Bella Machina !!

Elevation 2,100 ft. Tempurature 81F. Humidity low with sunny skys. Place, North Georgia mountans with twelve miles of clean blacktop and about 65 turns. Traffic. None. Topography. Trees, pastures, and a few houses.

The Mondial and I have come to cordial terms in the last year. I do not thash her but do not pamper her either. Lots of 5,000 rpm shifts in this run. Mostly one gear higher then you would do on a track. I have done 120 mph on some straights in the past but no more. One or two locals seem to have called the constabulary in the past and two of the pursuit cruisers sort of boxed me in front to back out on the main road while I was running with traffic. With an auxilliar coming from the front. No lights or sirens or indications to stop.

I took the hint and even drove sedately back over the stretch in question where a citizen was out by the road. He politely waved to me. I politely waved back at reasonable speed. No further issues.

But a number of the turns are actually full G force at the speed limit. So fun was had by all. I have seen Rome and can die. Or something like that.

 

I have again done some braking practice and must say the brakes are way to soft, too much travel, non linear and the fronts lock up too soon. They are formidable brakes once the proper pressure is applied but this takes practice. But practice is fun. I plan to do a number of 80 mph to almost zero to get it right.

This is an odd observation, but my 1965 corvair with drum brakes is way better ever since I installed a proportioning valve. The car will only go 90 mph but it will instantaneously suck your eyeballs out without diving or unsettling the chasis in any way and with so much brake pedal pressure it is near impossible to lock up the fronts.

 

The car has mysterious small devices secretted all over the inside. I have been reluctant to simply cut the wires since the car runs fine right now. The mystery cricket chirp under the dash is the most quisical. It is a very small chirp and is never regular in timing. And it seems to go away after some driving.

I think I will eventually just start snipping wires to these devices, of which I know three right now. One of them actuall mounts to the driver sun visor and looks like a stereo tweeter. If I lower the visor if falls off and dangles.