Is the high cost of fuel endangering our hobby

Fatchuk

Fatchuk

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
I was just wunderin bout that....I has been thinkin lately with summer commin an all...bout every time I fills the big pig it takes bout a hundred bucks and I use it up in a week-end...I know my kids is sota gone and I an..da miss.Di..goes ridin on the weekend an we is broke all week feeding the global warming pig...And It ain't workin cause it's still friggin cold so I figures you guys ain't payin yer share to da global pig ta warm duh place up so we Canadian rodders get more cruzin time...

Truth is...I have seiously been thinking about building my original "A" engine for my "A" any body done that? or is that worth considering..Will that bolt up to any modern tranny and is there any better carb or intake system or would that just be silly??? I can't say I have ever noticed any performance model "A" stuff....With gas over $5.00 a gallon this must be diggin into our hobby for a lot of guys trying to pay the bills and raise a family...and what does the future hold for the all we put into our cars ..how much longer before our hobby is a dinasaur or the good old government squeezes us out of this hyobby??..just wondering if anybody else has this nightmare, do yah all think our hobby will die off with the baby-boomers??..Just a nightmare I been havin to often lately..fatchuk
 
You know Chuck, Ive been having this same thought lately. I do know after paying my bills and raising my family I find it hard to have gas money right now. Not saying my s10 is a pig on fuel but its still not as nice a 4cyl beater car. Ive been thinking on how to build a certain little truck taking all of this into perspective. And all i can see if a 4cyl with overdrive and some nice highway gears. Thats all I can see for now. But I do know my s10 is in need of a tuneup so maybe the fuel milage will increase a bit.
 
Maybe it's time to think outside the box. There are some real nice performance 4 cyl. OHC engines out there that will move a light car along real nice and give decent mileage while doing it. I don't think our hobby is in danger but we may have to change the way we do things.
 
I think it is the rodders ingenuity to make things better........ the blown big blocks and hemi's may be replaced with smaller, more efficient engines. The only thing carbon taxes seems to do is to give the government more money to squander. My next door neighbor went to Mexico for a holiday and as they are under the same "NAFTA", maybe some of our politicians who swear there is no price fixing, can explain why gasoline is $0.15 /liter down there and $1.26/liter here.......... Also, since the government taxes are based on a precentage, they get more money the higher the price of gasoline. Some would call that "conflict of interest", that borders on bribery. Kind of like having the fox guard the chicken house, don't you think?

Russ:eek:
 
Me fifty five is going with the original six is my plan. My LTD stay's with the four sixty. My hope to build 56 Vicky will have a four twenty eight and will just use the credit card and let the boss pay for the gas on that one at the end of the month. Just run a line from the motor home to the Vicky to fill it and her not even question the motor coach........

Hugh..............
 
We went through something similar in the early seventies.....Rod and Custom ran an article called "Gas Crunch sedan" putting a Chevy 11 4 cyl in a Model A.
So, I did it too!! The thing was a pig on gas. Went to a V-6 Buick and way better mileage and some performance too!!
Our Explorer gets 22 mpg on a good day. I figure our 54 Wagon will get about the same on the hwy.....2.79 gears and a 351W.
I have friends that pay 150.00 for a round of golf!! And that does not include flying or driving to do it.
So, the next time I fill the Impala, it will be my "round of golf".:)

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well it's not going to make me change much cause i don't get to go far any way and a little more in the tank for bucks has to be for now
 
I should have added the 70's oil crisis was the Arab oil embargo.

Re 4 bangers.....we are not driving slippery Honda's thru the air here.
A Model A, for example, is like driving a barn door through the wind.

At the Dragstrip in the A with the V-6 and a TH350, when it hit high
gear near the end of the traps, it was like someone popped a parachute.
 
this is also why I am building a Chevette, for my next project. There apparently is a racing league for these cars in the states, so there is some performance parts available for these cars. Unfortunatly I haven't found a source for these yet but would like to find a perfromance cam fro mine. Also the early Chevettes had a better flowing head on them then the later ones(1976-1980)
If the 4-banger goes out then i will be thinking about trying to put in either a big 4 banger from gm (Newer) or a v6 2.8 from a S10.
 
Chuck I think it does have an effect on the sport but the price of fuel really is still the cheapest thing you put into your car next to the free air at the gas station. Out here we are paying around the $1.31/Ltr for pump gas. But when I built the 33 with the BBC I set that whole car up to run on Propane and the reason was pure and simple the price of Propane or LPG (Liquid Petrolium Gas) as we call it stays less than half the price of normall pump gas. Sure you have to build the engine to suit the gas such as cam design and ignition etc but it works a lot more efficiently when the engine is built than a normal engine. Propane is a higher octain rating as well.

For instance when we did our cruise down the inland New South Wales roads to Sydney and I was concerned about not being able to get LPG all the way around but that was not a problem and when I was in Canada last time I noticed the price of LPG was a cheaper than pump gas and available every where we went from Calgary to Vancouver. You have less frequent oil changes as well because the oil doesn't go black as quick with carbon build up.

The other thing when we did the trip down south was everyone else on the trip was watching and the car was cheaper to run than a mild SBC (small block chev) The down side is the size of the tank and where you fit it.

I had wondered at one stage about converting the Galaxie to LPG but I didn't think it was worth my while converting that car because it really didn't do enough miles to pay for the conversion and the cost factor of the change over. For instance I would have to fork out another $3,500 to convert that car and you can get a long way with that much normal fuel. But when you are building a new car (rod) and building a new engine then that is when it would be worth making the change over. The other draw back is I'm guessing for you guys up there would be the warm up time for your engines because the gas converters rely on hot water from the engine.

However there are now conversions out where the LPG is direct injected into the engine as a liquid and not just a gas and the experts tell me that gives a huge increase in power over the system I am running at the moment but that conversion is not available out here for a BBC.

Out here you can buy a brand new Ford to be just dedicated LPG.

I was recently looking at a conversion for Deisel trucks and they say that depending on what stage you go (there are 3 different stages available) to how long it will take to pay for itself. This works in conjunction with the deisel and also give better torqure to the deisel engine. It allows for much cleaner fuel burn and the charge is burnt right to the bottom of the stroke and not just an explosion at the top dead centre. Plus the trucks have fewer oil changes and travel further on the same cost of fuel.

I have sometimes thought that some of the twin cam 4 and V6 Toyota engines would be suitable for a T or A for instance. But it is what jerks your chain as to what you run really, I'm afraid I like the sound of a V8 and the Big Blocks because I like them.

The other thing to consider is maybe running taller diff gears for instance in the 33 I run 2.75 gears and even around town you can still spin the wheels if you want to because the car is a light weight. Those gears are just a bit tall for around town but hey the cam is still lumping then and it gives the if you want a race I'm ready attitude. On a 3 lane quiet part of a linking road around Brisbane for instance there were 2 Turbo 6 cyl Japas who had been racing each other and I came across these guys I had the middle lane and when we took off from the lights all they saw were my tail lights (opps that's naughty eh). Even at the next set of lights they were all reved up ready to go and they still weren't in the hunt. (childish very childish I thought after wards) but I was snickering anyway.

So I think that the died in the wool rodders will still find a way to run their cars no matter what. If they can't afford to run a V8 for instance I see nothing wrong with a person running a 4 cyl engine. A V6 can run very cheap as well and you know not everyone wants a lumpy big block chevy anyway, it's just tools like me who get their kicks out of doing skids and a bit of fun in safe areas where the seeing eye of the law and public don't see us anyway.

That Buick of yours wouldn't be too hard on fuel anyway would it? Just put your rates up at the workshop say .50c and hour and there wont be any hardship to anyone and you'll get to drive the Buick on the CR run without being out of pocket too much.

I see guys who go fishing a lot and those boat motors are not cheap to run so it really doesn't matter what the cost of fuel is or what your hobby is, if you want to do something you will but just have to maybe choose the runs a bit more carefully which ones you really want to go on.

Just my thoughts, John
 
You should check out "Hunter"s little prefect with a pinto 4 cylinder. Gets great gas mileage. I would think seriously about the Thunderbird turbo 4 banger, keep your foot out of it for decent gas mileage and let the turbo give you power when you want it...... Your gear ratio's make a huge difference with the 4 bangers and you have to find one without too much emmision stuff. They were bragging that the new hybrid cars can get 48 mpg...... big deal, the old mini's and VW bugs did that easily without even a computer... have we progress that much?

Russ
 
It's all relative, in the 1980's, when gas was cheaper, my wage was a third of what it is now. gas is up but my wage is up too , and to quote a friend of mine in high school " there's always enough money for beer and gas , and if you have to rent comes last".
 
Personally I think fer the amount we drive our rides the price of gas shouldn't be a worry.I had to put my lowrider GMC back on the road because our pontiac has developed some problems.The truck has to run on premium,and doesn't get the best mileage.You know what I really don't care,I still love that truck!!!!
 
HI Hammer396,
I also did a little comparison. When I started working in 1972, I was making $2.50/hr (don't laugh) pumping gas that sold for 52 cents/gal.... so with a little math, I could buy almost 5 gallons of gas with 1 hour of labor. To fill that same 5 gallon container will cost over $30 now....... At first I though it was just the increase of gas, so I remembered that beer was 20cents a glass in the pub, now how much of an increase would that be.... You could also buy a nice house in 1972 for about $18,000, look at the average price now. Our standard of living has slid back big time and the only way we didn't really feel it was that the wives got jobs too and added a second income to make ends meet.

Russ
 
Hi Chuck, craziness runs wild around here.
Here is the thought I've had rolling around in my silly head.
Model A or T, ford escort engine turned around, manual transmission/bell housing from a ranger, use the rear-end while you're there.
You can either use a F.I. one or a carbed engine depending on the donor. The F.I. has a cool tubular intake and I think a matching header would be neat.....a shot of juice or a hair dryer could turn it up if needed.......time to go to bed and see what else I dream up.
 
Not just gas thats going up,my Dodge just got $132.00 of diesel.Good job it wasn't empty.Its $1.29 per litre here today.
 
Krusty last week Diesel was $1.53/Ltr here and the truck I used to drive (love that part, used to drive) used near $240.00 a day and that was just a town and around Agitator, the interstate boys must need pace makers every time they fuel up.

Cheers, John
 
We are getting ready to put the boat back in the the Salt Chuck for the season. Called up the marina to get their price on fuel. Answer was $1.35 a L. and come July we will be paying 2% more with that carbon tax. I guess its the price we have to pay for our toys.:eek::eek::eek:

Cheers
PeterB
 
Peter: how come you don't like Polish people???



Then back to the subject ..I am definitly feeling the cost of rodding with the price of fuel..and will for sure not be drivin as much as I used to be able to.
I am tryin to get rid of most of my stuff and in fact most is gone...I am for sure lookin at some type of 4 banger for my "A" but not very enthuiastic about that...I love the sound of a v8 but....times are-a-changin and I can no loger afford to spening $150 bucks a week to play..And that $150 only is the cost of fuel for the toys..that don't count the grocerie getter/family ride..doesn't even talk about the other costs invilved with the hobby...It's startin ta git outa my reach if I want to do anything else ...looks like tougher times in the future.......:(fatchuk
 
Hey Fatchuk,

You and 34ford are thinking the same way. He passed that on to me over the phone last night. Too bad their both spelt the same. May be I will have to re- think that one.

Cheers
PeterB
 
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