Thunder on the Mountain, Hanford Auto Supply, El Mirage, and High Octane Fuel!

Thunder on the Mountain

During the last weekend of September I caught wind of a car show in nearby Tehachapi, approximately an hour away from my house. It was a Friday night and ironically the show ran across one of my social media feeds. How I had never heard of it I had no idea. It was called Thunder on the Mountain. The website for the show was still up, but I found out pretty quickly that I was too late to register, there were a limited amount of cars because they all park downtown along the street, and that I would have to wait until next year. On Saturday morning we took off for Tehachapi and took in the show. The weather was gorgeous, and at 12 pm sharp the cars and trucks on display fired up their engines to sound the "thunder on the mountain." We did have a good time, signed up for the event in 2025, and marked our calendars to be sure to bring the 1955 Ford Fairlane to the quaint, historic town nestled in the mountains.

 The only mid-50's Ford car I saw was this 1956 Thunderbird; no other vehicle had a Y Block.

I was not able to find the owner of the 1956 Thunderbird. When I asked the owner of the 1955 Cadillac that was parked nearby, I was told that the owner of the Tbird had just bought the car from a man who had the car restored in another state. One of my reasons for opening up a dialogue was to find out if anyone nearby had a referral to a local machine shop that knew Y Blocks. So far, this has been a dead end.

My wife really liked the 1959 Metzendorf camper!

October 25th

The date may not mean much on everybody's calendar, but each year on October 25th there are always some people who join with me in celebrating my birthday. Our children are grown and out of the house so it's rare these days for them to be in town for the occasion, but my wife and many of my friends make up for it. This year was no different as I received a little suprise at the office that morning, and we had hot coffee and donuts from a local bakery in town. The guys on our facilities crew at church all chipped in to purchase me a set of thread chasers for my 312 engine build. If you read through many of my blog posts here on the website, you can see that quite a few of my Christian friends and fellow pastors have been very supportive with the hobby. I do not have quite as much free time as I used receive back when I was serving in a church that was much smaller and in a setting with a slower pace, but I am thankful to enjoy that which I have been given!

I am blessed to have a great family and many friends!

Impromptu Visit to the Y Block Guy's Shop

In late October, on my way back from the Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California, to see an inmate, I decided to make a quick stop in Hanford, California to see Tim McMaster's shop. I knew he was out of town and it was a Saturday, but I had a little fun taking photos of the Y Block engines on display and checking out his yard. We laughed a little bit about it at El Mirage. Our schedules are so busy that even though we live close enough to be three and a half hours apart, I have not had the opportunity to show up for a tour and check out the parts for my 312 build.

The door of Hanford Auto Supply looks like the gate guarding a time warp to yesteryear.

This photo takes window shopping to a whole new level!

Both the push truck and the race truck are Y Block powered!

Back to the Lake Bed

There is nothing quite like the sound of a US-manufactured V8 engine roaring at wide open throttle down a straight course more than a mile long. Call me crazy, but that big grin on my face at racing events like the S.C.T.A. El Mirage meet is why the "Hot Rod" is in the name Hot Rod Reverend. While church ministry work has kept me busy over most of September and October, I did get the opportunity to visit the dry lake bed of El Mirage, California once again on Veteran's Day weekend in November. I could not stay very long that Saturday morning, but I did enjoy taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of everything land speed racing.

The Southern California Timing Association runs a tight ship on safety and schedule.

Cars, trucks, lakesters, and even vintage 125 cc motorcycles were racing in November.

Racers and spectators alike spread out in makeshift pit areas along the 1.3 mile long course from the starting line to the finish line where another 1.3 mile shut down section begins. The expanse is quite the spectacle. The photo montage above shows Tim McMaster's pit area - very representative of the others who race. A camper, trailer, mobile tools for servicing, and even a mini-bike for getting around the course are all necessities for those who attend the weekend. There are no permanent facilities on the lake bed since 100% of what the S.C.T.A. sets up is entirely portable, but there are such amenities as porta-johns near the staging lanes and announcer's stand. The diagram below is from the S.C.T.A. website and shows a clear schematic of how the course is designed although it is not quite to scale concerning distance ratios.

Diagram above from S.C.T.A. website: Links to public downloads for racing

The course runs from the staging lanes at the west side to the finish line at the east end. You can see from the lanes indicated at the Startline that all levels of racing take their turn on the lake bed. When I drove down the access road and onto the lake bed myself it was hard to believe that speeds in excess of 300 mph have been run here by the legends! Way back in the 1920's this was the first area in the United States where thrillseekers gathered to see how fast their vehicle could go. When Henry Ford brought along the Flathead V8 in 1932 things really took off for landspeed racing, and records started being made and broken each year with the formation of the Southern California Timing Association.

You may be wondering how the Y Block Guy did with his 1962 Ford F100 Unibody. He had hit 144 mph in this "flying brick" in days gone by...

High Octane Fuel

Over the summer and fall months I have been running 100 octane, ethanol-free, aviation gasoline in my 1955 Ford Fairlane. From the outset, I could tell a real difference in performance. I am positive my engine does not have such high compression to warrant the need for such high octane, but the slight power increase has been notable. This is not something I could do all of the time - the idea of filling up gas cans at a local business for industrial lubricants is not very feasible. After having done that a few times this year the process (and price) can get old really quick! However, getting 19 miles per gallon is pretty good with all of the horsing around I do in town. Really, I do believe the fuel mileage has more to do with the overdrive transmission and the Summit 500 cfm, vacuum secondary carburetor than anything else.

Benefits

There are three positives that I discovered while running this fuel over the past few months. The first would be the slight increase in gas mileage - I went from 17 to 19 miles to the gallon. I did not change my driving habits at all (the video shows some clips of me horsing around a bit with the throttle) and was able to find that the engine responded well to the increase in octane. The second advantage would be a little more power. I do have the ECZ-G heads which are supposed to be 9.0 to 1 compression. I would think I am still close to that even with composition head gaskets because the cylinders have been bored .060 over. Once I emptied the gas tank entirely and filled it with 17 gallons of 100 octane low lead fuel I could really tell the difference "off the line" and at full throttle. The third benefit would be the shelf life. One of the characteristics of this kind of fuel is that it can be stored for long periods time. There is no concern over break down, the white, chalky deposits, or any damage to the fuel lines or the carburetor. The exhaust even smelled different, but "good" if you know what I mean. The hotter the engine was, the better the car ran and the better the exhaust smelled so to speak.

Aviation gasoline on the left, 87 octane with 10% ethanol on the right...

Disadvantages

In my region, pure gas (ethanol free fuel) is not available. I would have to travel two hours to find it at any gas station. Fuel in southern California is already expensive, but for aviation gasoline it is at $8.16 a gallon! (at the writing of this post) Therefore, the most difficult issue to overcome is cost. Secondly, lack of availability makes it another issue. You will not find aviation gasoline at your local gas station. I have to bring my gas cans and transport 15 gallons at a time to and from the supply depot here in Lancaster. The third negative would be the carbon deposits.

All 8 spark plugs showed signs of carbon fouling - just too much octane for my engine.

My Y block is really not running enough compression to warrant such "rich" fuel. I would think that running aviation gasoline for a long time may lead to a build up of deposits on the pistons tops as well. Whatever the case, the negatives outweigh the positives for now so there will not be any more aviation gasoline for the old Ford; however, this was a rather interesting experiment just to see the effects of the fuel.

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Nothing like Mid-50's Fords

Cold weather has finally come to the high desert, and we are not too far from the holiday season. I have really got to get going on the 312 build - I have most all of the parts I need - and to get the T85 R11 installed behind it. For my YouTube channel, I am very aware that a full Y Block build would be quite the ticket. Right now, there is not a YouTube channel or series that takes a viewer through the complete process. I plan to continue driving the car in the cold winter months. It was in the high 20's just yesterday (November 19, 2024) and I had to use the heater in the 1955 Ford Fairlane. Glad it works!

We end this post with the styling and sound of a 1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan.

Artistic styling is at its best when sitting in front of the dash of a mid-50's Ford.

Ending this post with the sound of a Y Block and the E4 cam!

The Hot Rod Reverend