Best Of

lightly redacted for a family-friendly forum

Saw this one @ ASR, too... for some reason, it's reminding me of somebody here... I just cannot think of whom...

Auralic has closed their doors, as of the middle of September. I don't believe this was posted before...

https://www.hifi.blog/future-of-auralic-brand-uncertain-after-shutdown/

I was crew chief for Arnie "The Farmer" Beswick for two years, late '90's. I got the gig when his engine builder asked me to assist so Arnie didn't bring blown motors back every Monday. I occasionally worked for free at the engine shop to get hours to do my stuff. Was racing Super Comp at the time. It all started when Dyno Don beat Arnie at a nostalgia match race. The nostalgia guys had agreed on motors no bigger than 500 CI, no blowers, no turbos. Then Don installed a plate nitrous system. Arnie had a pretty nice used pro stock motor with Pontiac heads and wasn't used to getting spanked.

Arnie responded by contacting NOS and got two plates (dual carb), fogger and spray bar systems. But they failed to respect Nitrous. Nitrous releases it's oxygen when heated to 572F so you have to inject fuel AND rhee todd (vanilla doesn't like the other word) the timing. They got some bad advice (or failed to listen to the good advice) and didn't rhee todd the timing. You can get away without backing off timing in first gear, but for subsequent gears you better back timing off....

So Arnie was keeping the GTO at a rich guy's hangar at the Aurora Municipal Airport. We could use the runway to race on as long as no planes were landing. How's that for connections. No popping and banging with timing retarded. No bent pushrods, no burnt pistons. Lots of usable horsepower. He offered me the job as crew chief. I was a self-employed Fleet Repair Rent a Wrench at the time and was contracted by FedEx Express. The manager there allowed me to work four days a week, as long as I got all the work assigned done, so I had Fridays and weekends open. I had worked at a drag race chassis shop and knew my way around adjusting a four link.

Not all the tracks we were booked at had a prepped surface (now it's called no prep) so I had to wire switches in to shut individual systems off. He would still argue about backing off the timing, so I'd add a couple degrees, and he'd start losing MPH. IIRC that motor only required 26 to 28 degrees BTDC timing and I was taking 20 degrees out with all NOS systems used.

A photo of jazz trumpet player Chet Baker heading to a rehearsal after parking his '32 hot rod: