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For those who may be interested. Thought I'd share a few pics of the engines we have where I work. I work for a Natural Gas Pipeline. We have a 30" pipeline that runs from Portland, TN all the way up to Joliet, IL. It goes through several compressor stations where the engines turn compressors to move the gas north or south in the pipeline depending on where it's needed. The big piston driven engines are called Recips, short for Reciprocating engines. They are 2700HP Clark TLA-8's, turbo charged 2 cycles. They run at a mere 300RPM, however with the amount of steel thats flying in these things you wouldn't want them to run any faster. The engines are about 34,500 cubic inches displacement. Yes, that's right, THIRTY FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED cubic inches. That's 8 cylinders at a 17" bore and 19" of stroke, 34,483.48cuin. to be precise. The other engine is our 4,000+ HP Solar Centaur 40 Turbine. Much like a jet engine it spins up and runs like mad, lol! 15,000 RPM is it's sweet spot believe it or not. I'll post up a few quick pictures and when I get time I'll post up some pictures of the connecting rods, pistons, rings, etc. and when I can I'll get pictures from the other stations of their engines. First up the turbine. Not much to see except that it doesn't look very big at all for 4,000HP. Now, the Clarks. We have 3 of the TLA-8's at this location. First a couple to give a general idea as to the size. A shot here of the top of the #1 unit looking out over at the #2 and #3 units. Here's a look at the compressor cylinders themselves. Natural gas enters through the suction pulsation bottle on the top, gets compressed in the double acting compressor cylinders and is discharged through the bottom into a discharge pulsation bottle under the floor grates. This shot is of the compressor cylinders on Unit #2 from the top of #1. Last but not least, a shot across the top of Unit #1 at the heads. If you notice the push rods, rockers and fuel valves... Yes, I said this is a two cycle engine. The fuel, which is natural gas, is directly injected into the cylinders. That's all for now, I'll post more pics up soon of the cylinder liners, con rods, pistons, and more here very soon.

In terms of square versus round, you will not be able to discern an audible difference between a square or cone driver. People who tell you otherwise are full of shit. The square driver will have some different harmonics and non-linearity, but by the time you hear these, you will hearing issues with a cone shaped driver as well. The only reason the L7s have a reputation for not sounding good is the same reason ca.com's forum is still going. The world is world is full of idiots.

Here is some of his sweet sweet work. Sounds like crizap but it's home videoed and you can see the hand work.

Scales and Chords. Not even sure I know what you listen to....that would perhaps change my recommendations. 4 yrs older, ill pick a few examples. I attached some links to stuff that's not so popular alice in chains http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikdg3hJXEYE soundgarden nirvana, pearl jam, metallica, maiden, sabbath, tool some of my favorites, i really need to expand my music library. however, right now im trying to purchase cd's to go with the music i own, which were obtained from less then legal sources :ehh: im picking up something like 19 cd's this Christmas

Amp's here...Gonna hook it up tomorrow. Pics will come then. JK

Fixed for you.

Some updates here. We changed the turbo charger on the #3 unit last September, I put some pics of this up to give everyone an idea of how big the turbos are that run these engines. Here's a shot of the intake tower for Unit #1 on the left, and the engine coolant cooling towers for all of them on the right. In the background you can see the crane that is being used to lift the old turbo charger out and the new one in. Here's a shot of the Old turbo being flown out to an awaiting trailer. Here's the new one being set down and moved into place. As you can see, it's not a run of the mill sized Turbocharger, LOL.

You might not gain anything from removing the SSF. It's a Class D amp and the modulator might by limited to 10hz. The filter may just be there to keep the amp stable.

Got my block back from the machine shop, had it bored out .030 and new cam bearings installed. bottom end is still at the machine shop. forged pistons, factory rods with arp bolts. and getting a rebalanced. I filled the exhaust crossover ports with aluminum from some old pistons I melted, cc them. 2004r transmission it has the stock cluch and friction count, wide band, sonnex servo. I rebuilt front pump with 10 vane rotor, Teflon Coated Pump Bushing, elevated pressure regulator spring, and high output pump slide spring. I replaced stator support and sun shell with hardened units, and stock valve body with the tci constant pressure valve body. Blocked off the accumulators. Installed an auxiliary filter from a Allison transmission to keep it all clean. Had to take it back apart. Forward clutch piston broke. need to find another. Burnt up the clutch pack in the process. What its supposed to look like on the Right...

Id do 2 15" xcons,

I would personally buy Fi over RE.