Cousin Eddy motorhome & towing truck performance
by by Roderick L. Lindberg

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Book Reviews of Cousin Eddy motorhome & towing truck performance

Book Review: Entertaining good advice about high performance motorhomes.
Summary: 5 Stars

The book has the three essential characteristics of a timeless niche classic.: (1) loads of accurate relevant information, (2) lots of accurate irrelevant information, and (3) humor.

In the introduction to the book, the author recounts a conversation with his son in which he explains that he will travel to all parts of the country in his "big- assed motorhome." The book tells little about his travel. There is a comment about the speed limit in Arizona: "A line of telephone poles must take on the appearance of a picket fence before proper motoring velocity is achieved." However, the majority of the book is about modifications to the, ah, motorhome.

The first four chapters give advice about buying a motorhome, and they describe typical interior comforts, frames and stock engines. The real start of Cousin Eddy is Chapter 5 which introduces superchargers and how to install one on a motorhome engine. Roots superchargers which build significant boosts at low RPMs were deemed most appropriate for the purpose at hand -- rather than the high-speed centrifugal superchargers. The supercharger on Cousin Eddy produced terrific results: it improved the zero-to-sixty acceleration by more than twelve seconds, and it allowed the motorhome to just roll away from an astonished Camaro driver.

Chapters on ram air intake, computer chips, ignition, headers and exhaust, and auxiliary transmissions provide additional information about increasing horsepower and getting it to the ground. The reader is forced to wait until Chapter 11 for full statements of Newton's three laws of motion: "Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it . . . . " and so on. Even more interesting is the discussion of the dichromate coating and zinc plating on sway bars.

The book concludes with chapters about engine and transmission cooling, oiling, brakes, additional horsepower, diagnostics, and several kinds of good advice. Cousin Eddy: Motorhome and Towing Truck Performance might best be described as "good advice." It is very entertaining good advice.

In the introduction, the author mentions that he recently needed an hour to find his car in an airport parking lot. "Things do get misplaced," he admitted. The name in the title, "Cousin Eddy," is not explained in the book -- the explanation is probably misplaced in another of the author's books.

Trucks & Vans Books

• Subjects > Professional & Technical > Automotive > Trucks & Vans
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