Thread: Kind of a Drag

Tweet

Vacuum advance works great on a street motor, I use it on all of mine. It helps the gas millage at cruise speeds and helps motor to run cooler. Some motors like the ported advance (above throttle blades), some like it on manifold. Manifold will usually increase idle speed and is useful when trying to get idle speeds up without adding too much throttle blade.

Be careful using manifold vacuum as a crutch with a big cam to get it to idle, when you brake hard quickly after accelerating the motor will usually die because the vacuum can't recover fast enough to pull idle speed back up.

Scroll down here to "FACT AND FICTION CONCERNING VACUUM ADVANCE.....
http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/w...op_dead_center

.

Originally Posted by Good Wrench

The speed shop guy says my recurved weights will handle the timing at 23 degrees played out at 2000 rpm. He says I had too much total timing.

11 degrees initial, 23 degrees mechanical all in at 2000, total is 34 degrees. Looks like a good curve, 34 total is ok with aluminum heads, iron heads may need couple degrees more. If you have iron heads bring your initial up 13-14 degrees, bringing your total to 36-38 the iron heads should like it better, if aluminum leave it where it's at. You can add 7-10 degrees vacuum advance to either and have a happy motor..

Well, I can rule out the carburetor. Switched it to the 750 and still bang pop hiss. Changed the base gasket as well. The fellow lent me another cap and coil. Still the same. He also lent me the bottom half so I can eliminate the street fire ignition box as well. I'll check the plugs, wires and change distributors tomorrow.

Yes, i'm hitching up the vaccum advance. It's adjustable so I may tighten it up a turn. But I need to first get rid of whatever the $#$%# is wrong with it.

Stupid Firefox. Doesen't anything work right anymore?

Originally Posted by Good Wrench

Doesn't anything work right anymore?

The last time anything worked right was sometime in 1957.

.

duplicate post. sorry.

Yeah, that's when the Chevy came out right?

Originally Posted by Good Wrench

Yeah, that's when the Chevy came out right?

283 version of the mouse motor and later that year, the introduction of the W motor and the Impala. Also, the 1957 version of the Studebaker Golden Hawk (got my first traffic ticket for drag racing in one).

.

Originally Posted by Good Wrench

The only thing now i'm wondering is if I have too thick oil in the car. I'm running straight 50w and I don't think I had this problem before I changed oil.

Why not change the oil back to a multi-viscosity oil rated for flat tappets? There's a possibility the heavy weight oil your using is causing lifter issues. Also how tight is your valve lash, how did you set it?

Brad Penn oils, HR oils, just a few that come to mind and maybe the Shell Rotella that members here prefer, maybe they'll pipe in with a recommendation on the Rotella type to use.

Hiya,

Changed oil to Brad Penn 20-50 Cause it's what the speed shop had. Valve lash is half a turn in from top of lifters. I wobbled the push rods at the back of the cam lobes and turned them in a half. Put on a Wix racing oil filter.

So, today I started with the plugs Sorry they're NGKs and not Bosch. My bad. I found cylinders 1 and 3 oil fouled and not appearing to be sparking. What? Rats. So I changed them and inspected the wires. All else was fine until cylinder 6 which the back of the boot appeared to be burnt. I even had a heat shield on the wire. The plug looked fine but I switched out the wire anyway. I adjusted the choke on the 750 and pluged in the vacuum advance and swiched caps from the borrowed one to my own.

So, what's wrong with those 2 cylinders? Am I looking at another bottom end? Probably. Strange those 2 are bad but the rest fine. I cleaned and checked gap on all.

Well, to make a long story short the gremlin is gone again. The car runs like a striped ape. That oversized carburetor definatly has some hair on it. however, I had not the chance of kicking the secondaries in yet. I wonder if it's jetted too small back there. All I did was drive the car a few blocks to replace some crazy lady's motor mount. One stoplight is on an uphill incline and both tires broke loose without even trying. A lot of pedal left too. I'm beginning to like that carburetor. It's definatly got more go than the Edelbrock which May I add, was a toilet. All the venturies and even the air filter stem was coated with black soot. Yuck. Well, with that new limited slip. The tires don't break loose like they did but the car just goes! I guess that's good for drag racing but it's hard to show off now.
Mrs Goodwrench wants me to get a torque converter now. 2500 stall. It'll get that heavy car moving but I wondering what it'll do to any remaing gas mileage. I don't know but i'm guessing that 750 will drop the gas mileage from 7 to 2. The looser converter will guess me thinking of feet per gallon instead of miles. And I need to be thinking short block I guess.
Not sure what to do. Should i listen to Mrs Goodwrench? Or, work on another short block or both? So much car, so little money.

Ps, Studabakers were way ahead of their time!

I'll re-iterate it again, something is wrong with the Edelbrock carb. Check your PCV it is probably the cause 1 & 3 plugs fowling.

The carb will not effect the gas millage nearly as much as your foot! Lol, glad you're enjoying it..

I can't see your torque converter affecting your milage. Once it locks up it's no different from any other converter.

I'll add in that the better performing carb will increase your gas mileage not decrease it!