Goodson Tools & Supplies Blog

Well I finally got a name for this blog. Due to my unlimited ability to talk about  anything and everything for long periods of time, it has been decided that my blog should be called “Blah, Blah, Blog.” Fits, doesn’t it?! For all of you who suggested names, thanks! There are some very creative minds out there.

Now, on with today’s installment…

Racing is in full swing right now. NASCAR is racing. NHRA is racing. Just about every part of the US is either already racing or getting ready to go racing. Why? Cuz racing is cool!

Racing is horsepower and horsepower means racing.

Today is horsepower day. Yup, I said horsepower day. I’m a true race fan. Heck, I like ‘em all. I don’t care if it’s top fuel dragsters or bar stools or lawnmowers. Racing is what I like.

I’m amazed by the number of things you can race these days. Like I said, bar stools, ice chests, cars, trucks, motorcycles, jet skis, ATVs, lawnmowers, motorcycles and on and on. I think if you can imagine it and you can make it go fast, there will be someone to race with. What do they all have in common?

Horsepower.

Racing is racing all over the world. You get two guys together and before you know it, somebody is gonna call the other guy out for a race. I’ll bet even back in cave man days, they had races of some kind.

I can picture it. Grog the caveman goes to Blog the caveman next door and says, “My wooly mammoth is faster than yours!” And racing was born.

I consider myself lucky to be in the engine business. It feeds my horsepower addiction every day. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit some of the premier engine shops around the world and I’ve even been lucky enough to be up on the starting line at the launch of a pair of NHRA Top Fuel Dragsters.

Man-o-man, what a rush! When the tree went green for the first pair, I honestly thought I was gonna die. It was loud. It was smoky and I could barely breathe. Whoa!

But then I wanted to do it again. And again. And again.

Hello, my name is Dave and I’m a horsepower junkie.

So, what is horsepower?

I found this definition at answers.com:

1. A unit of power in the U.S. Customary System, equal to 745.7 watts or 33,000 foot-pounds per minute.
2. The power exerted by a horse in pulling.
3. Informal Effective strength: political horsepower, computer horsepower.

Pretty cool, huh? What does history say?

One horsepower was originally defined as the amount of power required to lift a mass of 33,000 pounds through a vertical distance of 1 foot in 1 minute. Or 550 foot pounds per second (fps). James Watt worked out this figure for horsepower when he did some experiments on horses hauling coal. He found that horses could haul coal at the average rate of 22,000 foot-pounds per minute. He then applied a correction factor which gave the current value of 33,000 or 550 fps.

I am SO glad they used horses to do this test. Can you imagine all of saying how much mule or oxen power we have? What if they’d used llamas or elephants? “Yeah, I got me over 400 elephants under the hood.” Just sounds wrong, doesn’t it.

Horsepower is the word and the more the better. I think horsepower is like sex – way too much is just about right.

Let’s see what has the big horsepower out there.

• NASCAR engines have about 800 HP
• Alcohol dragster engines have around 3000 HP
• Top Fuel NHRA dragsters make about 8000 HP
• Big ships like the Emma Maersk (powered by a Wartsilla-Sulzer #14RTFLEC96-C Engine, the world’s largest diesel engine) produces almost 110,000 HP.
• Jet engines (like the GE-90115B that’s standard on the 777-200L) can have as much as 227,000 HP.
• The space shuttle has about 37,000,000 HP. Yes, that’s right. 37 million horses from those 3 main engines.

At my house, I have horsepower too. Not as much as some, but I do have some.

• My completely stock Harley Electric Glide Classic has about 60 HP. (Hmmm, I think my Harley needs a little more power)
• My lawnmower has 6.5 HP.
• My chainsaw has 1/2 HP
• The weed whacker has 1/4 HP.
• The snowblower has 5 HP.
• My boat has 315 HP.
• My Chevy truck has 210 HP.
• My wife’s Jeep has about 190 HP.
• My 1966 VW Bug has only 36 HP in it’s 4 cylinders.
• My margarita blender only has enough horsepower to create that wonderful taste of refreshing citrus and tequila, so I won’t count that.

Here is a fun something I want you to do today. Add up how many cylinders you have at home.

Now I said home only so you can’t include all those cores you have at the shop. As we are all engine guys we are the ones who must maintain those home engines. How many do you have? Start with the family car….or cars. Add in the motorcycle, lawn mower, weed whacker, chain saw, hedge trimmer, boat, fishing boat, and for you folks up north ….add in the ice auger, snowmobile, snow blower and ATV ……..you get the picture…………….

Tell me how many cylinders you’ve got at the house and the one who sends in the most “at the house” cylinders will receive a really cool Goodson Racing Hat and Goodson Racing T-shirt!

I think I have 32 cylinders with almost 842 horses of power. Not even enough horsepower for one cylinder in a Top Fuel Dragster Engine. I guess you might say I am horsepower deprived, or horsepower challenged, or at least horsepower lite.

Add em up and send me your cylinder number!

Floating around in cyber space I found some cool links for you to view and yes they all have some kind of horsepower in them. Enjoy them all and if you have some links….send them back to me, also send me some pics from your files. Show me that horsepower!

See ya!

PS ~ You’ve got to check out this video at YouTube! It’s unreal.