T.N.A.C.C.B.P.P. EQ360

Ouch.......again. I think I said I'm more selfish with information than you are.

Which would make you a nicer person.

Why am I selfish? Just a small person I guess. Don't have the money to continue.

I had an email yesterday from the west coast. This person has wanted me to do a set of iron heads for a year, but has never tried to bribe me with any money to do them. I have two of his engines here but no money from him to complete the engines. I'm not a bank to loan people money so's I can work on their engines.

Now they want me to help with these heads, for another engine for him I refused to start. Told him to take it someplace else, I'm retiring.

"Will big valves fit?" I don't know, I've never worked with those heads.......Here is how you check for yourself.

In the past I would have bought one of those heads just to look into it for them. Never got any money or respect for that.

"Can you port them?" No. We could have a year ago, but I'm retiring now.

"I found a guy in 'Cracker Jack City' that say's he can port them, but I don't think he's as good as you guys are." Huh.....respect? Maybe. But still no money for the past projects still sitting here half complete. I tell them, I work on your money, not mine. When your money runs out, I stop.

So, that is another reason why I'm retiring!

We are really good, but I guess not worth the effort my son and I put into these things. After all we're only two people in a 5th hand, 40' X 60' building (we bough and took down from a mine in the mountains and then re-erected by ourselves) and no fancy CNC machines. And a CNC machine has got to make you better! Right? If I had a $1/4 million machine I could be really good! Right? Oh, and be in debt up to my eyeballs.

I remember being in a contest. Most horsepower/dollar. We came in third. The engine performance/life was the important thing to me. I could have substituted cheaper parts for the short time of the contest and won. The winner called Cody and said, "If I had brought the best stuff I had, you La Roy's would have still kicked my ***!" That was the world to a couple of hicks from a mountain valley town of 1,000 people, 150 miles from the closest MacDonalds.

To the people that I have turned down engine builds for recently, "I'm sorry, I'm just burned out. Not your fault really, others have ruined it for you.

However, we have reserved enough energy to enthusiastically attack the engines we have left to do.

Today I get to do something really fun. Design a flip-up/flip-down license plate holder, to hide the winch roller fairlead for a 2017 pickup truck. Really!

Then back to the NACCBPPEQ360!



And this is exactly why I don't do much of this work anymore. People think because it's their hobby, their fun time and they enjoy tinkering, that you enjoy it too and therefore you should be willing to help them have fun.

What bullshit.

For what a machine shop has in tooling, machines and other things, what the machinist has in time learning and what he knows isn't worth a damn to these small minded people. You DO get what you pay for.

And that's another thing. Most people think an engine builder is rolling in dough. Just burning C notes every weekend all weekend long. That's bullshit too. Most guys I know skimp by on an damn thin margin. And you NEVER make all the billable hours you should. I just pisses me off that engine shops get so little respect in this hobby. The real pisser is it doesn't come from people who are wholly ignorant of what it takes to do this. These are people who understand, not some joker off the street who can barely fuel his car and damn sure doesn't even change his own oil. It comes from people who KNOW (for the most part) what it takes.