There was a lull there for a while as Kaama said, but it seems to be off and running again now.

Still, I have some thoughts about Tech:

1) It is vastly superior to sending your cards and letters to a magazine.

2) You could not buy some of the knowledge delivered here by real life experts.

3) There are also some armchair experts who can dish out all the math and theory you can stomach in certain subject areas.

4) FAQs that have been beaten to death in Tech can be answered with a search of the threads.

5) Many people have been educated by Tech already and can step in with the expert's answers when the experts are too busy eanring a living to reply.

6) There are enough members that chances are good somebody is already running a combination very similar to the one you are asking questions about.

7) We have many members who are working in other high tech areas and who share new developments that are related to high performance boating.

8) We have some members who are researching new things and they share that info with the rest of us. We are not all in the business, or professional racers or financially independent enough to do original research.

The only problem that Tech might be experiencing from time to time is the repetition of FAQs that have been beaten to death. It is frustrating to search for info because there is no editing of threads. If a new member tries to find good info on, for example oval port vs. rect port heads, he gets everything in every thread. Too tough to wade through all that mess, so he asks the question instead. I will admit that I for one don't often answer anymore, because the subject is closed for me.

So the Tech section depends on not-so-new members who will answer because they saw the last thread on the same subject and they aren't sick of it yet. Magazines fall into this same trap, "It's September - this must be the 10 Best Bolt-ons Issue". Or how many times have you seen a letter to the tech column that starts, "I have a 24 foot vee hull with 330 HP; how can I make it go 80mph?"

So if that's what the new and not-so-new members are doing. What are the old members doing? Dying for some new and exciting tech info! Must...have...more...input!

I got so hungry for new input that I started a little air flow research project of my own. I report the results in the tech section from time to time but it's a time consuming exercise and I don't have much data to post. But if every experienced member started a little project and reported on it every once in a while, we would have a lot of new content.

Other than that, the Tech section could use an editor. Someone who follows the great posts on FAQs, edits them and puts them in a separate section called Tech FAQs.

Just my $.02.

tomcat, enjoyed your post---well said. I'm starting to dig up old threads that I know I and others may have exhausted some of our experiences on and bring them "ttt" ("to the top") so that a person wanting to get info on upgrading his power, etc., can read them without another person having to retype everything---the archives are very useful for that kind of situation.

I'm with you. The one good thing about this new software is it seems to be faster at searches. Only problem is, as you say, all of the BS in the middle. OSO tried to do a FAQ as sorts but it was in the same format as the board & gets lost as time passes on. The FAQ would be good if it would be like other web sites FAQ's ( or like this boards FAQ's on getting around this site). Problem I see is time for someone to go thru & edit, then repost. If I am not mistaken I saw someone else had something like you are talking about about a year or so ago.

As for my project looks like I am going to flow the new heads tommorow. I was wanting to do the old merlin VR's at same time but I got a chance to do this now. The person that is going to flow them said he has yet to see a set of AFR's flow less than what the factory says they flow. Hope these head do not become the "except one set"

KAAMA - Digging up old threads that you know have good info is a decent thing to do. I would like to do that myself sometimes, but usually they need a lot of editing. Threads often start with a question and eventually get to a really good answer, but when we are contributing to these threads we wander all over the place. Nothing wrong with that but its tedious for the new member just trying to get the fundamentals on some subject.

Turbojack - Yes, editing is required, and I would do it on some of my old threads that people enjoyed, but I can only edit my own posts, not the whole thread. This type of editing power would require special approval from OSO, but it would be worth it if the results was a library of FAQs with great answers from OSO members.

So are we asking OSO for power to completely edit old threads that we started? Or is this a can of worms better left unopened?

where else can you get the ideas, support and knowledge of 7000+members??
now we all know not all 7000 people post, but just look at the number of post in the tech section alone.
You will never get that kind of response through everyones normal life.
I can guestimate that even the pro racers and the "IN" group of them can obtain more info and knowledge from sites like this.

Keep it coming. There will always be a lull. Especially here. Especially now for the holidays. Wait until people unwrap their newly found 'upgrade' presents Questions WILL be asked.
Not to mentino not as many boats running, so not as many breaking or in need of 'tuning'. But still great info.

I think 2 things need to happen, Editted, your idea is good. You can delete the thread so I do not know why OSO would not give you access to edit it. I think that would help OSO out on on 2 fronts. 1- let the person edit thread to make it BEST OF, & to not have to get in the middle of some threads that go south & have to be deleted. This way the person that started thread could edit out posts (save OSO the time to do). About 4 or more threads come to mind right now that could have used some editing.
So OSO, how about it?

Do we need to post this in "comments" so OSO see's?