Adoption

I haven't posted much regarding our adoption process, since Rachel has been covering the details in her blog. I'm not going to lie, a lot of the paperwork and interviews made me a bit disgruntled and crabby (ask Rachel). However, with it now looking like we will be getting a baby boy within a week, I'm letting myself get excited about it. I'm still scared, because I have no idea what to do with baby's, but I don't really think anyone knows, it just happens.

We met with the birthmom and her family on Saturday at the Cleveland Zoo. She has two girls and a little boy, all of whom are totally adorable and extremely friendly and adorable. Her boyfriend was also with her and he was very laid back and caring. The day was definitely a blessing from God to remind us that he truly is looking out for us and taking care of all of us. We were a little bit concerned when we got to the Zoo at 1PM and there was no sign of the mom and the counselor couldn't get ahold of her (Rachel and my nerves were killing us as it was to meet her). She finally got ahold of her and said that she'd be there within an hour. The hour stretched into two before she was finally able to make it. She and her family were waiting downtown in the heat for almost an hour for a bus to take them to the Zoo (which apparently there wasn't even a bus running). Once we met, we wandered around to a couple of exhibits (which took a while, being as she was about a week away from birth). I was expecting the meeting to be awkward and uncomfortable, but it was really none of that. We just kind of talked and walked and enjoyed being with each other. What an incredible day!

There was a story that I wanted to share that doesn't really fit into this post, but isn't really worth creating a new post for. The Zoo was hosting the EAC (European Adoption Council) for the day on Saturday, so there were lots of families running around with kids. When we were walking to the exhibit with the giraffes, there was an older gentleman (possibly a grandfather) and a boy who looked to be about 4. The grandfather was squatting down, holding a balloon, and the boy was standing in front of him, holding a Swiss Army Knife into the balloon. I told Rachel, "This cannot end well." However, as we walked on, I heard a pop, but no scream, so it must have worked out okay. Who honestly gives a 4 year old an open pocket knife and says, "hey, point this at me and poke the balloon in my hands"? I don't care if the kid say he wanted to do it, the gentleman should have had half a brain and said no. I think I'll be a good dad, our kids won't have pocket knives until they're 5.

Reflections

I was reminded a day or two ago of how much creativity I have lost in the last 8 years of my life. When I was younger (living at home, in High School), the sky was pretty much the limit. I felt like I had the tools at my disposal to do pretty much whatever I wanted to do. Generally, I did pretty much whatever I wanted to do, too. What I lacked in financial resources, I made up for in skills. I wanted an electric guitar, but couldn't afford one. What to do? I went online and to the library, found the books and parts that I needed and built a guitar for myself. It played great, but there were a few things that needed to be adjusted, so I did it. From memory, I seem to recall having all sorts of hair-brained ideas. Most of them never went to completion, as I was much to ADD (and probably not capable of seeing them through, anyhow).

Regardless, going to college and moving out into the "real world" seem to have made me less creative and unoriginal than I've ever been in my life. Its mostly due to the structure that is imposed on us by society; working 40 hours a week, primarily during daylight hours in order to fulfill some obligation that we owe our employer (oh yeah, in exchange for a paycheck, I was wondering what obligation we owed for a second). Beyond that, we owe certain people/organizations set sums of money on given days of the month, in exchange for things that we now maintain in our possession. There really is no room for creativity to blossom within a schedule. Compounding the issue is that I'm so hopelessly disorganized, that I have issues freeing myself from my work responsibilities long enough to allow creativity to occur again.

However, I think that another issue that has led to the decline of my creativity is the disappearance of my "brain trust". In high school, I generally had either my brother or my a group of close classmates who would goad me into taking on a project that I would randomly think up. I do have people who occasionally check in on my engine project, but its not really the same. I think that the concept of engine building is a bit too abstract for most people to really get a good idea of what is going on with it. Either that, or most people think that its a foolish thing to spend money on.

Regardless, I'm looking for stuff to do to spice up life a little bit, and get out of society's rut. Anyone have any suggestions?

More Engine stuff (exciting, eh?)

I know I normally get on here and post about how I'm almost done with my engine build, but it never seems to be any closer than it was the last time I posted about it. So without saying that I'm either closer or further away, I'll give a little bit of an update of where I'm at.

The head was a pretty big sticking point for me initially. I really wanted to put in either a Massive Ultimate CNC head, or the trick FocusSport Cosworth head. However, that takes a lot of scratch and seeing as I just don't have time to take up a second job to pay for the hobby, I figured I'd do my own headwork. I don't really want to get a lot of money tied up in this homebrew head, since I'm still considering a head in the distant future, so I don't want to be overly attached to the head I'm doing now.

I busted out the handy Dremel tool (if you don't own one of these, you need to stop reading this and procure one before living another minute) and started grinding away. I was pretty conservative with the cutting that I did, mostly focusing on taking some metal out of the top of the intake ports and cleaning up some of the casting imperfections. The other area that I really focused on was in the bowls where the CNC machine had cut the valve seats and transition to casting. I was considering putting a set of oversized valves into the head as well. Oversizing the valves helps provide a little additional flow at lower valve lifts (which improves torque and therefore streetability). However, a set of oversized valves is nearly $300, which went contrary to my plan to build a budget head. I did pick up a set of high lift springs and retainers from LCR. Having a top end that can handle high RPMs is definitely going to be important on this car, so I wasn't about to risk floating a valve on the stock springs (especially considering the low piston-valve clearances we're going to be working with). At this point, I pretty much realized that I was as far as I could go with the head, so I decided to take it to my machinist. Its currently at the shop, awaiting being milled 0.020" (which should bump compression up about 1/2 a point..ie ~11.2:1, I'm guessing that is going to be right on the edge of requiring race gas, but should be able to make good power with Premium). I'm still waiting for the springs and retainers to show up; as soon as they do, they're going to the shop as well for final assembly. I was lamenting to the machinist that it was so hard to re-assemble the top end because the keepers kept moving around and would lock the retainers in place. He showed me his mill and a little tool that he can put into the chuck, which compresses the springs. Then he can just reach in and pop the keepers in and release the tension on the spring. Apparently its even a piece of cake on the big block race heads that have springs rated greater than 500 lbs/in. I knew I needed an arbor press!

The other part of the build where I'm working on keeping costs down is with accessories. I didn't actually budget for a new starter, power steering pump, or alternator, so I'm hoping to spend as little as possible on them. I was certain that FRPP had an inexpensive Zetec starter listed in their catalog, but apparently that was several years ago and they are no longer carrying that sort of stuff. New accessories like that are more of a luxury than a necessity. It'd be nice to know I wasn't going to have to worry about replacing them for a few years, but I think I'm going to transfer the ones off of the engine that's currently in the car. They've still got quite a bit of life in them, so we'll keep them running. I do have a spare alternator that I decided that I would tear into and see if it was something that I could rebuild. Its the alternator that was on the engine I got from the salvage yard and it scratches something fierce when you turn it by hand. This afternoon I decided to really rip into it and see what was scratching. For once, the 1/2" impact gun that I bought came in handy. Its almost too large for my compressor to spin, but it must have some sort of clutch in it, because I wound it up, let off the trigger (which stopped the socket), put it on the pulley nut and goosed it. Sure enough, it spun that nut right off! I had screwed around with it for a good 45 minutes with a breaker bar and a screwdriver, trying to get it loose. As soon as I got into the guts of the alternator, I could see that everything was pretty rusty (hence the scratching which resulted from the finger poles rubbing against the stator). The bearings looked good on the outside, but inside were rusty and just looked bad. Its currently torn apart on my garage bench. I need to decide if its going to be worth trying to rebuild, or whether to just toss it. I polished up the back plate with my Dremel and the wire brush bit. It gave it a really cool futuristic look with the patina brushed away in places. I'll take a picture and post it at some point.

I have no real time frame for wrapping this project up. Ask Rachel, I keep getting sidetracked and work on something that I wasn't initially planning on. The exciting thing is that all I really need to pick up are a set of ARP headstuds and I can have an assembled long block. That's really going to be the big accomplishment, because at the moment, I have the block covered with a plastic bag to prevent dirt and stuff from getting into the cylinders. Once I get the head on, I should be good to leave it on the stand and enjoy it as artwork (or something like that).

Fortunately, I've been working on collecting fuel components as the build has gone along, so I have an FSVT fuel rail and injectors (which are slightly larger than the regular Zetec) and an SVT MAF and housing (which is calibrated to work with the larger injectors). The thing that I'm not entirely certain on is tuning the car. Unfortunately cars don't have carbs in them anymore (is it really that unfortunate?), so its not a matter of sitting down with a screwdriver and fiddling with the needle valve to get the car to run right. Now there are about a thousand spark and fuel timing tables that need to be altered to work with cold starts, warm starts, closed loop and open loop operation. Fortunately, the Zetec uses a surprisingly powerful ECU which actually has adaptive learning, so only a few tables need to be altered and it can figure out how to populate the rest. Part of me is thinking it would be really cool to learn how to do all of this myself, but I don't know if I have the time to learn it all and buying the software (to tune in on the street) is about as expensive as hiring a professional to dyno tune it. I'll have to see. If I come up with a new daily driver, there's a good likelihood I'll go for it and try to tune it myself. Otherwise, I'm going to see about putting in a call to McNews Automotive in Dillsburg, Pennsylvannia. Ray is the closest tuner with a large amount of Zetec tuning experience and from what I've seen, he's going to tune it the way I want it (to work well, not necessarily to make the biggest numbers).

I'm really starting to get excited about this build again. I've been excited the whole way through, but there have been a few months lately when I've wondered if it was ever going to get finished. It looks like it might finally, and possibly by the end of June, I'll be installing it. Once I get the head back, I'll try to photograph some of the work I've done lately and put up a photo post.