- Joined
- Nov 15, 2021
- Messages
- 482
- Location
- near Liverpool, NY
- Tagline
- Lifelong student / listening = bliss
J!m, I am picking up what you are putting down!
And conversely, you certainly seem to be smelling what I stepped in with my project! :0)
****
Part of my personal justification for what I'm trying to accomplish is:
1) Restoration of some equipment that brought me a *lot* of pleasure over a 20+ year period...and then went into storage for 20 more.
(Seems a shame to cart it off to the dump, or let some parts scavenger buy it for pennies/$ and then scatter it into eBay.)
2) Recover/relearn some (some say obsolete) skills that atrophied over the years, as we all moved from component-level troubleshooting to the swap-black-box mentality. At the same time, go from reciting stuff that I've read over the years...to actually proving it to myself in the real-world, for it's one thing to accurately recite something...quite another to actually *believe* what you are talking about. Comes across completely differently to others.
3) Answer the question "How close can I get to the sound of that highly-regarded $6K amp with the old mules that I'm flogging? (Understand that building sleepers with just a touch of reverse-snobbery has *always* appealed to my sense of humor.)
For example, during/immediately after high school my buddies & I certainly appreciated all the beautiful go-faster goodies in all the HotRod magazine articles. But back then, a new Holley 4-barrel was more than a week's pay! And since 2nd Place = 1st Loser, it didn't feel quite right to be watching the poor little rich kid's taillights disappearing into the distance.
But there were a couple of books, that along with some judicious junk-yarding, allowed us to let those Richie Rich's see *us* disappear into the distance:
The first book was written by a gentleman named Doug Roe, and he was an engineer with GM's Rochester Carburetors. His explanation of every *single* part inside a Quadrajet, charts & graphs of all the jetting, metering rod diameters/tapers, intake-manifold vacuum (aka: power valve) springs for the primary metering rods, etc., was key to our being able to go to the junkyard, identify the right components, pay $25 for the carb, (+ carb kit, float, fuel filter, etc) and end up with the same/better CFM & throttle response than a new Holley costing up to 10x as much! (And if they looked under our hood & exclaimed "Quadrabog" ...we knew that the hook had been set, and our quarry had no idea what was in store for them. :0)
And then the 2nd book was written by Bill 'Grumpy' Jenkins, and once you learned that the 'double bump' or 'camel hump' casting marks = big valve heads w/the good combustion chambers...then for cheap money & a little pocket porting we were off to the races. (well, new cam, anti-pump-up lifters that you zero-lashed + 1/8 turn, recurving the distributor with new advance weights & springs, etc., etc.)
You know, it would have been one thing to beat the new "Smokey & the Bandit" look-alike car at school with a similar one with cubic dollars spent on it...but instead, going right on by in a rattle-can primer painted tiny teardrop Chevy Monza with a sharp 355ci small block tuned right to the edge of detonation & driven with the controls set for the heart of the sun? Well, we laughed and laughed until we were choking on our victory meal of Capt'n Crunch & whole milk at 1am back at the house.
Oh my misspent youth. I promised myself I wouldn't talk about this in public. But what are they gonna do? I'm retired now...and the statute of limitations have expired.
****
Seriously, I really & truly hope that with enough lurking about the internet, and reading what you guys have been up to, spiced with a little of what Nelson Pass, Blomley, & others have so kindly shared...that we are going to have more fun that we should be allowed to have.
Maybe even make Bob Carver proud! (edit: I think he's already there, thanks to Gepetto & all your work to date! What I was referring to was taking some representative WOPL amps to one of the 'Burning Amp' type get togethers...you know, along the lines of the Engine Masters competition.)
(Which reminds me, elsewhere I want to start a conversation about his infamous 'null circuit' that he used to listen to the *difference* between amplifiers playing the same music simultaneously...and his demonstrated ability to tune one of his amps to sound identical to the ne plus ultra amp he was asked to duplicate.)
The bottom line? If I just skip to the chase scene and buy the amp that delivers the musicians into my living space, then I do get to experience instant gratification. But if I want to *know* how it's done, then I'm going to have to gird for electronic battle & put some serious focus on getting some silk out of my Phase Linear gear.
...And we don't have to win. All we have to do is get as close as Bob did back in the day...and the jokers who never hesitate to deride our stuff on the interwebs by referring to it as 'Flame Linear' will detest us forever.
Perfect! (Insert sh!t-eating grin here.)
****
It's gonna be a lot of fun. And true to form, I will document *both* the successes and the failures. I have nothing to fear, for I have no reputation to defend. Game on! :0)
And conversely, you certainly seem to be smelling what I stepped in with my project! :0)
****
Part of my personal justification for what I'm trying to accomplish is:
1) Restoration of some equipment that brought me a *lot* of pleasure over a 20+ year period...and then went into storage for 20 more.
(Seems a shame to cart it off to the dump, or let some parts scavenger buy it for pennies/$ and then scatter it into eBay.)
2) Recover/relearn some (some say obsolete) skills that atrophied over the years, as we all moved from component-level troubleshooting to the swap-black-box mentality. At the same time, go from reciting stuff that I've read over the years...to actually proving it to myself in the real-world, for it's one thing to accurately recite something...quite another to actually *believe* what you are talking about. Comes across completely differently to others.
3) Answer the question "How close can I get to the sound of that highly-regarded $6K amp with the old mules that I'm flogging? (Understand that building sleepers with just a touch of reverse-snobbery has *always* appealed to my sense of humor.)
For example, during/immediately after high school my buddies & I certainly appreciated all the beautiful go-faster goodies in all the HotRod magazine articles. But back then, a new Holley 4-barrel was more than a week's pay! And since 2nd Place = 1st Loser, it didn't feel quite right to be watching the poor little rich kid's taillights disappearing into the distance.
But there were a couple of books, that along with some judicious junk-yarding, allowed us to let those Richie Rich's see *us* disappear into the distance:
The first book was written by a gentleman named Doug Roe, and he was an engineer with GM's Rochester Carburetors. His explanation of every *single* part inside a Quadrajet, charts & graphs of all the jetting, metering rod diameters/tapers, intake-manifold vacuum (aka: power valve) springs for the primary metering rods, etc., was key to our being able to go to the junkyard, identify the right components, pay $25 for the carb, (+ carb kit, float, fuel filter, etc) and end up with the same/better CFM & throttle response than a new Holley costing up to 10x as much! (And if they looked under our hood & exclaimed "Quadrabog" ...we knew that the hook had been set, and our quarry had no idea what was in store for them. :0)
And then the 2nd book was written by Bill 'Grumpy' Jenkins, and once you learned that the 'double bump' or 'camel hump' casting marks = big valve heads w/the good combustion chambers...then for cheap money & a little pocket porting we were off to the races. (well, new cam, anti-pump-up lifters that you zero-lashed + 1/8 turn, recurving the distributor with new advance weights & springs, etc., etc.)
You know, it would have been one thing to beat the new "Smokey & the Bandit" look-alike car at school with a similar one with cubic dollars spent on it...but instead, going right on by in a rattle-can primer painted tiny teardrop Chevy Monza with a sharp 355ci small block tuned right to the edge of detonation & driven with the controls set for the heart of the sun? Well, we laughed and laughed until we were choking on our victory meal of Capt'n Crunch & whole milk at 1am back at the house.
Oh my misspent youth. I promised myself I wouldn't talk about this in public. But what are they gonna do? I'm retired now...and the statute of limitations have expired.
****
Seriously, I really & truly hope that with enough lurking about the internet, and reading what you guys have been up to, spiced with a little of what Nelson Pass, Blomley, & others have so kindly shared...that we are going to have more fun that we should be allowed to have.
Maybe even make Bob Carver proud! (edit: I think he's already there, thanks to Gepetto & all your work to date! What I was referring to was taking some representative WOPL amps to one of the 'Burning Amp' type get togethers...you know, along the lines of the Engine Masters competition.)
(Which reminds me, elsewhere I want to start a conversation about his infamous 'null circuit' that he used to listen to the *difference* between amplifiers playing the same music simultaneously...and his demonstrated ability to tune one of his amps to sound identical to the ne plus ultra amp he was asked to duplicate.)
The bottom line? If I just skip to the chase scene and buy the amp that delivers the musicians into my living space, then I do get to experience instant gratification. But if I want to *know* how it's done, then I'm going to have to gird for electronic battle & put some serious focus on getting some silk out of my Phase Linear gear.
...And we don't have to win. All we have to do is get as close as Bob did back in the day...and the jokers who never hesitate to deride our stuff on the interwebs by referring to it as 'Flame Linear' will detest us forever.
Perfect! (Insert sh!t-eating grin here.)
****
It's gonna be a lot of fun. And true to form, I will document *both* the successes and the failures. I have nothing to fear, for I have no reputation to defend. Game on! :0)
Last edited:
