Nothin' at all suspicious about that. It's a waste of time to increment the bid by $3 or $5 or whatever the minimum increment is. Someone decides he'll pay a max of $200, so he bids $200, even if the current bid is $37.50. Maybe later he gets all caught up in the excitement, gets outbid by someone who'll bid a max of $330, so our originally-$200 guy now places a new bid for $410.
No.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I'm not Dan, but the bidding process that the bidders used is called automatic bidding. The bidder decides how much the item is worth to them and places a max bid. eBay's computers will bid on your behalf up to the max bid.

Here is an imaginary scenario : If 3 bidders are interested in an auction. Starting price is $100.00. Bidder A enters a bid of $100.00 on the first day. Bidder B enters a max bid of $150.00 the next day. But ebay only raises the auction price to the next increment above $100.00(probably $105.00). Bidder A seeing that he is beaten, might bid up in $5.00 increments to find the Bidders B's max bid. He quits raising the price at $145.00 and Bidder B is still the max bidder at $150.00. The auction stays this way for days. No one is interested it seems. But there is a lurker. Someone watching the bidding, who thinks the item is worth more than the auction price, but does not want to start a bidding war(what happened with Bidder A). This guy is bidder C: he has more money than brains, and usually has a screen name with the word HEMI in it(no offense meant to Hemi-man on eBay, but I see this a lot). He bids $1,000.00 for the item in the last few seconds. And wins the item, in this case he would only pay $155.00, even though he valued the item much higher. To Bidder C it is an awesome deal, to guys A and B, he paid too much(assuming they bid the most they thought the item was worth).


When it comes to eBay, your best bet to get a fair deal is to wait till the last few seconds of the auction. Bid what you think it is worth. And realize that other people are going to do the same. You may win, you may lose, but you will not have time to second guess your bid, and raise your max bid, and end up paying more than the item is really worth. Bidding wars between bidders usually end with someone paying too much.

Watch the eBay auction for the Aluminum Slant Block. No bids and only a day left. What is going on, is nobody interested. No, they are all waiting til the last few minutes/seconds to bid(look at all of the questions, there is a lot of interest). The thing is going to sell for more than a grand(the last one I saw sold for about $1,500.00)

I have paid too much for quite a few things on ebay. So now I set my max bid, and walk away. I either do it in advance or at the last minute. But I never feel like I paid more than I was willing to.

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My cars are all gone, my new affliction is my Jeep Cherokee. I have lifted it, put some armor on it, and preparing for new gears and lockers. After that, bumpers, on-board air and a winch.

The last one to cross eBay sold for a little under $1300.

The currently-offered one might sell for more than a grand, and it might not. Most of the alm slant-6s I've seen go across the bay haven't approached that figure, so it'll be interesting to see if that's the new value, or if it was an anomaly.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I was working on memory for the price I listed. But I would not be surprised if this one beats it. There is increased interest in the aluminum engine from the Hot Rod article/editorial from a few months back. Plus there are the improvements/modifications to the block by DD that could increase the interest even higher.

Definitely not the cheapest way to lighten a car by 45 pounds. And with the blocks power limitations it becomes even less logical an engine to build. But still cool as heck.

Back on the subject of the Mays manifold: in my eyes it has/had two values. A mechanical value. And a rarity value. Mechanically a dual offenhauser might prove better, as far as less fuel coming out of suspension when going around those 90 degree turns. Though those straight runners might make up for that. Rarity is rarity. I think this one sold so high due to its rarity. Mechanically worth 200 bucks, rarity value is what it sold for at auction.

What do you guys think?

If I was interested in it I might have bid $300.00. I would have put a $100.00 premium on top of its mechanical value due to its rarity. That being said. I would only have wanted it if I was going to build a Hot Rod with a slant. That type of thing needs to be seen.

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My cars are all gone, my new affliction is my Jeep Cherokee. I have lifted it, put some armor on it, and preparing for new gears and lockers. After that, bumpers, on-board air and a winch.

Looks like aluminum blocks are now worth some serious $$$! Good job, Doug. Wish I'd hung onto the three I sold six years ago for around $400/ea.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Rarity is nice and all, but I would rather run a stock Super Six intake for ease of installation and tuning and cost. On the other hand, I would love to see someone fabricate a "three-pak" carb setup for the slant using three Holley 1920s set up like the "Six-Pak" carbs where the center carb was the only one working until the engine vacuum reqched a certain point.

I'd assume the purchaser wanted the Mays for nostalgia or a dedicated racer, the gains for a street motor wouldn't be that dramatic.

Then again, I do know the "breakdown" of assume.............

Still, the problem with venturi type ram tuning was a fairly narrow band of high effect. Usually needed five or more gears to work with in order to make much use of it. "Extractor exhaust" and "hitting the pipes" are more than just phrases from the '60s.

The percentage of improvement from the turbulence effects and two carbs would likely be less than half the overall gain (probably more in the 1/3 area) but would at least be accross the tach. Also, don't forget it was designed to depend on a similarly tuned set of pipes for full effect.

From a streetability point of view it'd be a lot of lever and heel/toe work for the higher results. The Lotus/Valiant with the simpler non-venturi rammed quad (HyperPac) was much more versatile even with it's own limitations.

A properly progressed trio of singles could indeed be a decent street set-up, it really helped the flattie eights when done right and they had flow problems not all that dissimilar in effect to the 225.

And I do get a kick out of the carping about e-bay even though I indulge in it a bit myself. Swap meets went the same way after all. I once gave away a steel Topolino shell that'd likely fetch a couple grand now. Oh well, "It is what it is." in the long run.

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Sex, drags, and rock & roll.
Dick, 225% crazy.
Hobby (cars, that is) Photos link

Used to have a Mays manifold that I put on a 64 Dart only about 5 years ago. Had it Jet-hot coated and put 2 Holley 1bbls on it. Did not notice any performance gains but it was sure cool to look at. I found the man who had engineered it and he said that they cast 50 of them in 1966 or so and tried to sell them as a complete kit. There were 2 articles about them in Mechanix Illustrated type magazines back in the day claiming a lot of performance gains I did not see. I also talked to the man who was more or less the Mays mechanic at the time and he had nothing but good things to say about it. I have several pictures of the setup but I don't have a way of posting them here. I also have copies of the old magazine articles. I sold the car about 3 years ago but I just saw it again last week for the first time and it still has the manifold on it and it still draws a crowd. If I would have seen this auction I would have likely bid it even higher to try and get another one.