Speaking of that old Ford….

Writing my last post has had me thinking about that truck, off and on, for the past several days. It really was a great truck, fun to drive, loud enough to let you know it was coming, quiet enough to slip through the neighborhood if you were ‘light-footed’.

Fast enough to get some respect, not fast enough to get you ‘stupid-hurt’ if you lost your focus for a minute or two. It always drew attention though, sometimes in a good way, at others it drew attention that I really didn’t want. I loved it when folks would pull up alongside it at a stop light, roll down their windows and shout things like “Radical ride”, “Man that truck is stout!”, or, simply ask to take a closer look at it in the mall/convenience store parking lot.

At other times though the kind of attention it got, was not exactly the opposite kind, but could be fairly annoying.

That old truck was a bit tough to drive at 35MPH. In 3rd gear it was spinning the engine about 3,500 RPM and was a tad on the ‘loud’ side, yet in 4th, the motor would be at about 1,200, maybe 1,400 RPM’s just on the ‘rough’ side of the camshaft.

For those of you who don’t know, as you increase the lift and duration (valve opening and closing events) of a camshaft, you’ll allow the engine to more fully fill the cylinders with the air/fuel mix, but you also move the operating range of the engine up in RPM’s as well.

This truck had an Iskendarian 270 Supercam in it, just about all the cam you could really utilize in a daily driven vehicle. However, all that cam lift and duration meant the engine would barely idle below 1200 RPM and really only smoothed out above 2,000 rpm.

As a result, in 4th gear, at 35mph, the engine was doing what’s referred to as ‘loping’, which means it almost feels like the truck will stall, before coming back up on the powerband once again. While all of us horsepower enthusiasts love the sound of a healthy, loping engine, in motion it has the effect, on the people in the car, of alternately ‘blipping’ the gas and tapping the brakes… essentially rocking you back and forth, forward to rear in your seat. Trust me, it’s fairly annoying!!

Why am I explaining all of this? To set up this story of course…

I’m on my way home from work in Syracuse (I was still at Omnifax Computer Stores at the time I think), and had stopped at “Richal’s” in Sylvan Beach to get a pizza for dinner.

As I’m pulling out of the parking lot of the pizza joint, I notice a State police car turning in behind me from the intersection.

Normally I’d either drive about 40 in this 35 MPH zone, or slip the truck into 3rd despite the noise… hoping to avoid trouble however, this time I left it in 4th gear, and endured the constant ‘rocking’ motion as we proceeded North up Rt. 13.

As you leave Sylvan Beach on 13, the speed limit goes from 35, to 55 mph… and this night, like many others, once the new limit sign became visible, I slipped the truck into 2nd gear, stomped the gas pedal, grabbed 3rd, and as the speedometer hit 55, slipped it into 4th and let off the gas. (This truck was just plain fun when you stabbed the gas!!)

As I looked in the rear view however, there, about 13 car lengths back, is that same State trooper. Only now, all the lights are flashing, and the car is rapidly closing in on me.

I pulled over, set the parking brake, turned the truck off and waited on the officer. We did the ceremonial license /registration/insurance card exchange, and all of that was in order. The next thing the officer said to me was “I’m going to have to cite you for an inadequate exhaust”.

I then asked him if the exhaust system, was complete, starting at the engine, and then exited behind the rear bumper, how that could be considered, “inadequate”. He went on to inform me that running “straight pipes” (a system without an muffler) was illegal, and therefore inadequate.

I explained, the system had mufflers, but, he told me that he didn’t believe me. I then offered to get my suit dirty, if he’d also bend a knee and look underneath to see if I was telling the truth or not.

Yes, I was in a 3-piece suit, looking quite dapper actually… he eventually consented, pulled out his flashlight and we both looked under the truck. There, to his surprise, were two, nearly new, full sized mufflers.

After that, he began looking at my license again, and inquired if the address on my license was, in fact, current. I told him, yes it was, and that I’d lived there for nearly 10 years.

After explaining to me that when I’d hit the gas the sound had ‘rattled the windows’ in the police cruiser, he’d assumed that for it to be that loud, it would have had to have been ‘inadequate’. We also had a brief discussion about what was considered ‘loud’ and he explained that he didn’t have the equipment to measure the actual decibel levels.

Once he’d handed me back my paperwork, and we were preparing to part company, I asked him if he’d seen the barracks sergeant lately. He replied that he saw him nearly every day, why was I asking.

I simply replied “Tell him I said he’s overdue for a visit and a cup of coffee”

He looked at me, rather quizzically actually, and said “You know the sergeant?”. We had a brief conversation about how I knew him, some mutual friends and so on, as we were wrapping that up; he asked me “Why didn’t you mention that sooner?”

I told him that I’d never ‘name drop’ over a simple ticket. We shook hands and went on about our separate ways.

A few weeks later, I did run into the sergeant, over at Larry’s house as I recall, and his only comment was “I heard you broke in the new rookie!”

You see it was just small town life. The new officer assumed I was not local, and most likely had more than a couple of drinks (I’d had none), and that a ticket would ‘slow me down’ for the rest of my stay in the area. All very reasonable assumptions, in that area, especially in the middle of the summer!

It’s one of the reasons I miss that place, those times, those people. The cops all knew the ‘bad’ guys, and the ‘good’ guys. For the most part, if you were a local, and weren’t seriously out of line, they’d let you slide a little as they really had their hands full with rowdy vacationers for the most part.

It also illustrates that if you’re going to drive something that attracts attention you need to have all of your paperwork in order, all of the time. This was not the only time I was pulled over with that truck, it happened quite frequently actually. Most of the time, it was a ‘routine stop’ followed by a “Can I look under the hood?” sort of question. Some folks might have been upset by it, me, I sort of enjoyed that so many folks thought the truck was cool!!

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