Caveman's Mustang Adventures: Awaking the Beast

I am absolutely giddy right now. My buddy Greg came into town this weekend to help me install my new ignition system. I picked up a Crane Cams HI-6RC Ignition Kit to replace the points distributor in the car. There are a couple of reasons why I picked up this kit. First, it is pretty much plug and play and second it comes with a small distributor cap that looks like the one I am replacing. I'm not a big fan of those large GM style HEI distributor caps, especially if it is going to be front an center as they are on Ford's engines.

Installation diagram

Overall, installation was fairly simple. The hardest part was deciding where to place the ignition box and coil. We wanted to put the box inside the cabin, but after pulling out the glove box and center console, there really was no reasonable space to place it. Some guys online had mentioned putting it inside the glove box, but I wanted to keep that functional. (On a side note, since the center console was out, I took the time to adjust the stereo knobs so they moved a little bit more freely and didn't bind on the console face anymore.) So we decided to mount the system on the driver's side inner fender next to the widow washing reservoir. In order to get the box to mount on the sidewall, we needed to shift the window washer motor a bit closer to the firewall, but after that everything was good. We also mounted the ignition coil on the driver's side shock tower.

For the distributor, I pulled out the old one without marking the timing, whoops. That meant we had to remove the valve covers and find top dead center (TDC) on cylinder #1 (front of the engine, passenger side when looking at it from the front). Once we found TDC, we placed the distributor in the block and snapped everything together. We also had to cut and crimp on ends to the new spark plug wires and when all the wires were plugged in firing order (1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8), we tried to fire it up. Damn thing wouldn't fire. After some troubleshooting, here is your top tip: The distributor rotates counter-clockwise. Whoops #2 for me. Once we fixed that mistake, it fired right up. We set the initial timing to 8 degrees BTDC and we were good to go. We took it for a quick test drive and found that it was backfiring like a mothertrucker. I have been having problems with it running rich, so the next step was to tune the carburetor.

Carburetor Tuning:

I have a Holley 4160 in the car. After watching some YouTube Videos and reading through the Junk Yard Genius guide to tuning a Holley carb, I went at it. Here is a list of adjustments I had to make:

Throttle Blade Position - the blades would only be open about 3/4 of the way when the gas peddle was all the way down to the floor. I adjusted the throttle linkage so that when the pedal was all the way to the floor the blades would be open 100% of the way.
Float Level - there was way too much fuel coming out of the sight plug when it was out. Following the instructions, I adjusted the fuel level until it was just at the top of the sight plug. I am guess by how much was in there, this is probably the main culprit for my extremely rich fuel mixture.
Idle Mixture Adjustment - using a vacuum gauge, I reset the idle mixture screws and then adjusted them until I got the highest vacuum reading. Also as a test for the jetting, I did lean out the screws the whole way to see if the engine would stall from fuel starvation (it did).
Idle Speed - and finally I set the idle speed to 800 RPM and double checked the timing (it was good).

Last but not least, I took it for another test drive and man was I impressed! It's like a whole other car. The throttle response was amazing and the sound of having all 8 cylinders firing that came out of the exhaust when I stepped on it was like spitting fire! So hot. Man I am pleased with this. It made such a world of difference.

So I am done for now with modifications. There are some car shows I plan on going to the next couple of weekends. Next Sunday, there is the World's Biggest Catsup Bottle Festival that the newest edition of Hot Rod Magazine said is one of the 100 things for to do for a car guy. And then in two weeks we are heading back to Columbus for the Goodguys Nationals. This will be the first time our family in Ohio will get to see the car. I am hoping for good weather and safe travels as I plan on towing the car on a trailer back there for the weekend. I'll keep you posted with tons of photos.