06/27/2026
I was a hotrodder as a teenager. I had a 1974 Formula Firebird with open front hood scoops and had no business driving a car that powerful at 15-16 years old, but I did. So much so that I blew the engine. That's when my dad made it clear that if I wanted the car to be mobile again, I'd have to fix it myself. At that age, I had no idea what I was doing, but I figured it out. Once back on the road, it was time for a Competition Cams 268H camshaft (engine fortunately only required one of those; no double overhead cams!), changing the jets in my Quadrajet after getting rid of the Holley double pumper with its mechanical secondaries, cranking that distributor clockwise to advance ignition timing to dangerous levels, and yearning for headers that didn't leak like a ticking clock. I was consumed. I suppose I still am.
It was about that time that I got into weight lifting and worked as a mens' fitness center attendant at the local YMCA. I basically checked membership cards and washed workout clothes and put them back in the members' lockers. Plenty of boredom ensued, and one day I flipped through a book underneath the counter that one of my fellow attendants was reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. To say that it completely altered the course of my life is ridiculous understatement.
Those of you who know the book know well how it detects a wide range of philosophical and spiritual issues in all things mechanical, including of course motorcycle maintenance. Pirsig's book sparked a decade long compulsion in me to do philosophy, concluding with a two-year graduate stint studying Wittgenstein, Kripke, and logic at The John's Hopkins University. I subsequently got practical, went to law school and practiced law.
One thing that never left me in the ensuring 35 years was seeing meaningful philosophical issues in mechanical work. For me, I find them in designing, building, tuning and modifying engines and cars. And my crazy team seems infused with precisely the same pathology. We can't seem to make it through more than a couple of days without our work triggering a multiple hour discussion of the underlying metaphysical principles.
Yesterday, while fine-tuning a BMW S65 on the engine dyno, something crystallized in me that has been brewing for some time. My wise and beautiful wife encouraged me to share this, so here goes.
Contemporary ECUs typically employ some form of sensor--MAP or MAF--to determine the quantum of air entering the combustion chamber. Or they use a chart of RPM versus throttle angle ("alpha n") that hard codes predictions as to how much air is entering the combustion chamber in particular circumstances. Either way, the ECU then computes (among other things) how much fuel should be injected into the combustion chamber to achieve the correct air to fuel ("AFR") ratio for the engine for each level of airflow. As the final step, wideband oxygen sensors in the tailpipes (before the catalytic converters) measure the actual AFR achieved by the ECU's calculations and feeds that information back to the ECU in a constant loop. Because the ECU generally cannot alter the amount of air enter the combustion chamber in naturally aspirated engine, the ECU responds to this feedback by constantly adjusting its fuel calculations to achieve the requisite AFR using what's known as a proportional/integral/derivative or "PID" algorithm.
Unfortunately, people follow this model, sometimes their entire lives, without realizing it. They interact with other people and institutions, then act and respond based on their personality and identity. So far so good. The bad part ensues when people decide to change who or what they are when the feedback they elicit from people and institutions is not what they want. They craft their personality and identity to conform to what pleases others. They fawn, to the point that, in many if not most cases, they lose who they are.
What I want to suggest is that people should instead do what a naturally aspirated engine's ECU cannot: Change the airflow. Change the input. Change the people with whom you and the institutions with which you interact. If your personality and identity doesn't generate the kind of interaction with people and institutions you want, change the people and institutions, not who you are. Who you are is infinitely more precious to preserve than how others react to you.
Sometimes the critical lessons in life are right there in front of us in an engine and its ECU.
Be well, and go fast.
--Peter
PS: Yes, I know the analogy is not perfect. I couldn't figure out how ignition timing advance could be incorporated. But you get the point!
