Beat you to it, the feathers of the African Spitfire are lighter than those of the European.
3.1 million pounds for Mk.1 Spitfire
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Beat you to it, the feathers of the African Spitfire are lighter than those of the European.
Crimea_River
Marshal
But if there were TWO African Spitfires......
buffnut453
Captain
Wouldn't make any difference as they're non-migratory.
GregP
Major
I just checked an up to date money converter and it's right at about $1.56 USD for 1 British pound.
Nevermind the Silver, think bank transfer, which is how the tansaction happens.
Nevermind the Silver, think bank transfer, which is how the tansaction happens.
In Italy we Engineers had our private system, named Technical system, that used as primary units kilopond, meter and second and we were quite happy with it. So we used kp/cm2 for stress, cm4 for Moment of inertia and so on. At the University I studied with this system.
Physics and Matemathics people, backed by the b#+*§y EU, compelled us Engineers to use SI, so we had to use kN/mm2 and other similar amenities, really a mess.
About 1983, as a young structural engineer, I had to do with these buildings
and with the canadian Engineer that had the patent we had to discuss the different allowed strenght of materials between Canada and Italy.
He was talking in SI and soon realized that mentally I did translate numbers into the Technical system to appreciate the values.
"Why on earth did you compelled us to use SI" he told me "if you are using another system?"
"Tell EU…." was my reply….
Physics and Matemathics people, backed by the b#+*§y EU, compelled us Engineers to use SI, so we had to use kN/mm2 and other similar amenities, really a mess.
About 1983, as a young structural engineer, I had to do with these buildings
and with the canadian Engineer that had the patent we had to discuss the different allowed strenght of materials between Canada and Italy.
He was talking in SI and soon realized that mentally I did translate numbers into the Technical system to appreciate the values.
"Why on earth did you compelled us to use SI" he told me "if you are using another system?"
"Tell EU…." was my reply….
Last edited:
fastmongrel
1st Sergeant
You want standards confusion try X head screws and bits. There is Phillips, Pozidrive, PozidriveFX, Frearson, ISO, JIS and probably some more old ones floating about. We come across a lot of Japanese Industrial Standard X head screws and they are just sufficently different to a Phillips as to slip and butcher the screwhead when using a Phillips but look identical unless you take a good look with a torch and magnifying glass.
"Standards" are a tool to harmonise or exclude depending on what you want to do. FIFA/UEFA standards for stadiums are different to others ensuring that a bright new shiny stadium is constructed or extensively modified for each world cup. Railway standard gauges change around the world because it can be very useful for trains to pass between friendly countries and very alarming to know your enemies trains can run on your tracks.
mikewint
Captain
Elmas, The kilopond, and other local and/or speciality units like Teslas, Henrys, angstroms, webers, etc. are all well and good if you are part of that select group but in an international/global economy/market we all have to to use the same system. That is why the metric system ceased to exist in 1960 and SI, Système International d'Unités, took over and required that all derived units, like FORCE (weight) and Pressure (force / area) be made up of basic units. Using the weight (force) of a kilogram (mass) as your base has automatic problems as weight varies with your latitude and height from the surface and what happens to be below the surface at that spot. Now I also understand frustration with SI's requirements. The Pascal (unit of pressure) and Newton (unit of force) are required to be defined in base units. So a Pascal is a Newton per one square meter (N / m2) and a Newton is 1 N = 1 kg⋅m/s2 making the Pascal 1 Pa = 1 kg · m-1 · s-2. Making the Pascal a VERY small unit of pressure. Consider, a column of air 1 cm2 in cross-section from sea-level to the top of the atmosphere has a weight of 10.1 N so pressure is 10.1N / cm2 or here in the States a column of air 1 in2 in cross-section to the top of the atmosphere weighs 14.7 lbs so 1atm = 14.7lbs / in2. That same pressure in Pascal is a convenient 101,325 Pa or in kPa 101.325 or in hectoPascals (millibars) 1013.25. In the lab were just used mercury barometers measuring the height of the supported mercury column. 760mm of Hg or 29.92 in of Hg (USA weather forecasters give barometric pressure in inches of Mercury though they never tell you that). Since this is an aircraft forum, Query Newlyn Harbor in Cornwall, UK is broadcast worldwide in millibars. NOT good to land above or below the airport.
SI also dropped commas from numbers, grouping digits in threes: 3 100 000 both before and after the decimal 0.000 30
Like the Periodic Table of Elements the entire world uses the symbol Au, though I say gold, you say Oro, and in China: huáng jīn and my friend Shinpaci: Gōrudo
SI also dropped commas from numbers, grouping digits in threes: 3 100 000 both before and after the decimal 0.000 30
Like the Periodic Table of Elements the entire world uses the symbol Au, though I say gold, you say Oro, and in China: huáng jīn and my friend Shinpaci: Gōrudo
Last edited:
Mike you have just reminded me of my involvement in radiological safety Curies rads rems roentgens sieverts between 1979 and 2013 I did courses approximately every 5 years.....the information changed with every course.
BTW the SI system may orientate itself around the decimal point but that is anglophonic. In France and Germany they still internally use a comma where USA and UK use a point. Occasionally you can see it on this forum, to change it you must re write languages.
When discussing a number in Europe you must be careful. comma translates to Komma (Ger) virgule (fr) virgola (It) when translating directly but to Punkt point or punto if translating correctly. 1,000,000.00 in UK is 1.000.000,00 in mainland europe. (Yes it does cause the occasional screw up)
BTW the SI system may orientate itself around the decimal point but that is anglophonic. In France and Germany they still internally use a comma where USA and UK use a point. Occasionally you can see it on this forum, to change it you must re write languages.
When discussing a number in Europe you must be careful. comma translates to Komma (Ger) virgule (fr) virgola (It) when translating directly but to Punkt point or punto if translating correctly. 1,000,000.00 in UK is 1.000.000,00 in mainland europe. (Yes it does cause the occasional screw up)
Last edited:
GregP
Major
Everyone knows the SI system, Mike. We just don't use it much except in international dealings.
Inside a country, people use whatver customary units they want to use.
When we order off the shelf machines from Japan or Europe, we take the metric hardware. If we contract for mahines for domestic use, we simply speficfy SAE hardware be used and holes readjusted for correct size. If they don't want that business, they are free to say no. To date, we have had ZERO trouble when we specify SAE hardware be used and holes chaged to accommodate same.
If someone has the only game in town, you accept their hardware and buy some spares. If there is competition out there and they want the business, then they accomodate, not the people ordering.
When the US government accepted the metric standard, they didn't ask the people, they accepted it for government reasons and told us what they did. So far, almost nobody has taken it up and if they force that, we can always vote their butts out of office. Don't think it wouldn't happen.
But when I see units in SI, it is not difficult to handle in any case, so I am comfortable in several systems including SI, CGS, MKS, English, and a few others. There are a lot of people that way who have no trouble whatever the units.
The onlt real trouble I had was buying an Italian machine where the air pressure was specified in nl. My Italian engineer friend kept saying "norma-litres" and we couldn't ever figure out what he was meaning. Turned out after some investigation he meant "normal Litres," but he hever wrote it out and never DID convert it to psi for us, so we rejected the $150,000 USD machine, returned it at his expense to Italy, and bought a US product.
Later on, I found normal litres as a unit and would have no trouble converting to to psi today. The conversion was necessary since our entire factory ran on psi air pressure, not nl.
I'd suggest if someone is having trouble with a US company converting to SI. then someone somewhere is mis-pronouncing the unit. The solution is simple, SPELL the damed unit out and everyone knows what you mean. Pressure is force per unit area and we would have had no trouble with SI pressure ... and nl is not a standard SI unit or an English unit.
The only one we just grin and take today is Whitworth tools and fasteners because all the Merlins that exist have already been produced. So if you want to fly a Merlin, you get Whitworth tools and fasteners or find another warbird that takes another engine. Since we fly three Merlin-powered aircraft and race another one at Reno, we don't have any trouble with it. But every time we have to replace something on our A6M5 Zero, we convert it to SAE. So today we have a Zero that is somewhere around 75 - 80% SAE except for the engine, which is all metric. Makes working on it a challenge, but the plane is a beauty.
Oh yeah, all our rivets are standard AN rivet sizes, no matter what they originally were. If we ever replace one, we replace it with an AN 426 or AN 470 rivet, and when we replace sheet metal, it is with 2024-T3 in inch sizes. Mostly .020", .025", .032", .040". .063" and the like. You won't find any mm size Aluminum at Chino unless we are throwing it away and replacing it wqith now sheeting.
It is expensive enough to stock all the WWII normal sizes much less the modern stuff that our planes never used anyway. Our newest jet is Korean War vintage, and it still used all SAE and English measurements.
For our Hispano Ha.1112, we are finding metric bearings because the bearing races are all metric and we'd have to machine it out. It is easier to get metric bearings than to do all that machining.
So my understanding is simple ... the buyer controls the units used, not the seller. If the product is unavailable except in units the buyer refuses to accept, the buyer can convert it at some expense, find another product, or do without. One of the options will be taken as there are no other paths to travel.
I can guarantee that if the USA comes up with a military weapon or technology that can defeat some particular threat technology of interest and it comes only in SAE, then Europe/Japan will take it in SAE, forgo the weapon / technology, or pay the cost to convert to to metric. There aren't any other options.
Inside a country, people use whatver customary units they want to use.
When we order off the shelf machines from Japan or Europe, we take the metric hardware. If we contract for mahines for domestic use, we simply speficfy SAE hardware be used and holes readjusted for correct size. If they don't want that business, they are free to say no. To date, we have had ZERO trouble when we specify SAE hardware be used and holes chaged to accommodate same.
If someone has the only game in town, you accept their hardware and buy some spares. If there is competition out there and they want the business, then they accomodate, not the people ordering.
When the US government accepted the metric standard, they didn't ask the people, they accepted it for government reasons and told us what they did. So far, almost nobody has taken it up and if they force that, we can always vote their butts out of office. Don't think it wouldn't happen.
But when I see units in SI, it is not difficult to handle in any case, so I am comfortable in several systems including SI, CGS, MKS, English, and a few others. There are a lot of people that way who have no trouble whatever the units.
The onlt real trouble I had was buying an Italian machine where the air pressure was specified in nl. My Italian engineer friend kept saying "norma-litres" and we couldn't ever figure out what he was meaning. Turned out after some investigation he meant "normal Litres," but he hever wrote it out and never DID convert it to psi for us, so we rejected the $150,000 USD machine, returned it at his expense to Italy, and bought a US product.
Later on, I found normal litres as a unit and would have no trouble converting to to psi today. The conversion was necessary since our entire factory ran on psi air pressure, not nl.
I'd suggest if someone is having trouble with a US company converting to SI. then someone somewhere is mis-pronouncing the unit. The solution is simple, SPELL the damed unit out and everyone knows what you mean. Pressure is force per unit area and we would have had no trouble with SI pressure ... and nl is not a standard SI unit or an English unit.
The only one we just grin and take today is Whitworth tools and fasteners because all the Merlins that exist have already been produced. So if you want to fly a Merlin, you get Whitworth tools and fasteners or find another warbird that takes another engine. Since we fly three Merlin-powered aircraft and race another one at Reno, we don't have any trouble with it. But every time we have to replace something on our A6M5 Zero, we convert it to SAE. So today we have a Zero that is somewhere around 75 - 80% SAE except for the engine, which is all metric. Makes working on it a challenge, but the plane is a beauty.
Oh yeah, all our rivets are standard AN rivet sizes, no matter what they originally were. If we ever replace one, we replace it with an AN 426 or AN 470 rivet, and when we replace sheet metal, it is with 2024-T3 in inch sizes. Mostly .020", .025", .032", .040". .063" and the like. You won't find any mm size Aluminum at Chino unless we are throwing it away and replacing it wqith now sheeting.
It is expensive enough to stock all the WWII normal sizes much less the modern stuff that our planes never used anyway. Our newest jet is Korean War vintage, and it still used all SAE and English measurements.
For our Hispano Ha.1112, we are finding metric bearings because the bearing races are all metric and we'd have to machine it out. It is easier to get metric bearings than to do all that machining.
So my understanding is simple ... the buyer controls the units used, not the seller. If the product is unavailable except in units the buyer refuses to accept, the buyer can convert it at some expense, find another product, or do without. One of the options will be taken as there are no other paths to travel.
I can guarantee that if the USA comes up with a military weapon or technology that can defeat some particular threat technology of interest and it comes only in SAE, then Europe/Japan will take it in SAE, forgo the weapon / technology, or pay the cost to convert to to metric. There aren't any other options.
wuzak
Captain
The US Government accepted the metric system a long time ago.
Like 1893, and before.
US units have been defined by their relation to their metric equivalents ever since.
mikewint
Captain
GregP, It is a PIA to find something built in a mix of metric and SAE stripping many a bolt, nut, and thread in the process. Like you I keep double sets of wrenches, feelers, thread gauges, etc. About 5 different sets of screw driver bits for all those weird screws you run into from time to time. Just recently I ran into what looked to be standard torx screw but my torx bits did not work. A close look revealed a little raised dimple in the center that prevented the torx bit from going all the way in. What a waste of engineering and machining. I used a regular flat blade screw driver.
The USA has certainly stuck to English units despite the rest of the world going metric. But as you say, money talks. But billions have also been blown because someone did not translate units correctly. The crashed Mars Orbiter immediately comes to mind as NASA specs were in Metric and Lockheed-Martin supplied English. The SOHO satellite orbit was off by 100km due to a metric/english conversion factor. In 1983 an Air Canada plane (Flight 143) using metric fuel gauges was loaded from English pumps. It ran out of fuel in mid-flight. Two calculation errors gave the plane only 1/2 the fuel it needed. Many medication errors have caused ODs because someone gave 0.5 grams rather that the 0.5 grains prescribed. An American International Airways cargo plane landed 15 tons over weight as no one had converted Kilograms to Pounds. Tokyo's Disneyland's Space mountain ride broke an axle derailing the cars. The axles had been ordered in English units rather than metric.
wuzak - That is not USING the metric system and is exactly what Napoleon did in France. In 1799 the meter became the official unit of length in France. This was not fully enforced, and in 1812 he restored the traditional French measurements in the retail trade, but redefined them in terms of metric units. That a US foot is 0.3048m changes nothing
The USA has certainly stuck to English units despite the rest of the world going metric. But as you say, money talks. But billions have also been blown because someone did not translate units correctly. The crashed Mars Orbiter immediately comes to mind as NASA specs were in Metric and Lockheed-Martin supplied English. The SOHO satellite orbit was off by 100km due to a metric/english conversion factor. In 1983 an Air Canada plane (Flight 143) using metric fuel gauges was loaded from English pumps. It ran out of fuel in mid-flight. Two calculation errors gave the plane only 1/2 the fuel it needed. Many medication errors have caused ODs because someone gave 0.5 grams rather that the 0.5 grains prescribed. An American International Airways cargo plane landed 15 tons over weight as no one had converted Kilograms to Pounds. Tokyo's Disneyland's Space mountain ride broke an axle derailing the cars. The axles had been ordered in English units rather than metric.
wuzak - That is not USING the metric system and is exactly what Napoleon did in France. In 1799 the meter became the official unit of length in France. This was not fully enforced, and in 1812 he restored the traditional French measurements in the retail trade, but redefined them in terms of metric units. That a US foot is 0.3048m changes nothing
Last edited:
Mike
Mid '70s, no computers, just a pen and a pocket calculator, + - x : sin cos, my Colleagues of two or three years before still used slide rulers
At the Tecnica delle Costruzioni examination we had to calculate a truss like this one below (but spans and weights were different from each other...):
The Professor set a trap, as spans were given in cm and weights in kp/cm.
If you directly use in the formulas kp and cm numbers very rapidly grow to millions, billions and zillions, while if you convert at once cm in m and kp in tons (yes) numbers remain quite maneuvrable, with no loss of significant precision, and in every step of the calculation you do not loose the "order of magnitude".
The problem today with Students is that with computers you have results in a form like this
1,637866543 * 104 N/mm2
and to make them understand that the part .......7866543 is, almost always, absolutely inconsequential but between 1,637866543 * 104 N/mm2, 1,637866543 * 105 N/mm2 and 1,637866543 * 106 N/mm2 there's a lot of difference is not always easy.....
Comma used as in mainland Europe of course, see post #29...
Mid '70s, no computers, just a pen and a pocket calculator, + - x : sin cos, my Colleagues of two or three years before still used slide rulers
At the Tecnica delle Costruzioni examination we had to calculate a truss like this one below (but spans and weights were different from each other...):
The Professor set a trap, as spans were given in cm and weights in kp/cm.
If you directly use in the formulas kp and cm numbers very rapidly grow to millions, billions and zillions, while if you convert at once cm in m and kp in tons (yes) numbers remain quite maneuvrable, with no loss of significant precision, and in every step of the calculation you do not loose the "order of magnitude".
The problem today with Students is that with computers you have results in a form like this
1,637866543 * 104 N/mm2
and to make them understand that the part .......7866543 is, almost always, absolutely inconsequential but between 1,637866543 * 104 N/mm2, 1,637866543 * 105 N/mm2 and 1,637866543 * 106 N/mm2 there's a lot of difference is not always easy.....
Comma used as in mainland Europe of course, see post #29...
Last edited:
A friend of mine did the last Pilot training in the '60s with piston engine fighters, here in my town, flying G-59 (that were metric) and Mustangs ( that were Imperial).
In G 59 all instruments were metric, while in Mustangs all instruments were imperial, so, to avoid dangerous confusion, all the instruments had to be painted on the glass with red stripes indicating danger if surpassed......
He told me that while G59 were considered "Padri di famiglia" (Family Fathers) Mustangs well deserved their name.....
SE = Scuola Elmas
Elmas airport
In G 59 all instruments were metric, while in Mustangs all instruments were imperial, so, to avoid dangerous confusion, all the instruments had to be painted on the glass with red stripes indicating danger if surpassed......
He told me that while G59 were considered "Padri di famiglia" (Family Fathers) Mustangs well deserved their name.....
SE = Scuola Elmas
Elmas airport
Last edited:
mikewint
Captain
Elmas, ah yes the old slip-sticks, no battery required adding and subtracting powers of ten in your head, but because of logarithmic scale spacing it made significant figures so much easier as you were lucky to read three. I still have my Dietzgen magnesium slide rule, a Christmas present from my parents along with a circular and a tube-type that screwed up and down with the scales spiral on the tube. Even had a 7-ft wooden one used to teach "How to use" the ruler. Remember coming back to school from Christmas break and wonder of all wonders one kid had a electronic hand-held CALCULATOR the red diode type by Texas Instruments. Sat around for 50min doing calculations on it.
The slide rule itself was a godsend as initially be carried books with self-interpolating log tables to do our multiplying and dividing.
It's not that the conversions can't be done it's remembering to do them and using the correct conversions then throwing in square and cubic volumes. Probably half the class thought 12in = 1 ft so 1 ft2 = 12 in2 and 1 ft3 = 12 in3.
Have you seen the new TI Inspire calculators? Enter any equation and hit solve even integral and differential calculus
The slide rule itself was a godsend as initially be carried books with self-interpolating log tables to do our multiplying and dividing.
It's not that the conversions can't be done it's remembering to do them and using the correct conversions then throwing in square and cubic volumes. Probably half the class thought 12in = 1 ft so 1 ft2 = 12 in2 and 1 ft3 = 12 in3.
Have you seen the new TI Inspire calculators? Enter any equation and hit solve even integral and differential calculus
fastmongrel
1st Sergeant
Things are settling down on units these days in the auto trade. Even the relatively rare US vehicles we see in the workshop are usually metric fasteners these days (or possibly AF equivalent) and my AF tools are getting dusty in the bottom drawers of my tool cabinet. It used to be a nightmare when you could get 3 units on one machine AF, Whitworth and Metric. Even Metric used to throw up some problems French metric threads (SF) were different to everyone elses metric threads and working on older french cars we had to treasure all threaded fasteners because if you broke or lost one you couldnt get one locally and had to get the Helicoil kit out.
bobbysocks
Chief Master Sergeant
elmas I have a couple of those slide rules laying in a drawer up stairs. I can probably remember how to add and subtract but that is about it. as far as tools at least we didn't adopt whitworth measurements...but I do have a set of those wrenches for my an old bike.
GregP
Major
Hi Mike,
I agree it is a PIA to work on a mixed-hardware project. That's why we convert as much as we can to SAE hardware when we restore foreign aircraft ... for standardization with the hardware we can get very easily and less expensively. There are only a few aircraft metric hardware sources in the U.S.A. and they all charge a LOT more for metric than for SAE. No point in paying more. So, we get the metric when we don't want to mess with re-machining a metric part, but otherwise go with the available SAE aircraft-grade AN hardware.
When I was racing motorcycles I went with metric hardware since it was available for motorcycles easily. I'd get a new street bike home from the dealer and shotgun the case screws with metric Grade 8 socket head screws so I could safety wire it easily and it wasn't made from melted beer cans. Soft metric hardware that came on Japanese motorcycles was OK if you didn't have to remove it. But to get on a racetrack, you had to safety wire the hardware. Phillips metric screws don't lend themselves to safety wire.
I am comfortable with either one, but SAE is cheaper and widely available, at least in AN grade stuff. We don't use motorcycle grade hardware on aircraft, we use aircraft grade. We don't use commercial pop rivets either when we DO use pop rivets, we use aircraft grade CherryMax stuff or equivalent that is more than $1 per rivet even in small sizes.
You can't pull over and park a plane at 5,000 feet, so you use the proper hardware.
Personally I wouldn't care which I used if both were the same price. But I'm NOT going to pay 25% to almost twice as much for the hardware just to use metric when SAE AN hardware is already expensive enough and is available anywhere you can get AN bits and pieces.
I agree it is a PIA to work on a mixed-hardware project. That's why we convert as much as we can to SAE hardware when we restore foreign aircraft ... for standardization with the hardware we can get very easily and less expensively. There are only a few aircraft metric hardware sources in the U.S.A. and they all charge a LOT more for metric than for SAE. No point in paying more. So, we get the metric when we don't want to mess with re-machining a metric part, but otherwise go with the available SAE aircraft-grade AN hardware.
When I was racing motorcycles I went with metric hardware since it was available for motorcycles easily. I'd get a new street bike home from the dealer and shotgun the case screws with metric Grade 8 socket head screws so I could safety wire it easily and it wasn't made from melted beer cans. Soft metric hardware that came on Japanese motorcycles was OK if you didn't have to remove it. But to get on a racetrack, you had to safety wire the hardware. Phillips metric screws don't lend themselves to safety wire.
I am comfortable with either one, but SAE is cheaper and widely available, at least in AN grade stuff. We don't use motorcycle grade hardware on aircraft, we use aircraft grade. We don't use commercial pop rivets either when we DO use pop rivets, we use aircraft grade CherryMax stuff or equivalent that is more than $1 per rivet even in small sizes.
You can't pull over and park a plane at 5,000 feet, so you use the proper hardware.
Personally I wouldn't care which I used if both were the same price. But I'm NOT going to pay 25% to almost twice as much for the hardware just to use metric when SAE AN hardware is already expensive enough and is available anywhere you can get AN bits and pieces.
Last edited:
mikewint
Captain
Bobby, It has been a while for you and a sliderule. They do add and subtract but not numbers. The scales are logarithmic thus you are adding or subtracting logarithms which means powers of 10 and thus multiplying or dividing numbers. So sliderules multiply and divide. Depending on the ruler and the scales it has you can find square roots/ cube roots/ logs, etc.
GregP, With the push to metric that does indeed surprise me. I still have my very first motorcycle a Suzuki T-500 III Titan. After being buried in the garage for years my son and I restored it several years ago and it still runs like a top. We have even found brand new parts from time to time. I'm aware of the process by which critical nuts/bolts are wired but have never need to do it. I still have my old mercury manometer to balance multiple carbs.
GregP, With the push to metric that does indeed surprise me. I still have my very first motorcycle a Suzuki T-500 III Titan. After being buried in the garage for years my son and I restored it several years ago and it still runs like a top. We have even found brand new parts from time to time. I'm aware of the process by which critical nuts/bolts are wired but have never need to do it. I still have my old mercury manometer to balance multiple carbs.
GregP
Major
A Suzy 500 Twin that runs? Great! They were QUICK ... at least until the very quick but very finicky Kawasaki 750 triple came out, followed by the awesome Kawa 900. Had both and loved them both except on a track. Both had a LOT of frame flex under acceleration.
I had a Suzy 750 Water Buffalo triple and it was decent, but not quick unless you modified it. When modified, it won the NHRA cahmpionship multiple times on a dragstrip, but SOTCK it was fine fore accelerating but tended to have the old typical 2-stroke pulsations at cruise when the load dropped off. Direct injection would have cured it but we went away from 2-strokes. Too bad, When you got them figured out, they were easy to tune.
I only took it to dragstrip once and had to replace the phillips with socket head bolts to do it.
I had a Suzy 750 Water Buffalo triple and it was decent, but not quick unless you modified it. When modified, it won the NHRA cahmpionship multiple times on a dragstrip, but SOTCK it was fine fore accelerating but tended to have the old typical 2-stroke pulsations at cruise when the load dropped off. Direct injection would have cured it but we went away from 2-strokes. Too bad, When you got them figured out, they were easy to tune.
I only took it to dragstrip once and had to replace the phillips with socket head bolts to do it.
