French Torture Battery? (Photo/Capture)

MSNBC ^ | 03/28/03 | Self

[Malsua]

>>Poor man's way of finding a dead cylinder involves pulling each wire in succession - till the dead cylinder/bad cylinder is found ...
<<


1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8

My race car had a 289(Ran high 11s for the gear heads). The above is the firing order. There were tons of times that I borked up the wires after a head gasket change or something else...it amazes me to this day(some 15 years after my racing days) that a V8 can run reasonably smoothly on 6 cylinders. Pull a plug wire and the engine doesn't drop rpm...bingo. problem.

But yes, running an MSD 50k volt ignition and it will arc out of the end of the boot and nail you good. Also if you old heat degraded 6.5mm wires, just touching the thing and you learn quickly :)

-Mal

[HiTech RedNeck]

Not only series, but hugh. Vey hugh.

[meyer]

Was a guy (also name of Jim) helping me work on an old 2-stroke magneto ignition dirt bike once. He had a better kicking ability than I, and was able to get it going. Trouble was I had set the throttle stop screw at max and with it revving like snot, he wanted to stop it before it tore up the engine. Well he didn't know where the kill switch was so he yanked off the spark plug lead.... !Ai caramba! Bike and Jim were on their side... me: wha' hoppen mon???

Ahhhh, the magneto, source of ignition power for many small engines including that old 3.5 HP lawnmower engine on which I performed a task similar to yours. Ignition voltage is quite high! Stings a bit, though at least I didn't rap my head (though if lawnmowers had hoods, I would have found it with my noggin). I did end up on my backside though!

[_Jim]

t I didn't even see a wire attached to the upper terminal.

I think that second conection is piggy-backed on the first - many people use that 'trick' when you have to 'park' a disconnected clip lead or connector when the unit's not being powered ...

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well it LOOKED safe enough. There was a big honkin' silicone rubber boot over the plug, one which was originally part of a set of hi-performance wires for cars. But at that zippy speed, it was probably developing 50,000 volts or so open circuit, enough to flash through the insulation or air gap.

[meyer]

I think that second conection is piggy-backed on the first - many people use that 'trick' when you have to 'park' a disconnected clip lead or connector when the unit's not being powered ...

Yeah, you may be right. It does look parked atop the other cable.

[meyer]

I bet this woman is glad we liberated her!

Tough picture, but a sober reminder of what kind of people we are dealing with.

[mhking]

Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war

General Chang; Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country

Shakespeare is better in the original Klingon. In either event, it tells the story. It's time to take these SOB's out.

[meyer]

My race car had a 289(Ran high 11s for the gear heads). The above is the firing order. There were tons of times that I borked up the wires after a head gasket change or something else...it amazes me to this day(some 15 years after my racing days) that a V8 can run reasonably smoothly on 6 cylinders. Pull a plug wire and the engine doesn't drop rpm...bingo. problem.

On the other hand, running a 4-cylinder Pinto on 3 cylinders is not exactly smooth. Still, finding the bad one is quicker since the choices are limited (and if its just bad wires like I had, you can see (and hear) the errant spark plug wire at a glance after dark). Had I crossed wires, I don't think it would have even idled.

This is taking me back a few years...

[_Jim]

4-cylinder Pinto

1.6, 2.0 or 2.3 Liter engine?

I had a 2.3L in a 1978 Pinto I had for a year ... would you believe I bought one of those 2-plane Offenhauser manifolds for it? It *did* make a difference BTW - low end torque picked up ... I also bought a section of jets from the dealer for the staged 2-barrel carb too ...

[Blood of Tyrants]

A violent assault? In a war zone? Who woulda thunk?

No radio, so what? Someone had already looted it or the troops took it with them.

Please beleve me, I very much believe that the battery MIGHT have been used for torture, BUT! I have read so many speculation threads in the past week that turned out to be wrong that I am naturally skeptical at this point.

Remember the 120 vehicles leaving Basra that turned out to be 14 tanks? What about the 1000 vehilcles heading south?

[Freedom4US]

it amazes me to this day(some 15 years after my racing days) that a V8 can run reasonably smoothly on 6 cylinders. Pull a plug wire and the engine doesn't drop rpm...bingo. problem.

Boy is this getting off topic! heh. A BIG HOOAH to the fine, fine NCO's making it happen..

One can even swap wires on the old V8's with carb and point/coil system and a lot of people wouldn't notice at idle anyway.

[meyer]

I had a 2.3L in a 1978 Pinto I had for a year ... would you believe I bought one of those 2-plane Offenhauser manifolds for it? It *did* make a difference BTW - low end torque picked up ... I also bought a section of jets from the dealer for the staged 2-barrel carb too ...

I also had the 2.3L in a 1978, with the optional 3.18 rear axle. I couldn't afford manifolds and such, but I did advance the camshaft one notch on the timing belt (luckily, the valves and pistons didn't meet, LOL) and managed to obtain a little extra low-end grunt. Unfortunately, I was doing hole-shots one night trying to show off to a girl in a Camaro (silly me) and ended up blowing the spider gears to pieces when I dumped the clutch one time too many! After I replace the axle, I realized that I had also chipped a tooth or two in first gear. The junkyard liked me!

[Malsua]

>>Boy is this getting off topic! heh. A BIG HOOAH to the fine, fine NCO's making it happen.. <<

No kidding. I have 19 years of online experience at dragging threads off topic :). There are likely any number of Fidonet folks that twitch when they recall my posts.

And to the other poster..yup..4 cylinders aren't nearly as tolerant, but you can run a 4 popper on 2 cylinders...it hammers about but it will run with some encouragement on the gas pedal.

To the original post, I'd like to see more than the original picture as proof it was used as a torture device. Not that i believe that (evil)creative folks wouldn't use it as such, just that I would like some more info that this indeed was such. Human depravity has no bounds.

-Mal

[SGCOS]

...a 12-volt car battery isn't very useful as a torture device unless you either pour the acid on someone or beat them with it.

The Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) of an auto battery is the amount of current a given battery can deliver for 30 seconds at 0 °F (-18 °C) without dropping below 7.2 volts for a 12 volt battery.

With todays batteries sustaining 400-1000 Cold Cranking Amps, I think that would be pretty irritating.

[virgil]

I did see a microphone cord, however

The microphone cord belongs to the journalist who was covering the story. I saw it on MSNBC.

[1066AD]

Yup, it's the volts that jolts but the mills that kills !

[Imal]

I would suggest sending this battery back to France and attaching it to Jacques Chirac's gonads, but that would not be practical, because Jacques Chirac has no gonads.

[muawiyah]

Here's the difference - the military took us on a brief tour of that "hospital" via a video they'd made. CBS also had a video and it was on the news last evening. No one ever provided anyone a shot of the convoys, not even CNN!

Watch the sources on these stories.