Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

[Joe R.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

I haven't been to a national convention since Monterey in 2001, so I don't know if the tech seminars are being recorded and made available on DVD, nowadays, but for those who might be interested in this, contact the event organizers.

Duke

Duke,

I attended the Tom Ames paint seminar at the Joplin regional. I sent an email to him afterwards, he sent me a CD of the PowerPoint presentation. Maybe you could do the same? Or even better, if it was up on the web prior to your presentation (maybe on the Barry & Linda site?), you could just point folks to the link.

Joe

[Terry M.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

NCRS has not usually recorded the tech seminars at conventions. Some presenters have an electronic presentation of some sort now days (PP or electronic slide show of some kind) the presenter occasionally will make the presentation available after the fact on line. See John Hinckley's Factory Assembly presentation on the Michigan Chapter web site as an example. However there were about a half dozen technical presentations at the Novi Convention and as far as I know John's is the only one on-line.

There is no hard and fast rule that I know of about these things, but for the most part it is up to the presenter to share as they wish. One might take the point of view that the material belongs to the presenter, and it is their choice as to how much or if at all to share with the public or the membership on line.

You might consider the conundrum of putting your presentation on-line before the event. It might reduce attendance, or might encourage people to attend to ask questions.

[Duke W.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

Uh-oh! I was afraid someone would mention the p-word.

Being as how I bailed out of corporate America 20 years ago I never became a Powerpoint jock - always used transparent slides on an overhead projector.

I think I managed to rent one for the local chapter ignition system presentation, but they are getting hard to find.

Oh, well! I may have to learn some new tricks. I'll work with the organizers on how to present the visual aids.

If they do end up being in digital format I have no problem posting them online, but would probably prefer to do it after the presentation.

Way back in 1992 I made a presentation at the Cosworth Vega Owner's Association National Roundup (also in San Diego) titled "Race Track Experience with the Cosworth Vega and other Musings". A few years ago I googled my name along with Cosworth and found that someone had scanned a hardcopy of the overheads slides I handed out and put them online.

That would be the best deal - hand out hard copies of the presentation material at the session, and they could always be scanned and put online after the convention.

Duke

[Terry M.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

With the new electronic meet registration we can now, in theory, determine the number of people who will attend a given seminar event well in advance. This is a decided advantage to meet organizers because they can tell the size room needed for a given event.

Unfortunately, this year was the first time for that feature, and some registrants were not aware of the need, or even the possibility, to register for the seminar of their choosing in advance. Others, I am sure, decided at the last moment to attend a seminar. That led at some presentations to folks sitting in the hall or standing in the back of the room with attendant difficulties of hearing and seeing and so on.

I am sure as we all get used to this means of registering (perhaps in the future the system will force a positive or negative choice) the accuracy of the system will improve. The point of this is you may be able to predict some time in advance the number of people attending your seminar so you can have enough hand-outs available. This could prove an advantage to those whose sight line is compromised, but my somewhat uneducated guess is the amount needed will be substantial and you may wish to rethink this idea. Another option might be to charge a nominal fee to cover the hand-out and thus force advanced registration and ticketed entrance to your seminar -- even as distasteful as that might be, it would solve some potential issues.

All this is just something to think about, and is just my meandering thoughts late in a very frustrating (nothing to do with NCRS) the day.

[Alexander C.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

Duke,
Myself, I'd like a detailed discussion of how the ignition system works, since that is 95% of the tuning problems and you could spend 3 days (or years) on it. But there is a good chance I won't be able to be there, so don't listen to me.

George
31887

I 2nd this topic! I'm a younger guy at 31 and this is the first car with points I have ever owned. Learning how to perform basic repairs like the mechanical advance system and knowing how to properly set gap and dwell and what tools to buy for setting the dwell would be fantastic. I know it is all second nature to you old timers but some of this stuff is just so simple I can't wrap my head around it at first. I'd also like to know how to tell a good set of point from a cheap set, etc.

I would be glad to do a lengthy lesson on custom FI bin tuning in exchange on 1985+ Corvettes

[Chris H.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

How about a good old fashioned tune up like it's described in the service manual? I'm sure many members out there have never seen / done a tune up and would appreciate seeing one.

Maybe you could stage the process. Get a car, put a bunch of junk parts on the motor, get it to run like crap, and then start replacing the bad parts (e.g. plugs, cap rotor, etc) one at a time, adjust timing, dwell, idle mixture, etc. and watch the motor transition to a sweetly running machine. Maybe have a portable dyno for the process, to measure the progress, that would great.

[Patrick H.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

Uh-oh! I was afraid someone would mention the p-word.

Being as how I bailed out of corporate America 20 years ago I never became a Powerpoint jock - always used transparent slides on an overhead projector.

I think I managed to rent one for the local chapter ignition system presentation, but they are getting hard to find.

Oh, well! I may have to learn some new tricks. I'll work with the organizers on how to present the visual aids.

If they do end up being in digital format I have no problem posting them online, but would probably prefer to do it after the presentation.

Way back in 1992 I made a presentation at the Cosworth Vega Owner's Association National Roundup (also in San Diego) titled "Race Track Experience with the Cosworth Vega and other Musings". A few years ago I googled my name along with Cosworth and found that someone had scanned a hardcopy of the overheads slides I handed out and put them online.

That would be the best deal - hand out hard copies of the presentation material at the session, and they could always be scanned and put online after the convention.

Duke

Duke,

Powerpoint is easy to learn. If you have it on your computer I suspect you can figure it out. I did. You've got 11 months to figure it out if you start now, or I'm sure someone can convert it if you get the presentation done well enough in advance.

When I go to medical seminars the material is available online and/or via CD ahead of time. You download the outlines you need and print them yourself or have them on your comuter when you attend the sessions. That's what I do. Printing an outline is so "yesterday" and "environmentally unfriendly" that I suspect the hosts will encourage you not to do that. Most outlines end up in the recycle bin no matter what we may wish. I haven't seen printed outlines in at least 5 years.

Patrick

[Gerard F.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

Duke,

Here is another topic:

How about cams and how an engine works and responds to different cams.

Maybe just the basics, so that the regular guys, (even the Civil Engineers), can understand. This could be in conjunction with an engine tuning seminar.

I still don't know how a cam works, or what the difference is in the different cams. Maybe too technical to me.

Try to make it simple.

In any case, I'll look forward to meeting you. I'll be there.

[Duke W.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

In discussions with some local chapter officials, the consensus was that getting into the fine points of valve timing, like what I did to design two camshafts may be too complicated and of limited value since most members are happy restoring their engines to OE spec or have no plans to do a major engine restoration.

I agree with them, but the Tale of Two Camshafts article in the Fall 2010 Corvette Restorer explains how I approached the design problem. The physics going on inside an engine is extremely complicated, and it even takes engineers with a solid background in fluid mechanics some time to achieve a good level of understanding.

A properly functioning ignition system is critical to achieving maximum performance and fuel economu, and optimizing the spark advance map can yield signficant performance and fuel economy improvement, especially in the lower rev range; and swapping VACs and centrifugal springs is something than any weekend mechanic can do. So for now I'm going to stick with the idea of doing something along these lines, and if enough time is available, talk about the C2/3 suspension design and easy tweaks that can be done to improve ride and handling. That's a subject that is less understood than even engine performance.

Duke

[William F.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

Right-tune ups, plugs, plug wires, best tires for C2's and others. I, too, hope presentation will be available online, after the presentation is fine, and hopefully in "The Restorer."
Looking forward to the info!
William Ford
'67 L79 coupe with C60
"'67 roadster

[Duke W.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

Great suggestions, guys, but remember, this tech session will last maybe one to two hours, so I have to limit both the number of subjects and the depth of each.

When I co-presented the ignition seminar for my local chapter we disassembled and rebuilt a distributor, and I emphasized the infamous "dimple issue", which my co-presenter was unaware of.

After that I used a dwell meter, Mity Vac, and dial back timing light to do a minor tuneup on a '66 327/300 demonstrating how to check out the VAC for proper function, check and adjust dwell angle and initial timing, and took the spark advance map, which for this unmolested engine was equal to OE spec.

This whole deal probably consumed two to three hours and given time constraints and the number of attendees at national conventions it's not practical to do the "hands on" part.

Duke

[Gerard F.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

Duke,

On the infamous "dimple issue", you helped me via the old TDB on the issue some years back.

I still have a number of photos illustrating the setup both ways, as well as photos of a refurb of a 67/327/300 distributor which I posted. They are now long gone on the new TDB.

If you can use any of the photos (which you may remember), send me an email.

[Duke W.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

I don't recall that I posted any photos, but maybe someone (John Hinckley?) did. In any event, I probably want to obtain some photos for the San Diego tech session.

Make sure when you search that you pick "Technical Discussion Archives", which should go back to 1999 when the TDB was started.

Duke

[Gerard F.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

Duke,

Here's that thread I was talking about:


https://www.forums.ncrs.org/showthre...imple&uid=7764

As you will see the pics are gone, but I still have them:

Dimple aligned @6d BTDC

https://www.forums.ncrs.org/attachme...40986&uid=3147



Dimple opposite @6d BTDC

https://www.forums.ncrs.org/attachme...40987&uid=1877

[Duke W.]

Re: Technical seminar- 2012 Nat. Convention, San Diego

Those are good comparison pictures. With the dimple 180 out, you could probably only get to 10 deg. BTC before the VAC hit the manifold... not a problem with your 300 HP engine, but if would be a problem on earlier 300 HP and SHP/FI systems that only have 24 degs. centrifugal rather than the 30 in your distributor.

Given that the dist. gear has 13 teeth, that's 27.7 distirbutor degrees per tooth and half a tooth is 13.8 crank degrees, so with the dimple 180 out the dist. housing will be about 13.8 degrees out from where it is oriented with proper indexing of the drive gear.

If you measured the angle between the pencils in the two photos it should be about 14 degrees.

Duke