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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. I also saw a mid-80s Cutlass Ciera sedan, clean other than the paint degrading. These things used to be ALL OVER.
  2. Cut the rear package shelf for 6x9 speakers. Took a bit of welding to eliminate the factory ribs, but went well. Also made & sound-dedened the rear bulkhead panels using Masonite- they're peeking thru the speaker hole above
  3. Hip room in my 79.9-in wide '04 Silverado crew cab is 61.4 / 62.9. Hip room in my 80.7-in wide '59 Invicta coupe is 66.1 / 66.3.
  4. Got my '40 carb back from the rebuilder today- he specializes in vintage units. When he shipped it back he included a June 1952 issue of the hot rod magazine Motorsports, in really very good shape. Has an ad for the Twin H-Power Hudson Hornet on the back cover. Perhaps my reputation preceded me.
  5. 'Big' as a term, of course, is relative. Always relative. And so; relative to the other V8, G-ma's 'lark had the little V8. ? Also pretty sure there was no 'HO' version. That said, my brother had a '71 or 72 'lark for a short while and yes- they still moved out quite well. Now just imagine it with another 125 lb-ft of TRQ!
  6. I don't think so, Tim. 350 CI would be it, in a Skylark.
  7. Cool story. Get pics.
  8. OK, I don't know what you have on your itinerary for tommorow, but returning to the O-58 and getting pics is now your Job 1.
  9. Not so much an exception: Cadillac did the engineering & development on the HM, Olds merely did the field testing. Olds was given the HM as a RPO a year before Cadillac. One might think Buick, being on a higher tier, would have gotten it, but Buick was wrapped up in their own transmission bubble.
  10. By 'recycled', I can only think you meant 'restored'.
  11. ?
  12. Correct; scientists are reporting that compressing ocean floors, while offsetting rapidly rising ocean levels, is putting increasing pressure on the magma layer of the Earth's core, forcing increased volcanic activity. Volcanos indiscriminately emit frightening amounts of greenhouse gases, so despite Elon Musk's announced plan to drop titanium 'Volcano Corks' from Tesla drones flying in Ludicrious Mode, some sort of ocean floor anchoring grid must be devised, to which solar-powered prop engines can be affixxed, negating the ocean floor drop. As soon as this theory began to make the rounds, Musk announced Tesla would accept deposits to fund shuttling excess water (now that the full ocean level rise of .0002-in would subsequently happen) to Mars via a series of interplanetary vacuum tubes, so the irrigation of marijuana fields could begin ASAP.
  13. Back in 2014, mercedes claimed an unspecified but "dramatic" weight loss for the upcoming MRA platform. In June of 2015, the E-class was supposed to lose about 330 lbs. By October that estimate was reduced to 220 lbs. But Google is stating that a 2015 e-class starts at 3825 lbs and the 2018 e-class starts at 3792 lbs. Looks like "German engineering" took a "dramatic weight reduction" and dialed it back to a 33 lb savings.
  14. Don't worry : the rapidly compressing ocean floors due to increased water weight is offsetting the rise in ocean volume.
  15. It would be really interesting to see a weight breakdown of a given car: how much is glass, plastic, steel, aluminum, etc.
  16. Whoa. Back the Hyperbole Express up; you missed the platform. E-bodies of that generation aren't even full-size cars. ?
  17. The shipping weight on my '64 Catalina 4-dr sedan, with a cast iron 389 V8 & a full perimeter frame, was 3770. That car was 80-in wide and 213" overall, with less than 15 lbs of plastics. The 'lightest' were likely the early '60s MoPars; a '63 Plymouth Savoy (Unibody, OL length: 205") with a Slant Six came in at 2980. A '62 Biscayne 6 2-dr came in at 3405. All the lower priced '60s cars came in WELL under 4000. The commonly available numbers from then are 'shipping weights'. I can tell you my B-59 gains exactly 120 lbs going to curb weight (4274 / 4394), so I figure 100 for lighter/cheaper models. So a early '60s Ply-Dodge is likely 3100 curb weight. For a nearly all plastic/aluminum Camaro to be 4300 is rather amazing.
  18. Ask yourself what happened in the industry. Over time, cars in general shrunk, had 1000-some lbs of cast iron & steel replaced with aluminum and plastic, got body panels switched over to aluminum or even carbon fiber, all rims are AL, what sheetmetal left is thinner & thinner, glass is thinner, even carpeting is thinner. All these advances... and cars are heavier than ever in the grand scheme of things. 1980 Turbo Trans Am, iron block/heads V8, all-steel body (other than front fascia/rear bumper), 198-in overall length, curb weight: 3673. How does a smaller, 35-year newer Camaro range from 3700-4350 lbs with all its aluminum & plastic (& carbon fiber?) and still be called 'progress'? I mean, I don't expect the opposite; that a '15 Camaro should weigh 3000 or less, but at least offset all the wiring/sensors/ etc with the construction lightening... but no. Just imagine a '15 Camaro with an all-steel body & an Iron block/heads; it'd weigh 5000+.
  19. Only if those weights are reasonable. Are they? (I know they are commonplace but that wasn't my question)

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