency that is achieved now it would have resulted in staggering levels of power produced from those big blocks. As inefficient as those engines were they still produced so much power that getting traction was always a major struggle with every build.
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I had a friend with a 55 Chevy he had built - it would actually do wheelies if he kicked it hard!
Another friend had one of the original Z28s with a 4:11 rear end - not much top end but an incredible take off.
The strange thing I ran into with GM big blocks (or rat engines) was that you never knew if it would be a good one or not.
Good ones were really good and bad ones cratered pretty quickly.
I had a 72 Monte Carlo with a 454 in it and I believe you could burn a set of rear tires right off if you stomped it hard.
It took a long time to 'hook up' while the rear rubber was burning off ... :biggrin:
 
Uncle Phil said:
It took a long time to 'hook up' while the rear rubber was burning off ... :biggrin:
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The vision us Europeans have about those rigs...

what happens when the light turns green? :unsure:
Nothing... except white smoke passing you... ;)

Methinks I'd look good in one of these:

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what a "cathedral"... wonderfully unreasonable... :cool:
 
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