Reminds Me of The Good Old Days

I was looking for something to blog about tonight, and was having trouble. So much to talk about, but then, so much of it is horrible. Iran and their nuke program; Israel, as the target of said nuke program; Obama and...., well, Obama and anything he says or does is horrible.

So I went some of my 'Feel Good Sites'; like Sippican Cottage; The Duffel Blog and Sippican's companion site, The Borderline Sociopathic Blog For Boys.

That's where I found this video.

I'll have to admit I have done a few engine changes in my time. I have even done a few swaps, where we took out a V-6 and dropped in a V-8, or pulled a small V-8 and dropped in a honkin' big one. Sorry; went back to my old days there for a minute.

My sister had a VW Bug that required what seemed like constant maintenance. My brother and I had it down to a science. We could drive the bug into the garage and have the motor on the work bench in less than 10 minutes flat. But I have never done an R&R (remove and replace) on an engine in 42 seconds.

Wow. But then, I never did any of my engine swaps with a squad of Royal Marines.

And none of my swaps were on a specially prepared car, like this one. But that being said, this is still an impressive display of team work. And they may be able to drive that car, but they wont drive it far. No Radiator, no coolant, no transmission grease. The 10 meters they drove it is probably the limit of its distance; any more than that and you'll be sweeping up pieces of it.

I am trying to think about what would be my favorite engine swap. I guess it would have to be the one we did on the 1977 Lincoln Town Coupe.

Dad bought the car with a bad motor in it; a 400 big block with a spun main crank bearing. But the car was beautiful. Black, with a black leather interior, and every option Lincoln offered, including the factory CB radio.

We happened to have a 429 laying around from a 1969 T-Bird we bought for parts, so we through a few gaskets on it and dropped it in the Lincoln. This thing went from a 166 horsepower 400 to a 390 horsepower 429. Yeah; we doubled the horsepower. But then, this car weighs about 4200 pounds bone dry and empty. It was a flat dog with the 400. I mean a SERIOUS dog; I got beat off the line one time by a school bus. A FULL school bus. Being driven by a nun. Okay; that last part was a bit of an exageration, but not by much.

I think she was actually a former nun.

But, I digress.

Afterward, we had a sleeper. A sleeper is a car that doesn't look like it is fast, but is wicked fast. Like a 400 horsepower, 4200 pound Lincoln. I wish I had a nickel for every Honda that was expecting a snail, and ran into a jackrabbit at a traffic light.

I miss the good old days, when a weekend a couple of bucks would be all you would need to swap an engine. Now it damn near takes that long to disconnect the damn wires.

Well, maybe not that long, but a damn sight longer than 42 seconds.