Flamethrowers!!!!

Ok, i dont get it. I like flamethrowers, always have. I have seen them an myriads of cars, traditional rods, rat rods, ricers, almost everything. I have talked to some old skoolers and the said they would just run the carbs real rich, put plugs in the pipes, run them off a coil and wire it to a switch, back in the 60s. So appearently it was cool way back when too. I understand some guys dont like it cuz they think its "too flashy", but these are the same guys that have their cars all decked out with flake paint and tons of krome, which dont get me wrong, thats cool in my book, but still flashy. So lets hear why you do or dont like it. Plus if you have a pic of flamethrowers on lake pipes, or flamethrowers at all, lets see them.

 

I like em, but to each their own. The first time I remember seeing them was the 55 Chevy in the TV movie "Sometimes They Come Back"

 

Flamethrowers are like the Jersey Shore bunch........totally irrelevant and useless to society.

 

heres a human interpretation of flame throwers.. needless to say I think flames are kool

 

Is that "Sometimes They Come Back" the Stephen King movie? That Chevy is kinda cool.

 

Yeah, it's a Stephen King movie. I couldn't find any decent pictures of the damn thing.

 

I've never seen the movie. Is the car a big part of it?

 

Yeah, it's almost like a character. It's the main bad guys car. If I remember correctly (it's been a while) it, and it's passengers are ghosts from 1963, so needless to say it's style supposed to reflect that.

 

Your car should garner the attention, not the gimmick. Guys with tons of chrome and kandy paint don't need flame-throwers, people are checkin their cars out because they look pretty, not because there is fire coming out of the exhaust. Flamethrowers on nice, done cars just come across odd to me. Like Voodoo Larry's "Voodoo Idol". I get that the flamethrowers are sort of his trademark, but the car is so cool that they're superfluous.

My $.02

 

depends on what they are on, if someone wants to fire one off in a parking lot or something is one thing, but idiots who shoot flames on the streets are just giving cops more reason to hate hot rodders. also the best way to do it is you have to interrupt the ignition while stepping on the gas, this loads up the exaust and a spark plug screwed into the pipe lights it off. if it's done this way, the carb doesn't have to run rich all the time. you have to interrupt the ignition on the engine and a coil for the rear spark plug at the same time. probably an arm switch for the coil to light the flame and a couple of relays with a pushbutton

 

for those who want to do this, First interrupting your coil can cause backfire and possible damage so do this at your own risk. you need two bosche type relays, the ones with a common and one normally open, and one normally closed contact. ones with two normally open contacts won't work. a pushbutton switch, an old ignition coil and some sort of bracket, short plug wire and something weld,ed into the exaust at the back to screw the plug into. install the pushbutton switch somewhere, you need to run power into this switch, preferebly something that is off when the car is off, the first relay, switched power from the button into terminal 30, you will connect terminal 87A to terminal 86, terminal 85 to ground, and terminal 87 goes to your coil + at the back of the car. - on the coil goes to ground. the relay being connected in this fashion will cause it to buzz when power is applied and a pulsing + 12 volts out at terminal 87. this causes your coil to fire like it was connected to an ignition system. Remember a coil doesn't fire until power is DISCONNECTED not connected, it's a collapsing magnetic field that creates the high voltage in the secondary. the pulsing dc from the relay will cause the coil to fire rapidly. On to the second relay, be careful and do the connections right on this, your coil for your engine will route through this relay.
terminal 85 on the second relay will go to ground, terminal 86 will go to the same switched power from the pushbutton switch as the relay above. terminal 30 will go to the power that would have gone to your ignition coil, terminal 87A will go to the coil. this relay is wired so when the button is pushed, it interrups power briefly to the ignition coil.
when the pushbutton is pushed, relay one causes the coil to fire at the back of the car, at the same time relay two interrups the ignition loading up the exaust with raw fuel. you will normally have to push the button once or twice to get flames.

 

who? should I do a search to find out? lol

 

I remember as a kid watching the flame throwers at Lead East. I will never forget the Fonz's merc.

 

i think they are cool, always puts on a cool show. Not something i see done with the kids with ricers that think they are cool. I want to throw sparks on my next car that i would like to customize a little bit more. But me personally (18 y/o) i think it is something really cool and fun to watch

 

as far as im concernered, since i dont intend to let off the flamethrowers at shows, its not really a gimmick, just a bit of fun out on the town. Say im with a group of friends hangin out in a parkin lot or somethin. I would never set it off in traffic, thatd be idiotic. I think the reason cops hate hot rodders is the same reason they always have, we drive fast and recklessly and usually have little to no exhaust. What is there really to like? i dont really care if they do or not though.

 

Waste of time and money. You want to be cool just set your car on fire and be the coolest kid on the block.

 

and why is that, claymore?

 

To me it seems like that toy that I played with only once when I was a kid, then got bored with it. Take this any way you want to, but that 59 in the pics above, yep, that's a perfect eample of, uh...

 

Seriously?
Maybe I'm not a Hot Rodder then .

 

I been doing flamethrowing the past 14 years i love it and will do it for ever.its just a part of my life been around it when i was a kid always thought it was something cool .but i do it at all big shows only not just driveing down the streets when kids and sometimes cops ask me to .and as for just a waste of money not to me it isnt i bought and made all my stuff 14 years ago and been useing it ever since .so i got my money worth.

 

X2. Can't do anything different or interesting otherwise? FLAMETHROWERS!!! Now people will look at my car!!!

Brian

 

i enjoyed the flamethrower show at the hunert car pile up

 

This was taken @ the Pyramid Shriners Car Show, Orange, Ct. Oct 2007.
These guys came up from ether New Jersey or Pennsylvania I thing.
Those flames were real cool. I was about 75 to 100 yrds away and the heat from them was unreal.

 

I like Ltorch's kind - but the Blowtane setups and cans of compressed gasoline in the trunk scare me. I stay far away from those . Anybody got a horror story.

 

I think most of the people with those are doing it competitivly there is an entire culture of that stuff, compressed gas is cheating to me anyway, not the real deal

 

what real hotrodder would risk engine damage from all that excess fuel washing down the cylinders?

 

You know, when I saw this thread, then the 59, I have a funny feeling that we both reacted the same. I think a lot of people put too much emphasis on the "bad boy" side of hot rods and customs, so much so that it gets distorted into a cliche at least as laughable as the "lost in the 50s" poodle skirts and fake plastic food trays image that I suspect played at least a small role in the inception of this very forum. For some reason the "black widows" motorcycle gang in Clint Eastwood's "any which Way but loose" springs to mind.
Paul

 

Flames are cool........juat like fancy wheels and motors.....it whats people like to see.....

 

I don't see the point, plus, in California, they're illegal. Same as cut-outs.

 

why they are a silly gimmick? along with the spider web skirts. I find them silly these days...