OUTDOORS?
For the Man with Everything - the V8 Snowblower!
December 11th, 2005
So your neighbor has to always one-up you on every purchase you make.  You get a new Harley, he gets a custom built chopper.  You put up a new mailbox that looks like a Bass Fish, he builds a solid brick mail box.  You just can’t win!  We’ll here’s your chance, next time this God forsaken state gets one of those big snow storms, wait till around 2:30 a.m., just after you’ve got home from the bar, and fire up your V8 snow blower and throw a fifty foot high blizzard of snow into his yard!

  If you're tired of wimpy, one-cylinder snow blowers, that bog down every time you get a big wet snow fall, you might consider Kai Grundt's V8 - 454 Snow Blower.  I would think this baby raises the bar on your neighbors one-up list.  With eight cylinders, electric start, electric block heater, antifreeze heater, auxiliary lights and a dashboard with backlit gauges, it has no drive belts to freeze up when the drifts get too high.  This machine doesn’t have one of those flimsy plastic augers that breaks after the first stone it sucks up.  This monster has a custom 42 inch Chevrolet 10 bolt truck differential with a spool and a centrifugal auger clutch and a two stage auger with shear pin protection!  As each unit is custom-built, optional extras for the machine are both diverse and outrageous as the base unit - there is unlimited auger choices from single to multi stage designs and various motor combinations to suit the religious preferences of each customer (Chevy, Dodge Hemi, Ford) and such exotica as a V-10 or maybe a diesel engine if you like.  You can even get a remote starter added so you can get it warmed up before you get out to the barn.

You'll never get tired of throwing snow into your neighbor’s yard with this King of all snow blowers.  With the 454 cubic inch big block Chevrolet V8 producing 412 horsepower and 430 foot pounds of torque, this beast can throw snow 50 feet at just 3500 rpm!  No need to worry about your hands getting frost bitten, Kai designed it to route the engine coolant through the handle bars, and the rear mounted, enclosed radiator keeps the operator toasty warm.  If your truck gets stuck in the snow bank, just use this to pull it out.
This all started around six years ago when Kai was throwing back a few cold ones in a neighbor’s garage discussing what he was going to do with the motor out of an old truck he had recently acquired.  As the imagination tends to get a little bit cocky when smothered with Hops and Barley, Grundt thought up the idea but decided to keep it a secret from his friends.  After many long hours in his garage and I’m sure some serious damage to his liver, the end result is what you see in these pictures.  Not bad for a ground-up build.  This in not a V8 motor made to fit a standard snow blower, No, this is the mother of all snow blowers; one to make Tim “The Tool Man” Allen jealous and grunting with pleasure.  Kai must have one very understanding wife I must add.

Maneuvering the massive beast (it has a total wet weight of 912lbs) is a breeze, thanks to the hydraulic 4WD on independent walking beams which offers a zero turning radius.  It's also as fast as you like, with an infinitely adjustable speed range on the drive wheels via dash mounted flow control.  At the opposite end of the scale, it has more than enough torque to pull your car out of the ditch before the hydraulic motors stall!
Adding to the well-balanced feel of the unit, just 15 pounds of down force on the handlebars will lift the auger blade off the ground. Safety has and continues to be paramount with spring return to center "fail safe" type directional controls that have tether cords and emergency stop features for those after the bar driveway clearing nights when the machine is more or less keeping you standing.

If for some reason your neighbor can one-up you with this machine, the motor can be upgraded with endless accessories from any local auto parts supplier.  Blower, maybe some nitrous, ram air, the bolt-on’s are limitless.  If that pesky neighbor pisses you off too bad, I’m sure this thing won’t have a problem with his garden come summer.
If you want to check out the snow blower website, go to www.v8snowblowers.com – These guys have some cool stuff on this site

Scott Garner
scott@stldmag.com

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