High Octane Generation

[BOOOGHAR]

So long to the High Octane Generation and all its faulty errors who have at long last learned to live without beauty or any of her manifestations can just sit here on this bank of sand and watch the river flow ... black and backwards

Praise now the plastic tunes and tooth whiteners, the square boxes, the straight liners, the lighted paths and hand sanitizers

The vague spectrum of knowledge, that bumbling self righteous light we have spit into the very eye of the atom

We the High Octane Generation have been weakened by a pathological need for fuel injection...
power steering...
solid state ignition...
and push button road side assistance from a revisionists dash board savior with blood in its feline eye.

but time was when we had our valves ground down
we had our hearts bores out
we had points, coils, and rotors
we had bumpers

and brother we had chrome

Back then we could bleed our brakes...
advance a spark...
torque our heads...
and there was no damn check engine light cause we checked our engine everyday

we sat with them while they idled and listened to their intonations and layed our hands upon the valve covers as we breathed the secrets of our hearts into their manifolds.

Yea... and we were masters at the backseat acrobatics because all that was just humpin it up inside a poem that we knew by heart, you see these machines were just extensions of our understandings of all things material and spiritual to such extent that speed and horsepower were just not quantitative realities

no they were allegories that fueled our passions, prove our ideals, and mapped out our interior destinations across the crooked fields of time.

I have no idea what has happened to this High Octane Generation - why we can no longer burn rubber while we resist lifting the hood to see the power and how we have arrived at such a place that owning a car that can park itself is nothing to be ashamed of...

[Barry Donovan]

intonations and allegories.

the same stuff can exist, advance is for ignition that loses time.

That is my only change from old stuff. Shameful. Still smarter.

[dand38s]

HMMMMMM.

Still only have one v-belt going around the crank pulley, water pump and alternator, Still have a Holley sitting on top of my intake, still have points and condenser sitting under the dist. cap, still have 4-70 A/C and my roadside assistance is in the trunk sitting beside my spare parts store. Guess this rant isn't talking about me. I guess that being a stubborn old fart can be a good thing sometimes.

[Deaf Bob]

HMMMMMM.

Still only have one v-belt going around the crank pulley, water pump and alternator, Still have a Holley sitting on top of my intake, still have points and condenser sitting under the dist. cap, still have 4-70 A/C and my roadside assistance is in the trunk sitting beside my spare parts store. Guess this rant isn't talking about me. I guess that being a stubborn old fart can be a good thing sometimes.

:y

[Thumpin455]

Not how things go around here either. Sure EFI is nice, and I enjoy driving the 98 Formula, but the GTO gets far more attention. Who else has a daily driver that has a modified Holley, over 11:1 compression, and a stance so low you have to avoid speed bumps entirely along with driving near the white or yellow line so the headers dont scrape the pavement? The Formula is like an appliance, the GTO is an experience.

My kids love the GTO too. Some people get it, some dont. We are a long way from a dying breed.

[Dan Barlow]

I've taken fuel injection off two engines in the trans / am for a four barrel Removed the broken 700r4 four a 5 speed -stick . I removed the non working air instead of fixing it . I do love my HEI. No apologies. Everyone should be allowed one indulgence.

[Loren]

...The vague spectrum of knowledge, that bumbling self righteous light we have spit into the very eye of the atom...

Charles, have you and boxer3main been talking on the phone or something?

[SpiderGearsMan]

all those skills are needed on new cars
when it goes off lease
people are stupid

[dand38s]

all those skills are needed on new cars
when it goes off lease
people are stupid

I agree all of these things are still needed, but it seems like less and less people seem to have any idea how to do this. It seems like more people just want to buy there hot rods already built with the latest and greatest computerized crate stuff so it will never "break". If they have any problems they have no idea how to work on it. Even if you did have any idea how to work on it, you are still dead in the water on the side of the road if you don't have a scan tool in the trunk.

[tardis454]

...The vague spectrum of knowledge, that bumbling self righteous light we have spit into the very eye of the atom...

Charles, have you and boxer3main been talking on the phone or something?

That could almost be a Slayer lyric..

[SpiderGearsMan]

computer cars break all the time
nobody wants to pay to fix em

[dand38s]

computer cars break all the time
nobody wants to pay to fix em

amen

[CDNtech]

Try tell a customer that they need a $1300 abs computer just so the car starts.... 2000 caddy deville

[dand38s]

2000 deville, just give them the number to the local scrap yard. Devilles are one of the worst money pits ever made.

[Whelk]

Dang kids can't hitch up the horses to a wagon anymore, let alone band a wheel or mend a harness. Heck they even *buy* their buggy whips instead of making them.

It's as if technology marches on and things change.

In 20 years we'll be dumping our fuel cell powered electric motors to put in an old fashioned fuel injected internal combustion engine.