Its been a while since the last update, still watching the forum but too busy to contribute much. Now that the car is put away for the winter I figured it was time for an update.
Monzaque was a great trip, the furthest the car has been since its been built at 4 hours each direction. Thanks for setting up such a cool meet I was really glad to put faces to the online handles I see here, got to see some really nice h-body's.
As for the drive, the car was not happy! It ran perfectly cool and smooth but the diff was whining (ford 9"), I'm cooking power steering fluid with my primary header tube being wayyyy too close to the steel line, the transmission was acting up by the time I got home, the hydraulic throwout bearing sometimes squeals (very odd) and finally the car seems to have developed a thirst for oil consuming a little over 1/4 each way. I'm thinking either a bad intake seal, valve seals or I have a ring or two not sealing well. I've checked the plugs and I know which cylinders are burning oil, ran a compression test and everything seemed good. When I started investigating I found out my valvecover breather filters were actually blocking all airflow so I was cruising at 3000rpm for 4 hours at a time with little to no crankcase ventilation which could make for a lot of pressure on the rings. To try and fix this and make it better I decided to pull the filter material, block one and put in a pcv and made a cheap DIY catch can which works great, unfortunately the valvecovers I'm using put the pcv right on top of a rocker arm which is splashing oil at it. I need to change the valve cover or make a baffle/cover for the pcv and then test again next year.
Either way a total of 8 hours of driving solo at highway speeds in a small, hot, loud, whining car in one day was tiring but worth it in every possible way. Since I joined the forum and heard about it I wanted to make it out to Monzaque.
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All the carb tuning I did this summer has really paid off, the car idles, cruises and pulls great. I might play with some more changes next year as I am still learning, I want to find a way to get a vacuum operated distributor or ignition system, I know I'm leaving a lot on the table cruising and idling with a mechanical advance distributor. Its just difficult with the intake design for distributor clearance, maybe I'll get a programmable distributor box (msd 6al-2) and then really fine tune things. I only buy parts if I can get a deal on then, the USD to CAD exchange rate is deadly at nearly 35 cents to the dollar.
But now that the car is running so well I've developed wheel hop which was expected and thanks to a few people at monzaque and the forum I was somewhat prepared. Took me a while to design them but I finally made the brackets based on the forum files, commonly available steel sizes and the only tools I have is a vertical bandsaw, drillpress and welder. When I went to bolt them up I found out my housing brackets are welded at a 20deg angle instead of flat. It makes sense because my UCA's are as short as I can make them but I never really second guessed it, I should have checked it in advance, would have saved me a lot of time. Thankfully my job has me using CAD software so I used my free time to re-design a fix to compensate for my bracket angle which then lets me put the UCA's halfway between fully extended and fully closed so I can have pinion adjustment again. The version I have now is temporary pending they work come spring/summer when I get a chance to go out.
2016-10-10 16.02.06.jpg
2016-10-22 17.52.26.jpg
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You can see the development from
RIGHT to
LEFT.
StopHop from the forum approximated in 3D
/ The original version I made
/ The Modified version, note the angle of the foot to represent the housing bracket
/ Final fixed version I will make If the current version works
All in all it was a great summer, I have a lot less time to work on the car because of work and other commitments but I managed to piece together a little video for those who stuck around through this long winded post. Little hot start/idle and a 1-2-3 pull, ignore the shift light as I had it set low to try and keep me from shifting above 6000rpm but clearly that didnt work the car likes to be shifted around 6200-6300. You can even see/hear a bit of wheelhop at WOT, this is right around where it started and by the end of summer I couldn't even floor it in 1st gear.
https://youtu.be/kLlZT1Ktpfw 2016-07-27 17.02.20.jpg
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