Flamethrowers For The Foolhearty

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THE HOW TO SET UP A

FLAMETHROWER

A GUIDE FOR IDIOTS AND OTHERS THAT CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT

FIRST..Don't try this, think about it or mention this to any of your buddies if your name is "Bubba", if you failed any of the first three grades (no matter how many times you tried), if your girlfreind is your mother, or if you couldn't understand any of the words here that had more then three letters.

Well, If you got this far, you want to know how its done right? Well I ain't gonna tell you, but there are some secrets that really aren't all that secret. What I will give you is common knowledge, stuff you can figure out with a few pointers. Before you go foolin around with a flamethrower first you have got to be willing to alter your car or truck or motorcycle. This means there goes your warranty if its a newer vehicle. If you want flames coming out of your tailpipe you don't care much about your car anyway so I suppose that doesn't even matter. Also you have got to possess some form of common sence. You can't buy this at Wal Mart, you have to either be born with it or have it beat into you, either way don't go any farther with any thoughts about a flamethrower with out it.
Don't know if you have common sence? Take this test:

Would you put your foot in front of your buddies spinning tire while he doing a burnout to keep him from rolling foward?
Would you look up a tailpipe of a flamethrower car just as it ignites to see the pretty colored flames as they come out?
Would you take your brand new VW bettle and go the wrong way on the freeway and play chicken with tractor-trailer that already has a wiped out front bumper?
If you saw two pretty girls on the side of the road hitchhiking, would you pull over and do a burnout in front of them till you couldn't even see your hood to try to impress them?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you have no common sence. YOU DON'T WANT A FLAMETHROWER! If you answered yes to the last one then your just an idiot.

OK, First you are gonna need tools:

A big hammer (or BFH if you've got one)
A good pair of wire cutters (or good teeth if you have any)
A 1/2" drill and a few unbroken drill bits
An adjustable wrench (or a set of real wrenches..go ahead take the fun out of everything..)
A beverage of your choice.

You are gonna need some parts too:

A good coil, a Harley two wire works best
Good 8 mil spark wire, as long a piece as you can get.
A few rolls of heavy wire, enough to go from the front of the car to the back.
A few switches as described below.
Spark plugs..experiment, but hot long reach plugs work the best.
Duct tape...I don't know, you just gotta have it..

OK, send your woman out, give her money to shop...its time to screw up the car and you don't need her askin any questions.

Most of what your gonna see will be in a few pictures, (See? I try to help the illiterate!) The first one is the old tried and true method of makin flames. Using a model T coil box many an old hotrodder had some fun... model T setup

But, were are you gonna find a model T coil? Well they are out there but you need two if you have daul exaust. I have seen this done even with a switch just to turn the coil on and using the key switch to kill the engine.

KILL THE ENGINE??? Well in case you didn't know it...yes you kill the engine while the flamethrower is burning. Thats where the blue flame comes from..its unburned gas from the engine. You wind the car up, flip the rear plugs on and cut the ignition with your foot still on the gas pedal and keep the ignition off till the car almost dies completely...thats how you get the flame. What you hear when you see a flamethrower is the rumble of the fire in the tailpipe not the engine running.

OK, remember, I am only going to give the basics. better give your woman more money, shes back.

Now, we can get away from the model t coils pretty easy and set up a simple flamethrower with parts you probably have laying around. look at the next few diagrams, I broke it down some but it all fits together.

See? This just aint gonna work...

But this is more like it...

The low side or negitive side of the distributer works the rear coil just like it does the car coil but they won't work together.. Thats were the switch comes in. With the dist. wire wired to a double throw double pole switch, the ign. coil can be off while the flamethrower coil is on. The dist. wire is wired to the middle pole of the switch and bridged to the other side as well. the front coil is hooked to the one side of the switch and the rear coil is hooked to the opposite side. A seperate on off switch is used to put juice to the rear coil. Now when the motor is spinning the points are opening and closing but the rear coil is firing when the switch is thrown for the rear coil.

OK, have we got this somewhat straight so far?

Next would be the tail pipe. You are gonna need a tail pipe or two if you don't have any sticking out the rear of the car. The placement of the sparkplug is kind of important.

You don't want it right at the end and you don't want it three foot under the car either. Just look at the picture....

You can put the plug in anyway you want, some just drill a hole and weld them in and some just drill a smaller hole and screw them in and hope for the best. I like to make it so I can get them back out if the foul or break off or just plain go bad. A long reach plug works the best because it gets closer to the center of the pipe.

Flamethrowers will work on newer cars but...the converters suck the raw gas out of the exaust. They kill a good flame. The newer coil packs can't be hooked up like the old style stuff but there are ways around it and some of the newer ignitions will also work right in the trunk to fire the flamethrower alone. If you want to get into it, you have to experiment. BUT safety has to come first, if you are not willing to experiment and don't want to take a chance of being nailed by the local police when your buddy gets you to set it off on the side of the road then flamethrowers aren't for you. Hope some of this gives you some sort of insite. No I won't tell you how I do mine, but it did evolve from stuff like this.

HEY! Your womans back and shes watching over your shoulder. Quick! go back to that crap you were looking at before, if she finds out what your up to your cruisin days are over.

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