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EVs – Plug & Play – Morley’s World 476

Dave is ambivalent to EVs and their lack of theatre

Electric cars. Hmmm. That’s both the noise they make and my current (no pun intended) reaction to them.

I’ve been driving a few EVs lately, and a few things have occurred to me. But let me first say that this is not about the politics of climate change or the environment generally. You probably already have a view on that. So do I. Nuff said.

With that in mind, the first thing that’s been bugging me about EVs is that they lack a certain theatre. I mean, you can’t argue with what amounts to supercar performance from a family SUV (as many of them are) but I can’t help wondering why I’m left a bit cold by their overall demeanour. I think it’s something to do with the fact that they do, indeed, possess that well-publicised ability to produce maximum torque at zero revs. But once you’ve launched them as hard as possible, that’s kind of show over. Oh sure, plant the boot anywhere within their broad spread of potential velocities and they still accelerate like madmen, but…

…Where’s the swelling, building, yodelling crescendo of an atmo inline six with tuned-length headers and a big stick? Where’s the yowling, hammering cadence of a high-comp V8 as it climbs onto the pipe and starts inhaling whole suburbs? And where’s the dump-valve sneeze and sounds of air and PULP being compressed into horsepower as you drop a hot hatch into a roundabout and belt it out the other side?

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Hardcore inline six. Hard to beat

It’s not just the soundtrack that is letting EVs down either. To me, far more important is the fact that there’s no emotional build-up, no anticipation of what’s about to happen. And, at the risk of glorifying turbo-lag, I miss that stuff. Look at it like the difference between romancing a gal the old-fashioned way – dinner, drinks, a movie, more drinks (if she’s a keeper) – versus turning up at the special hugs shop with a fist full of 50s.

The EVs I’ve driven lately have all reminded me of a pet dog. When you get home, he’s all over you; wanting to lick you and be cuddled and have his belly scratched. But seconds later, when the immediate thrill has gone, he’s sitting on the lounge, giving you the stink-eye because he wants to watch cartoons and you’ve switched on the news. And where have you hidden the frisbee, dickhead?

I guess the other problem for me is that all this delicious acceleration is being built into SUVs rather than the sporty cars and big two-door coupes I associated with good times. And, yes, I know the world has gone yarra for the SUV concept, but a jacked-up wagon will never replace a lowered, muscle car at the MBC. Regardless of what’s powering it or how fast it is. Actually, I think this might just be my major problem with the car-making world right now. It has nothing to do with electrification, it’s much more about packaging and the fact that car manufacturers think I need cup-holders in multiples of six and enough seats to cart around the Brady Bunch. When the reality is that I do my best drinking in bars and from the time I was about 10 years old, if there’s a Brady on board, there’ll only be the one (Marcia… duh!).

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Fill ’er up. Hope you’ve got a good book

Scorching improvement

The Spaghetti Jet continues to be the focus of any spare time around the MBC at the moment. If I recall, the last thing I mentioned was sourcing a proper ignition system for the old girl to maximise the rest of the king’s ransom I’ve already thrown at the old Charger.

And around here, when you need a kick-ass dizzy set-up, you don’t need to go any farther than Performance Ignition Services a couple of suburbs away from me. Once you get there, you tell the blokes on the desk what you need, what’s been done to the motor in question and hand over some folding. A few days later, you get a text message to say come and pick up your lovely new ignition system.

Which is exactly what I did. I then thought about installing the dizzy myself, but in the end, I did the smart thing and took the car to Graeme at Des and Gray’s (right around the corner from me) for the Scorcher, coil and leads to be installed. See, Graeme was the Hemi whisperer who originally set up the engine with the four-barrel, so it made sense to take it back to him to keep the theme running. This turned out to be a good move as the Scorcher dizzy required taking the ballast resistor (mounted on the firewall in old Vals) out of the equation. Something I’d probably not have worked out on my own. Plus, I’d bet real money that Graeme has forgotten more about Hemi sixes than I’ll ever know.

From the moment I got back in the car, it was obvious that a pretty major transformation had taken place. Where the 265 had been a tiny bit boggy off the line before, it was now much crisper and eager to go. And where it could be felt gaining some momentum as you revved it out before, now there’s a real kick in the bum as the (vacuum) secondaries open and she starts to reach for the sky. There’s more power everywhere and, crucially, a lot more at the top end. All I have to do now is run the engine in, in a sane manner.

The first time I took the Charger for a decent run in the name of running in, I discovered why a lot of old hot-rodders suffer from hearing loss. This thing was loud. Graeme had actually mentioned it when he first set the carby up, but I figured I’d just put up with it and hope never to cross paths with the EPA. But that first highway-speed run soon showed me that the godawful din at 100km/h in top gear just wasn’t gonna work out for me. Something had to give.

On the other hand, I really liked to hear that Hemi bark when I gave it some, so I didn’t want to shut it up completely. What I really needed to do was A: Hush it up slightly, and B: Move the resonant patch either up or down the rev range somewhat. So I took a handful of brave pills, removed the rear section of my beautifully hand-made, mandrel-bent and flanged two-and-a-half-inch exhaust system. And cut it in two.

By slicing out a section, I was able to weld in an old-fashioned hot-dog resonator which really does seem to have done the job. The note is still crisp and reasonably vocal, but the sound of feeding cats into a wood chipper at 100km/h is (mostly) gone.

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Morley cut the hand made Charger zorst  to weld in a hot dog and shut it up

Screwed by association

Ever noticed that the moment you own a ute, you have no shortage of mates? Everybody needs a ute from time to time, but when you have your name on the rego papers of one, it seems like there’s a never-ending queue of clueless mates begging to borrow it for the weekend. This would be fine if they had a Bentley or Ferrari to swap with you until Monday. But inevitably, they not only want to borrow the ute, they also assume it comes with the big galoot that owns it to help shift whatever it is they’re trying to move. Not at the MBC. If you want to borrow the parts chaser, fine, but you’re leaving me with your car and when the ute comes back next week, the freshly washed tray better have a slab sliding around in it. Oh, and the tank will be full, too.

But it ain’t just utes and covetous mates that can ruin your weekend. For some reason, we’ve had a run of appliance outs at 13 Struggle Street. Not sure why, but the washing machine, dishwasher and the main tap in the kitchen all jammed/blocked/blew up within a couple of days of each other. I blame the Domestic Cleaning Appliance Union (of which these bastards are all paid-up members). It was getting to the point where I wasn’t game to walk into the kitchen or laundry for fear of being hit by a falling speedboat or exploding cupboard.

Thing is, The Speaker has decided that because I can change the oil in her Volvo, I’m clearly qualified to tackle any and all household jobs. Yep, from plumbing to restumping, apparently, the big hairy fella watching the cricket in the next room is the bloke you wanna talk to. This is, of course, a load of crap. I’m no more skilled at fixing household appliances than I am at juggling live crabs. But apparently, qualifications are over-rated when the dishwasher won’t work and there’s a drinks break in the cricket.

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However, anybody who has ever met The Speaker will know that ‘No’ is not an acceptable response. Which is how I came to be standing in the laundry, looking at a dead washing machine and scratching my backside wondering where to start. The red flashing light on the control panel was my clue that the problem had something to do with a blockage in the draining process after every rinse cycle. Problem with that was the drain hose and its filters are located right at the back of the machine, with no access from behind.

And that meant that the full 200kg of machine had to be dragged out from under the laundry bench, with just enough space either side of it to allow your hand to be crushed every time the bastard thing moved. Eventually, after half an hour of sweating and oaths, I had the machine free of its hidey-hole and I could gain access to the drain hose. At which point, the job was almost done, because by cleaning out the little fine-mesh filter at each end of the hose (after removing the hose from the machine and the tap) with an old toothbrush, it was obvious that a build-up of silt was the cause of the problem. So now all I had to do was wrestle the bassa back into the hole in the wall. Cue more foul language. And I missed a run-out.

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Two days later, the dishwasher shuts itself down and spits out an error code (thank you online tutorial) suggesting it, too, was having a water blockage problem of some sort. This was easier to access as the plumbing in question was all within the machine itself, although a six-foot, 100kg bloke trying to climb inside the thing must have looked pretty funny.

Having checked the outlet pipe was running freely, my attention turned to the pump and the sump it picks up from. To get at the pump, I had to remove a plastic cover which appeared to be secured by a couple of Allen-headed screws. Which, of course, turned out to be Torx fittings, right? Dammit.

Suitably tooled up after a run to the MBC for the Torx set, I had the cover off and was looking at the pump impeller, none the wiser.

 

From Unique Cars #476, March 2023

 

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