Being relatively new to the site I decided to attend the GTG in Amanda Ohio last Saturday.
I don't have a lot of interests these days other than drag racing our GTO once in a while. I've spent the last 20 years or so perfecting that deal, so it has become pretty much uneventful to blast off a low 11 second run in full street trim on 89 octane fuel, DOT tires, mostly stock parts and weighing in at 3760lbs. I do get quite a few folks wondering over to the car, looking over the engine compartment (usually trying to find NOS lines, and locating the stock iron intake, HEI distributor and Quadrajet carburetor instead, then glancing up at the ET on the window....that look is pretty much priceless!).
It's even more exciting when a track official comes over to me in the staging lanes, looks the car over (it looks completely "stock" right down to the quiet tailpipes and trim rings on the Ralley wheels) and tells me that I need to get a roll bar before I come back for another visit! Oh well, every guy needs a hobby or two to throw some money at, in my case I don't drink much, hang out in bars or smoke, so I can justify throwing money at something that puts a smile on my face on occassion.
I was intrigued enough by this website to attend the GTG, and really had no idea whatsoever what was going to go on there? I'm big enough into firewood cutting that I've aquired a nice pile of very good running saws, but they are all stock, with the exception of opening up the exhaust slighty on a few of them. I did port one following advice from this board, and made the mistake of testing it in front of one of my best friends, who bought it off of me so quickly I'm still trying to figure out why I sold it, and never got any numbers on it to even know if all my efforts did anything more than make it louder?
Anyhow, the GTG was sort of like a bunch of guys getting together to shoot old muzzle loading rifles. Some of us being barely able to hit the cardboard backer the target was mounted to, and others being able to shoot groups so tight you could barely tell how many rounds they fired (Brad Snelling comes to mind here). Just about every type and brand of saw was represented at some level, from the ones that ran like old John Deere "put-put" tractors, to 17,000 rpm SCREAMERS that went thru logs so quick you'd better not look away for a second or it was all over!
I spent a lot of the time gathering information, which everyone was quite willing to provide, as some of the guys with the really fast saws had obviously spent countless hours in the pursuit of perfection, and were still "tweaking" here and there to extract every single possible ounce of power/rpm out of their saws. I learned about "squish", port timing, muffler mods, ignition timing, tranfer's, sharpening chains, and all sorts of other interesting stuff.
There was really never a dull moment throughout the day, and it was complimented in the early afternoon with an EXCELLENT meal. I went home pretty much exhausted, but woke right up the next morning, and instead of watching TV, or playing around on the computer, I found myself in the shop taking a peice of conduit and modifying a muffler on one of my saws.
My wife wasn't real happy that I was out there before 9am on Sunday morning making timed cuts in a big hunk of Cherry laying out behind the shop. She says, "are you nuts, it's Sunday morning for crying out loud, get in here and have some coffee and eat some breakfast, and quit making all that noise!" Even Joe-Joe the 100 lb male Golden Retriever who's my wood cutting companion just gave me one of those stupid what the :censored: are you doing looks as he laid about 20' away watching over the area.
I looked around, no one lives close enough to us to complain about a loud chain saw, so I finished writing down and comparing my numbers, carried the saw back into the shop, and did some math on the calculator. Hum, that's a 17 percent improvement
, so I grabbed up another saw and pulled the muffler off of it, thinking maybe on this one I'd try dual exhaust ports.....nah.....maybe one well aimed one to blow the chips off the chain would be more effective? Then I glanced into the exhaust port, hum, looks like quite a bit of room to widen and blend the port into the muffler, wonder what that would do? In any case, do you think I might have got some terrible disease from the GTG?
.......Cliff
I don't have a lot of interests these days other than drag racing our GTO once in a while. I've spent the last 20 years or so perfecting that deal, so it has become pretty much uneventful to blast off a low 11 second run in full street trim on 89 octane fuel, DOT tires, mostly stock parts and weighing in at 3760lbs. I do get quite a few folks wondering over to the car, looking over the engine compartment (usually trying to find NOS lines, and locating the stock iron intake, HEI distributor and Quadrajet carburetor instead, then glancing up at the ET on the window....that look is pretty much priceless!).
It's even more exciting when a track official comes over to me in the staging lanes, looks the car over (it looks completely "stock" right down to the quiet tailpipes and trim rings on the Ralley wheels) and tells me that I need to get a roll bar before I come back for another visit! Oh well, every guy needs a hobby or two to throw some money at, in my case I don't drink much, hang out in bars or smoke, so I can justify throwing money at something that puts a smile on my face on occassion.
I was intrigued enough by this website to attend the GTG, and really had no idea whatsoever what was going to go on there? I'm big enough into firewood cutting that I've aquired a nice pile of very good running saws, but they are all stock, with the exception of opening up the exhaust slighty on a few of them. I did port one following advice from this board, and made the mistake of testing it in front of one of my best friends, who bought it off of me so quickly I'm still trying to figure out why I sold it, and never got any numbers on it to even know if all my efforts did anything more than make it louder?
Anyhow, the GTG was sort of like a bunch of guys getting together to shoot old muzzle loading rifles. Some of us being barely able to hit the cardboard backer the target was mounted to, and others being able to shoot groups so tight you could barely tell how many rounds they fired (Brad Snelling comes to mind here). Just about every type and brand of saw was represented at some level, from the ones that ran like old John Deere "put-put" tractors, to 17,000 rpm SCREAMERS that went thru logs so quick you'd better not look away for a second or it was all over!
I spent a lot of the time gathering information, which everyone was quite willing to provide, as some of the guys with the really fast saws had obviously spent countless hours in the pursuit of perfection, and were still "tweaking" here and there to extract every single possible ounce of power/rpm out of their saws. I learned about "squish", port timing, muffler mods, ignition timing, tranfer's, sharpening chains, and all sorts of other interesting stuff.
There was really never a dull moment throughout the day, and it was complimented in the early afternoon with an EXCELLENT meal. I went home pretty much exhausted, but woke right up the next morning, and instead of watching TV, or playing around on the computer, I found myself in the shop taking a peice of conduit and modifying a muffler on one of my saws.
My wife wasn't real happy that I was out there before 9am on Sunday morning making timed cuts in a big hunk of Cherry laying out behind the shop. She says, "are you nuts, it's Sunday morning for crying out loud, get in here and have some coffee and eat some breakfast, and quit making all that noise!" Even Joe-Joe the 100 lb male Golden Retriever who's my wood cutting companion just gave me one of those stupid what the :censored: are you doing looks as he laid about 20' away watching over the area.
I looked around, no one lives close enough to us to complain about a loud chain saw, so I finished writing down and comparing my numbers, carried the saw back into the shop, and did some math on the calculator. Hum, that's a 17 percent improvement
, so I grabbed up another saw and pulled the muffler off of it, thinking maybe on this one I'd try dual exhaust ports.....nah.....maybe one well aimed one to blow the chips off the chain would be more effective? Then I glanced into the exhaust port, hum, looks like quite a bit of room to widen and blend the port into the muffler, wonder what that would do? In any case, do you think I might have got some terrible disease from the GTG? .......Cliff
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Oh wait
.......Bob
