another Elco..

My niece just said she is sending me the title to her '87 El Camino, a gift !
I'm not sure how to handle a title transfer, since it's a gift from a family member, with no money involved. And advice ??

Anyway, it's a black '87 that's been sitting for at least 8 years, on my brother in-law's back lawn.
I did some work on it back then, like R&R the trans to replace the flexplate, starter, and new seals in the trans input & output. It needs help on the body in a few places etc....

What are you doing? You haven't finished the other one yet!

Actually the '75 Elco just needs another new tire, and it's ready to drive, with half a tank of avgas in it, which the engine seems to like !
I just figured out the AC wiring. A new Sanden compressor with replace the A-6, which isn't plumbed, it's just on there for the belt.
Not gonna worry about the AC 'til spring.
This '87 is gonna sit in the back corner of the hangar until I get in the mood to fool with it.

pila wrote:Actually the '75 Elco just needs another new tire, and it's ready to drive, with half a tank of avgas in it, which the engine seems to like !
 I just figured out the AC wiring. A new Sanden compressor with replace the A-6, which isn't plumbed, it's just on there for the belt.
Not gonna worry about the AC 'til spring.
This '87 is gonna sit in the back corner of the hangar until I get in the mood to fool with it.

Ran avgas in mine back when I lived in Mesa AZ. Little airport down the street let us pull right up to the pump and fill r up! Only side effects was a lot more power and blue flames out the headers when useing said power! LOL

There were two grades of avgas 20 or so years ago, 87 and 100, but now 100 LL ( low lead) is all there is...

From Bad A$$ builders.

A famous engine builder (top fuel engines) told me a story about an engine that was in his shop that had major melt down in the cylinders. He said, "Arron, av. gas is for air planes! Where do you see airplanes? Up in the sky! Do you see cars up in the sky? No! How does your car run when you're up in the mountains? Yeah, like crap! There's no oxygen up there. Aviation fuel is designed to be run in a low oxygen atmosphere. What happens to that cutting torch flame when you add oxygen to it? Yeah, the flame gets hotter and turns blue! What do you think happens to an engine in a high oxygen atmosphere burning aviation fuel? Look right here at this engine and you'll know!"

It was melted down BTW

Interesting, but local guys with race cars have been using it for a years. Not sure what your source was referring to though, and my airplane runs fine at 12,000 feet. And of course my Elco isn't a race car by any stretch of the word !!

A gift car in Mass is usually still taxed when it's registered @ what they determine as fair market value. Check with your insurance co- they may have insight on it. Sellers in that case will usually put like $1.00 on the sale amount of the title. Good luck with it!

OK....I'll have to go to the local DMV & see what they say about it, and like you say, maybe my insurance agency may know about it.

Ohhhhh, congratulations on the no-cost new addition ... SWEET!  Looking forward to seeing pics of it.


Cort www.oldcarsstronghearts.com
pigValve, paceMaker, cowValve | 1979 Caprice Classic  (awaiting new owner)
"The children want to know why we hung the mistletoe" __ Ronnie Milsap __ 'It's Christmas'

AV gas doesn't work that way. AV gas has a higher octane rating and that's it. Doesn't work with less oxygen and as such the torch analogy is incorrect.

The higher up in the atmosphere you go doesn't change the makeup of air, it's still 21% oxygen, 79% nitrogen, 1% argon with some other trace gasses. You do get less molecules of air in a given volume, so you need to squeeze more air into a cylinder to get the same affect as at sea level. (so you can think of thinner air like the opposite of a blower)

Case in point, does everyone remember the Furd 351C (Cleavland) vs 351W (Windsor) which had higher compression to compensate for "thinner air" at the higher altitude.

AV gas may burn hotter due to more octane / more complete combustion but not hot enough to melt any part of an engine(internals that is). It's more likely the nitromethane part of a Top Fuel engine's fuel that created enough heat rather than anything else.

The big advantage of nitromethane is that you can get a lot more power from each explosion inside the engine. Pound for pound, nitromethane is less energetic than gasoline, but you can burn a lot more nitromethane in a cylinder. The net result is more power per stroke. You typically need about 15 pounds of air to burn 1 pound of gasoline, whereas you need only 1.7 pounds of air to burn 1 pound of nitromethane. This means that, compared to gasoline, you can pump about 8 times more nitromethane into a cylinder of a given volume and still get complete combustion.

Spark plugs are a consumable during a drag race, 1/2 way down the track, the engine is working like a diesel from compression and glowing exhaust valves at about 1500 deg F. The melting point of cast iron is between 2000-2200 deg F. Without cooling this is likely to get hotter and melt something. I'm guessing somebody forgot to turn the fuel off in that engine you're talking about.

This is why NOS is just a burst rather than a constant flow.

Just my $0.02 worth.

A little up date here....I told my niece that I didn't want her '87 Elco. I have too many projects as it is, plus airplanes to work on.....only so many hours in a day etc...