#this all stems from my latest listen to full speed ahead

[el-255]

One thing I like in full speed ahead is that we’re given a very insightful view of the dynamic between Odysseus, Eurylochus, and Polites right off the bat. Eurylochus is the more no nonsense right hand man who is willing to do whatever it takes for all 600 men to make it home to Ithica whereas Polites is more the moral compass who keeps Odysseus and the crew’s values in check.

What’s interesting to me is that we’re sort of fed the comparison of the angel and devil on Odysseus’s shoulder but the question is, who’s who?

Most people would instinctively say that of course it’s Eurylochus who is the devil and Polites the angel. Eurylochus is immediately willing to raid the island despite being unaware of whether the people on the island are innocent or not whereas Polites wants to try and resolve things peacefully and barter with the people for food.

But the thing is, I think both have the capacity to be the angel and devil in this scenario.

Yes, Eurylochus is often willing to take the violent route but he is also a man who has been at war for 10 years and knows the price that must be paid. No, the things he does aren’t morally right but when we think of how far he would go to protect the men he has known and have likely become family to him over 10 years, would any of the men think him wrong for doing his best to look out for them even if it meant harming others?

Yes, Polities is doing his best to try and reserve the last dredges of their humanity after spending 10 years fighting and killing in the war but oftentimes it is his naivety that gets them into trouble. No, he doesn’t mean for this to happen, everything he does comes from a well meaning place with his attempts to find peaceful solutions to make it home but would the crew who lose their life to the cyclops and later to Poseidon appreciate his efforts?

In this situation dealing with the aftermath of a horrific war, they’re both right and justified in what they’re doing which is what makes their characters so endearing and interesting. Neither of them are to blame for their differing ideologies and both do their best to protect the crew and Odysseus.

Because, of course, at the end of the day, it is all down to Odysseus to make the final decisions as the captain but he values both of their opinions greatly, Eurylochus as his second in command, and Polities as his closest friend, which means he ends up listening to them more often than not.

Odysseus is a perfect mix of the both of them at the beginning of the musical, both rational and merciful as he has both of their counsels at his disposal, but it is this exact thing that leads to his downfall: he needs both of them to maintain his status as a good captain which is why it all goes to shit when he leans too heavily on either side. It’s his guilt over the death of the infant that leads to him utilising Polities’ ideology and getting into the whole debacle with the cyclops. And after Polities demise, he is left with only Eurylochus to guide him which leads to his descent to monster and losing the trust of his men.

Without this balance between two greatly contrasting perspectives and ideologies, Odysseus is unable to use either without causing great damage to his crew and himself. Whether Polites is the angel and Eurylochus the devil and vice versa, this is what eventually leads to the mutiny of the crew and demonstrates why it is only Odysseus who makes it home.

[itsworn]

Ask Anything, Car Craft Readers Questions Get Answered

Pat from carcraft.com: Hey Guys I’m a long time subscriber to CC and have a question; How does an Audi R8 engine at 318 cubic inches with no turbo and no supercharger put out 610 horse power? At over 8000 rpm!

Steve Magnante: I’m with you on marveling at how the Audi R8’s naturally aspirated, 318 cube V10 cranks out so much power. And lets’ not forget the recent (2013-2015) Porsche 918 e-Hybrid Spyder. It’s direct-injection, gasoline fueled 4.6 liter V8 makes 608 horsepower without the aid of turbo or superchargers. But Porsche didn’t leave it at that. As Porsche’s first e-hybrid supercar, its 608 horse V8 is supplemented by a pair of electric motors that deliver an extra 125 horsepower to the front wheels and 154 horsepower to the rear wheels for a grand total of 887.

As groovy as that is, I know I’ll never own one and get a giggle out of the fact a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon would likely put a bumper on the German vengeance weapon in the quarter mile. Magazine tests say the 918 cranks 0-60 in 2.6 and the ¼ in 10-flat at 145. By contrast, the NHRA itself has verified that the Demon runs 0-60 in 2.3 and can rip 9.8’s at 140…nee-ner, nee-ner.

Back to naturally aspirated highlights, here in the States, lets’ not forget the amazing and affordable performance offered by the 2006-2013 General Motors LS7. Ranking high in many “world’s best engines” polls, this naturally aspirated wonder mill cranks 505 hp and 470-lb/ft with traditional push rod architecture (as does the Demon’s Hemi). Best of all, GM took the bull by the horns and blessed it with titanium intake valves and connecting rods – pure exotica by traditional Car Crafter standards. The LS7’s key accomplishment is how it reminded the world that the elegant simplicity of push rods and cam-in-block architecture is still fully viable at the top level of performance.

There are many other examples of new age naturally aspirated gas V8’s and V10’s that set new standards of power and efficiency. Today, extreme horsepower levels are available from every carmaker…even Hyundai. If nothing else, American carmakers were way ahead of the curve in recognizing the fact that fast cars sell better than slow cars – as far back as 1932 when Henry Ford launched the everyman’s V8, the flat head.

The kicker is how technology has allowed these fast cars to be more fuel efficient and emissions friendly than ever before. We can now have our cake and…you know the rest. I’m no Audi expert, the first two Audi memories that pop to my mind are a 1971 Audi 100 LS four-door sedan owned by the parents of a would-be high school crush. Built long before Audi discovered all-wheel-drive, Shannon’s Dad bought the front-wheel-drive car used and learned the hard way about how costly Audi repair and maintenance could be. Over and over, the welded flange mating the head pipe to the exhaust manifold fractured.

The resulting unchecked exhaust flow not only ruined the Audi’s luxurious pretensions, it also turned the cabin into a gas chamber on cold nights. I tried to win points by telling sweet Shannon’s parents that an aftermarket header would solve the recurring head pipe failure. But they sold the car after the third head pipe broke and rendered it an ear-splitting nuisance. There would be no header…and no date with Shannon.

My other Audi memory stems from the Group B Sport Quattro of the mid-1980’s. In 1985 I spent a semester at the University of Stirling in Scotland and filled my head with British car magazines that raved about its 306 horsepower inline five and all-wheel-drive. Another eye opener was how Audi factory driver Walter Rohrl dominated the rally scene with those amazing altered-wheelbase monsters. Altered wheelbase? Yep. But unlike Chrysler’s axle shuffling A/FX tricks of 1965 for enhanced drag strip traction, Audi’s hack job (a full 12.6 inches of floor pan and body were removed from behind the front bucket seats) was done to make the cars tighter around corners on the European rally circuit.

Only 224 of these stubby critters were built in 1983-’84 and at 86.8 inches, their wheelbase is shorter than a Shelby Cobra! With a single turbocharger, the Sport Quattro’s SOHC five-banger cranked out 306 horsepower, but was ready for 600 with basic tuning. Since this isn’t Audi Craft magazine, lets’ get back to the cutting edge engine design that allows the modern R8 to make 610 horsepower naturally aspirated.

Zeroing in on the 318 cube Audi R8 mill you reference, its’ a far, far cry from Mopar’s polyspherical A-series (1957-1966) and small block LA series (1967-up) V8 engines familiar to most Car Craft readers. The amazing feat is how it survives 8,000 rpm despite its long V10 architecture. But at the root of things are tried and true hot rodding practices to maximize air flow, minimize friction and make it all live for a hundred thousand miles – or more.

Truth be told, more and more bread and butter engines are reaching efficiency levels once reserved for all out race machinery. Computer aided design, net-shape casting technology, anti-friction coatings, direct injection, exotic alloys and low viscosity lubricants are just a few of the many advances behind this amazing new breed of power plant. Get ‘em while they’re hotter than hot!

If it has a back seat and non-flared wheel arches, it ain’t a Sport Quattro. The “Sport” part of the name denoted Group B rock star status. Today these stubby critters command hundreds of thousands on the collector scene.

Choke Hold

Dan Coates via Car Craft.com: This may sound naive, but exactly why is a carburetor choke necessary? I know the choke causes a richer mixture to enter the combustion chambers, but why? My stock 351 Cleveland 1973 Mustang runs fine after heating up after the butterfly valve opens up. Why can’t it run fine with the same leaner mixture on a cold engine? Why does temperature difference make the choke necessary?

Steve Magnante: Your question is not as naïve as you think. All of us know that, to start a cold engine, you need to use some type of mixture enrichment device. In the day of the carburetor, most cars used a device called a choke. As you’ve pointed out, a choke is a butterfly-type device which limits the amount of incoming air, effectively increasing the fuel strength of the incoming mixture. Other types of carburetors, like side draft Weber and S.U. carburetors, didn’t use choke butterflies, but instead provide a mixture-enhancement circuit which accomplished the same end by adding more fuel to the normal amount of air.

With the advent of modern electronic fuel injection, the cold enrichment function is typically handled by an auxiliary fuel injector (like on the GM 305 and 350 Tuned Port mills) or via computer programming to add extra injector duty cycle when the engine is cold.

Now to the main question: Why does this have to be done? To burn correctly, a certain weight of gasoline must mix with a certain weight of air. The stoichiometric (chemically correct) ratio of air to fuel is 14.6:1 under most conditions. Ratios with less air and more fuel are referred to as richer mixtures; conversely, ratios with more air and less fuel are referred to as leaner. In order for your engine to actually burn the fuel, it must be in the form of a vapor mixed with the incoming air.

On a chilly morning, when the fuel, air, and engine are all cold, the fuel does not vaporize readily. In order to get a mixture which has a fuel vapor-to-air ratio which is stoichiometrically correct, it may be necessary to add as much as double the raw fuel to reach the normal effective mixture strength.

I once owned a Max Wedge Dodge (clone) that had a hand-operated choke-pull cable under the dash. The single choke cable branched out to each of the 750 cfm Carter AFB’s and on the coldest mornings, with the choke flaps fully closed, the idle exhaust plume was stinky rich. Not a good recipe for preserving oil viscosity and preventing gas-washed bores and rings. But after a few days, I learned how to use just the bare minimum of choke closure and gentle accelerator movement. Within five miles, I could open the choke entirely. The 1969-’70 Boss 429 Mustang was another manual-choke muscle car.

After a certain period of time, the heat generated by combustion spreads to the intake manifold and fuel system, reducing the need for supplementary fuel enrichment by improving the fuel’s ability to vaporize. When the engine is up to full operating temperature, there is no longer any need for supplementary fuel enrichment, and the systems are turned off – either manually or via a heat-sensitive bi-metallic spring assembly – like on your Mustang’s Autolite carburetor.

In fact, once an engine is up to full operating temperature and running under low speed or cruising type conditions, its mixture may be made even leaner than normal. On virtually all of today’s EFI equipped cars, sophisticated temperature and load-sensing devices constantly ensure that the engine is running as lean as possible for the given set of operating circumstances. When operating properly, this provides low exhaust emissions and optimum fuel economy. And so, that’s the story on cold start fuel enrichment.

Heartbroken

Steve Magnante: Car Crafters love rock and roll music just as much as we love our cars and fun trucks. Except for the short list of top-tier freak mobiles I’ve built and owned (denoted by the presence of a carefully selected factory radio delete plate and no sound system beyond the exhaust headers), my cars – and workshop – witness plenty of loud music, much of it performed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

So please indulge me for a moment to remember Tom Petty, who passed away in October, 2017. Beyond many hours of listening to his down to earth vocals and blazing guitar work, Petty played part in that rite of passage we all experience if we’re lucky: our first rock concert. For me, it was the summer of 1982 and the Heartbreakers’ latest album “Hard Promises” was churning out hit after hit. And so, aboard a buddy’s first-year 1978 Saab 99 Turbo, we drove to the show at the Cape Cod Coliseum in Massachusetts. That’s where we learned the value of the 1978 Turbo’s one-year-only alloy rims and how the rectangular cooling slots work great as bottle cap removers.

The opening act was one-hit-wonder Tommy Tutone, who played “867-5309 Angel” twice before Petty took the stage. Funny thing, my home town of West Brookfield (MA) actually used the telephone exchange number “867”, and still does today. This song was all too real for some poor sucker as pranksters by the thousands called asking for Jenny.

With Tommy Tutone’s opening set out of the way, Petty took the stage but seemed to be in a lousy mood. He said the crowd was pushing in too close to the edge of the stage and yelled at them to back off. Then again just a year before, in December of 1981 a stampeding crowd at a Who concert in Chicago led to tragedy. Crowd safety was a big concern at concerts thereafter. But after Petty walked off stage for the third time, the band stayed on stage and kept playing. It was clear The Star was having a moment and the Heartbreakers weren’t in the mood to go along with it.

The rest of the show was a blur, after all its’ been 35 years. While some concertgoers might have been upset by Petty’s temper (I think they only completed 9 or 10 songs), I thought it was cool and treasure the fact my first concert was a Heartbreakers show. Okay, now for an embarrassing – and automotive – confession I need to make.

One of Petty’s more famous songs is “American Girl”. When I first heard it on the radio around 1977, the lyric that reads “She could hear the cars roll by…Out on 441…Like waves crashin’ on the beach”, my teenaged ears heard: “That ‘ol 440 was like waves crashing on the beach”. Yep, I thought for sure Petty was making a Mopar 440 Magnum reference right there on American radio. To me, it was an awesome pushback against the disco wave that was in full effect. – and in the middle of the disco era no less. I have to admit, I’ve held onto that wished-for 440 reference until…now. In researching Petty’s discography to help nail down exact dates for this report, I researched the actual lyrics and there’s nothing Mopar about them. Still a great song though! Rest in Peace Tom Petty!

To Barrel or Not To Be…

Don Nelson via Car Craft.com: I recently inherited a 1960 Lincoln Continental and don’t know what to do with it. Though it sat in my grandpa’s garage for over 20 years, it hasn’t moved or been started in decades. My question is this: when I removed the air cleaner to see about getting the engine fired up I was blown away to see a two-barrel carburetor. Books tell me the V8 is a 430 but I just can’t believe that two-barrel is factory stock. Is it?

Steve Magnante: Your eyes do not deceive you, if it hasn’t been replaced over the years, there ought to be a Carter ABD two-barrel carburetor atop that cast iron intake manifold. Rated at 315 horsepower, the 1960 Lincoln 430 marked a switch from the Carter AFB four-barrel carburetor Lincoln used in 1959. That engine – also a 430 – was rated 350 horsepower. Moving back a year, 1958 marked the debut of the Lincoln 430 V8 engine under discussion and – go figure – for this one year it was equipped with a single Holley 4150 series four-barrel carburetor. Output was 375 horsepower and it was Lincoln’s highest (gross, not net…big difference!) rating up to that point. But it’s true, as Lincoln closed out the “fabulous fifties”, power dropped from 375 to 350 to 315 from 1958 to 1960.

About your 430 V8, as I’ve pointed out in this column before, it was all new for 1958 with 4.29 x 3.70 inch bore and stroke dimensions and served Lincoln through 1965. In ’66 bore and stroke grew to 4.38 x 3.83 inches, bringing displacement to 462 where it was used into the 1968 model run. As a “Heron” type engine, the 430 / 462 V8 has no combustion chamber voids cast into its cylinder heads (like the Chevy 348 / 409 and International Harvester 266 / 392 V8). Rather, the top ends of the cylinder bores are shaped to create a wedge-shaped area at piston TDC that forms the combustion chamber.

Getting back to the seemingly odd choice of a two-barrel carburetor atop such a huge V8 engine, in 1958-’59 power seekers were offered no fewer than three two-barrel carbs when the “J-code”, 3×2 400 horsepower option was chosen. Here, Lincoln replaced the single Carter 2-bbl with a trio of Holley 2300 series two-barrel carburetors, of the same family used later on 1967-’69 427 Tri-Power Corvettes and 1969 – ’72 Mopar 440 Six Pack muscle cars (yes, a handful of 440 Six Packs were built in 1972). This six-barrel 430 was also offered in the 1958 – ‘59 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.

Helping to explain Lincoln’s horsepower freefall, the 1960 models arrived at a sobering time. The U.S. economy had been soft since 1958, sales of miserly compact cars like the Rambler American and Studebaker Lark were setting records and the new breed of Detroit compacts (Corvair, Valiant, Falcon) loomed. The first marketplace backlash against “gas guzzlers” was in play. Amid the turmoil, Lincoln stylists had taken wacky space race body designs to the extreme – and John Q. Public wasn’t biting.

To appeal to the public “thirst” for improved fuel economy, Lincoln engineering teams concentrated on low end torque and installed these two-barrel carburetors on all 430 engines right through 1962 when increasing curb weights triggered the return of a modest four-barrel carburetor. Interestingly, throughout all of this, every Lincoln built through the mid-seventies retained a full length dual exhaust system, a detail otherwise rarely coupled with a two-barrel carburetor.

Over at Lincoln’s nemesis – Cadillac – the new decade marked a similar refocus on understated luxury. Tail fins were shrinking and once-legendary hardware like the triple-two-barrel Eldorado engine option was cancelled after 1960. From then on, the same 325 horsepower 390 V8, inhaling through a single four-barrel carburetor went under all hoods through 1963 regardless of model. And speaking of singular, after 1961 dual exhaust, a key Caddy symbol of power, was eliminated. I’ve mentioned it here before but if you find any 1961-up, pre-EFI Cadillac with a dual exhaust system, it was definitely not put there by the factory. Yup, even the 1970 Eldorado with it’s one-year 10:1 compression 500-cuber was a single exhaust affair. How it delivered an advertised 400 horsepower is anyone’s guess (it didn’t but there was torque aplenty so nobody complained).

At Chrysler, the 1959 – 1960 timeframe delivered another big block / two-barrel oddity. After a solid eight year run, in 1959 the Chrysler Fire Power Hemi engine program came to an end and the wedge era began. Simply put, the complexity of its double rocker shaft architecture and heft of its hemispherical combustion chambers proved to be expensive overkill. The more conventional LB-series wedge-type V8 arrived in 1958 at 350 and 361 cubic inches. For 1959 Chrysler increased the wedge’s stroke from 3.375 to 3.750 and the RB (raised LB) was born. From the start, the LB series was offered with a single two-barrel carburetor on economy models but also with single four-barrel, dual four-barrel and even ram-inducted dual four-barrel induction (1960-’61) for police, towing and factory high performance models like the Plymouth Fury, Dodge D500 and DeSoto Adventurer.

Thanks to the extra stroke, the 1959 RB grew to 413 cubic inches and then to 426 (1963) and 440 (1966) and saw duty in everything from Imperial limousines to Max Wedge super stockers. But for 1959 and 1960, certain Chrysler Corp. models were fitted with an odd 383 cube version of the RB block. With its 4.03 x 3.75-inch bore and stroke, the tall deck 383 was a smaller bore (by 0.220 inch), longer stroke (by 0.375 inches) alternate to the conventional low deck 383 which employed 4.250 x 3.375 inch interior dimensions.

When we remember that the LB and RB intake manifolds are not interchangeable due to the RB’s taller block and greater distance between heads, then it pays to be on the lookout for 1959 and ’60 Chrysler Windsors with the base 383 V8. Find one and you’ve got the only instance where Chrysler put a single two-barrel carburetor on an RB wedge engine. Don’t bother with 1959 – ’60 Chrysler Saratoga’s because their tall deck 383’s share the same cast iron single four-barrel intake manifold as any RB 413. But if its weird you seek, then the RB two-barrel intake manifold is your goal.

Other head scratching big block / two-barrel matchups include Chevrolet’s penchant for topping certain 396 “rat motors” with Rochester two barrel jugs. Never installed in SS or similar performance-oriented machinery, these mills were once fairly common in station wagons and family sedans. Most were yanked, hopped up and live on today in hot rods of every description. But the single two-barrel anti-sheen never rubbed off onto the 427 or 454, a good thing that helps these legendary power plants remain untarnished by hum-drum reality. On the other side of the coin, the GM W-series (348 / 409) stands as one of the very few Detroit V8 families that was never offered with a single two-barrel carburetor. Triple two-barrels, yes (348 only), but never just a single two-barrel. Cheers all around!

Ford committed another big block carburetor crime with the 1969-‘70 429 Thunder-Jet. Based on the canted-valve 385 / Lima engine series, this (supposed) 320 hp 429 was the polar opposite of the same-year Boss 429. The Thunder-Jet and its’ small Motorcraft two-barrel carburetor were strictly installed in full size Fords and carry engine code K in the VIN’s fifth spot. Happily, iconic Ford bent-eights of the 406, 427, 428 and 460 varieties never inhaled through anything less than four-barrels (often eight on the 427).

Going back to GM, when the 455 cubic inch-a-thon hit in 1970, Oldsmobile was the only division to embrace two-barrel induction. Though fairly popular on station wagons and family cars, the Cutlass Supreme SX was very unique in that – like the 4-4-2, 7.5 liters of torque were standard. But…fuel misers could opt for the L32 455 two-barrel carburetor if they pleased. Pushing back into the mid-sixties, the new-for-1965 Olds 425 was offered with single two-barrel induction in full size Jetstar, Delta and Dynamic 88 models. While the hopped up 400’s packed into same year 4-4-2’s cranked 345 / 350 horsepower, the emasculated 425 two-barrel was good for 300 (310 with automatic). But no doubt the torque offset the slide.

By contrast, Pontiac never offered its big 421 or 455 with a two-throat jug, though from 1967 through 1969, GTO buyers wanting more of a pussy cat than a tiger could go for the “step down” credit option. This tamed the Goat’s 400 with a milder cam and…you guessed it…a single Rochester two-barrel carburetor delivering 255 (1967) or 265 horsepower through 1969, after which the step-down stepped aside for good. Keeping the image intact, these step-down GTO’s retained dual exhaust, hood scoops (faux) and the rest of the usual GTO dress up goodies.

Finally, we have Buick and AMC. Though it is known that AMC never besmirched its top-tier 390 or 401 V8’s with two-barrel carburetion, I’ve read that some Buick 455’s built toward the end of the engines’ life finally got two-barrel induction instead of the Rochester Q-Jet used since 1966. I’ve scrounged plenty of junkyards but have yet to actually see a 455 two-barrel.

So there it is Don. I hope this little roundup of factory-issue big engine / small carburetor combinations sheds new light on your inherited Lincoln. As you know, the vast amount of chrome on these cars can break the bank if its’ in need of re-plating. Assuming yours is complete and free from structural rust, why not simply clean it up, revive the mechanicals and drive it? You don’t say if yours is a drop-top, two-door or four-door (as they exist in order of collector interest), but since you’re into it for free (Thanks Grandpa!) yours a good problem to have.

Found inside the trunk of a 1959 Windsor airport limousine, the rare RB 383 two-barrel intake manifold is as rare as Hemi stuff. Too bad it’s useless for power.

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