8. You can't remember your wife's birthday, but at the slightest prompting you will recite your car's bore, stroke, displacement, cam specs, valve specs, rocker ratio, bearing clearances, rod length, journal diameters, bolt-torque specs, carb jetting, ignition advance, plug gaps, redline, shift points, compression ratio, flow numbers, axle and transmission gear ratios, dragstrip times...
7. You pack your spare toolset for a trip to Barbados, and a carb to rebuild on the plane.
6. You lie awake at night thinking of car parts.
5. A jury found you innocent by reason of insanity when you were stopped for doing 120 mph. Upon encountering a clear, straight stretch of desert highway, you were unable to tell right from wrong.
4. You wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat screaming, "Die, Honda!"
3. You fire up an engine you built for the first time and you get aroused.
2. You and your cam break-in sessions are the topic of heated discussion at local Block Association meetings.
1. You find a Dear John letter from your wife on Monday morning-dated Friday.
J. Caballero
Jersey City, NJ
Reader's Letter Of The MonthMouse Power
Are you the same Jeff Smith who wrote the tech article "Mighty (Efficient) Mouse" for Hot Rod? This the same engine in your Chevelle? Did you get the 25-mpg goal? You still running the blower?
I have a '69 Impala with a 350 and a TO4 turbocharger at 10 pounds of boost. I can get 21 mpg running 70 to 75 mph with the A/C on. It is time for a new project. Thanks for "Mighty (Efficient) Mouse." It looks like the 302 will be it.
I know this is Car Craft. Jeff when you do good work, it will always get back to you. Thanks.
Dave Wilhelm
Marietta, OH
Yes, Dave, I'm the same guy, and yes I still have the engine. To bring the rest of you up to speed, I built a 9:1 compression 302ci small-block Chevy with a tiny Crane mechanical roller cam, AFR 190cc heads, a Lingenfelter SuperRam EFI intake with ACCEL/DFI injection and topped with off with a Vortech centrifugal supercharger. The goal was to make 550 hp on pump gas and then get 25 mpg on the highway in my '65 Chevelle. We achieved both goals and then dialed in a bigger cam and were on our way to over 660 hp when we had some minor problems and the engine was sidelined. If there's enough interest in this package, I think we could easily make 700 hp and still get 22 mpg. Of the dozens of engines I've been associated with, this little Mouse motor has always been my favorite because it does everything very well.
The Reader's Letter of the Month winner gets a free Car Craft license plate. There's just one rule: In order to receive the prize, you have to include your full name and return mailing address in your letter, fax, or e-mail so we can ship the prize to you.
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