Double Pumping

Carburetors.  Archaic technology (hasn't been sold on a car since 1990) and very temperamental (hard to dial in).  I only say this because I have been having a hell of a time getting them to work for me.  I inherited with my car a Holley 4160 600 CFM which comes with vacuum secondaries.  This means the carb relies on the vacuum created at higher rpms to pull the fuel into the secondary fuel bowl (higher rpms require more fuel to be fed into the engine to meet the demand).  It is actually a pretty nice bit of engineering (for the time), and in theory the fuel is delivered when it is needed.  This was not the case for my 4160.  I am not sure if it was due to the lower vacuum my engine pulls because of the bigger cam, or what, but I could never get the secondaries to open on my carb.  I tried lighter springs and a new diaphragm, but I could never get it to work correctly.  It was costing me horsepower. And then one fateful day, the whole carb decided to die in spectacular fashion.  Gas just started spewing everywhere from every seal.  I had enough.

The old 4160

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.

Under Pressure

Just wanted to write a quick post following up on the Chasing Oil Leaks post.  I've been busy with school that I really haven't been able to post and follow-up on it.  I tested the oil pressure and it was up around 60psi.  That is around the high end of normal, so there were some suggestions to try and reduce the oil pressure in the system.  The car did not really have a PCV system in place to relieve the crankcase pressure so the thought was that it would help the engine to put one in.  So I went out and picked up a PCV valve, oil breather, rubber hosing, a set of new valve covers and gaskets.

BEFORE:

Before:  No real PCV system in place

AFTER:

New valve covers with PCV valve going to carb vacuum 

Other side with oil breather connected to bottom of air cleaner

RESULT:
Whelp, pretty much the engine bay looks cleaner.  The new steel/rubber valve cover gaskets fixed the oil leak onto the manifold, but I am still leaking oil under the car.  Pretty much accepted that it is the rear main oil seal and will probably seek out someone to fix that this fall sometime.  But for now, I am going to enjoy the car.  There are some good car shows coming up that I want to go to, and I like that now the car looks more like an original HiPo engine bay.

Chasing an oil leak (or leaks)

A couple of weeks ago I installed a new oil pan hoping that it was the old multiple piece cork oil pan gasket that was causing the small oil puddles on the garage floor.  I should have known better.  It looks like that is not the issue (I hope) and there is something else going on that I have to chase down.  There is still a leak and I started to notice some clutch chatter so I need to figure this out pretty quickly before I am fixing a clutch (if not more).  Ugh.  There are all kinds of things that can cause this from intake gaskets to valve cover gaskets to oil pan gaskets to rear main oil seals (which I hope it is not).  I need to get this diagnosed.  If anyone has any thoughts feel free to say something in the comments.

The bellhousing is covered in oil as well as the transmission, but this could be cause of several things

Oil is collecting on the intake next to the valve covers on the drivers side

There is all kinds of oil over the fuel pump

The rear of the intake looks dirty, but not all that wet with standing oil.

You've Lost that Spark

Thought I would give a quick update here while I avoid doing school work and my fantasy football team doesn't seem to want to score points today!

I broke out the thermal temperature gun the other day and was testing the coolant and I decided to check the headers as well.  Every cylinder was running at 500+ degrees except cylinder #8 which was at 200 degrees. I decided to go ahead and get a set of spark plugs.  I haven't changed the plugs since I have had the car and it probably was overdue anyway.  So I went out and picked up a set of Bosch Super Plus Spark Plugs from Summit Racing.  The plugs came and I ended up spending some time on Thanksgiving Day in the garage while the turkey was cooking.

Old Plugs (top) with the New Plug (bottom)

Rear Suspension Work

It seems like work, school, and life have been getting in the way of me getting out to the garage to get some work done.  This is an update about six weeks late (sorry).  My goal for this year is to work on the suspension and tighten up the steering.  Back in March I was able to work on the rear suspension.  The goal is to install new Koni shocks and I also wanted to get rid of the traction bars (I am not a big fan of them).

Before:  Worn Shocks and Traction Bars

Fluid Flush

Decided to do some maintenance work on the car this weekend.  I really don't like not knowing when the last time something was done, so I thought I would change the oil and flush the radiator this weekend.

First up was the radiator.  The previous owner said it was flushed "maybe 10 years ago" and well that was enough for me want to change it.  Wasn't too bad.  Drained out the old, flushed the system, ran some water through the system to make sure everything was out of it, and then put in some new fluid.

Feeling good about this after seeing what it puked out

New diet of Tropical Punch and Mountain Dew