|
Post by mongoose on Oct 6, 2012 5:48:23 GMT -5
The spindles are www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-BKA24800DS/, and front springs are www.summitracing.com/parts/MOG-5244/. In the rear I re-used the stock height springs I had cut about a coil to a coil and a half out of back in the 1980's. They still seemed fine, the height was still right where I wanted it, so I just cleaned them up and put them back in. Because of the design of the spindles, I had to cut away part of the backing plate, as the location of one of the spindle bolts interfered with the plate, pushing it into the brake disk.
|
|
|
Post by mongoose on Oct 19, 2012 8:31:37 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by stan65cutlass on Oct 19, 2012 9:38:03 GMT -5
nice job "goose" all those years of disasembly realy came together
|
|
|
Post by oldsproject on Oct 21, 2012 10:24:51 GMT -5
Steve, this car is one of my favorite cars on this site. Job well done! Question, i'll likely change out my fuel delivery system this winter. Been fighting a dead spot under normal starts and tired of it. Setting all that aside, what fuel pump are you using and what would you do different with your entire fuel delivery system, including Carb if you could? Also hows your hood clearance on the proform and are you getting full stroke without a lokar? Thanks
|
|
|
Post by mongoose on Oct 22, 2012 20:48:50 GMT -5
I've used the same Mallory 140gph electric fuel pump for years (vintage 1988), and it's done the job. Only thing to complain about is that it's kind of noisy. I would think that today there would be electric pumps that are much quieter.
Up until this most recent build, I ran a single 3/8" fuel line, and would have problems with fuel percolation when I shut off the engine (and subsequent hard restart from flooding). Now I run a 1/2" feed and 1/2" return line, using a RobbMc fuel tank pickup/sending unit, and a Mallory fuel log with built-in regulator. Makes for a clean install IMHO.
The Proform has been good enough, and now that I'm getting a handle on the tune (an AEM air/fuel gauge has been a great tool for me), it has enough adjustability to do pretty much whatever you need. Real57vetteguy has me drooling over the Pro Systems carb he got, and if I didn't already have something, I would most likely go the way he did. If I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket, I would also love to install one of the EFI units on the market today.
Hood clearance is pretty close... I have to use a REALLY low profile air cleaner base, and one of the reasons I went with one of those air filter tops is because it's so close to the bowl vents.
I've been able to get full travel from the stock throttle linkage by changing the rod mounting point on the firewall linkage. I think I have a picture of what I did somewhere in this thread.
|
|
|
Post by mongoose on Oct 25, 2012 7:27:48 GMT -5
My HEI came stock with a 20* of centrifugal advance. With the camshaft I have, I've learned while working out the tuning that a 16* initial advance (for 36* total) left the idle quality poor. An 850rpm in-gear idle provided 5.5"of manifold vacuum, which made balancing the AFR basically impossible (at least for me), and required a lot of changes to the air bleeds and idle restrictors (Proform carb). It also made the vacuum advance unusable, as out of gear the motor would make enough vacuum to engage the advance canister, but when I'd put it in gear, vacuum would drop below the advance's operating range. So timing would fluctuate widely, requiring a 1300rpm idle out of gear to provide an 850rpm idle in gear. You can image that made for quite a jolt. By experimenting, I found that if I advance the initial timing to around 20*, the idle characteristics completely changed. With 10" of manifold vacuum in gear, the idle was much more well behaved, and I was able to return the adjustments previously made to the carburetor back close to stock. It also allowed me now utilize the vacuum advance, which further cleans up idle, and of course adds a few more MPG when out cruising. But of course a 40* total advance is a bit too much. So I needed to figure out a way to reduce the range of centrifugal advance, or at least the difference from the timing at idle to total advance. At first I tried using softer advance weight springs, so that I'd be already using some centrifugal advance at idle. But I couldn't get rid of the low rpm/light throttle detonation. So I went to the internet to look for either a kit or a home-grown solution that would allow me to adjust the centrifugal advance range to suit the needs of the motor. I didn't find anything that really fit what I had in mind, but the search did give me some ideas. My particular distributor has a pair of holes on each end of the "bar" that the rotor cap mounts to. The outside ones are tapped, and are used to secure the rotor in place. The inner holes are untapped, but is nearly the right size (just a little large) for a 5mm tap and screw. I then made up some spacers out of a stick of 1/8" aluminum, varying the measurement between the hole for the 5mm screw and the edge of the spacer. I ground down the head of the allen-headed 5mm screw to make sure it wouldn't interfere with the advance plate (don't know if that's what it's called), and also ground a little of the underside of the rotor cap so it would clear the bolt head and spacer. I then started experimenting with various size spacers, securing the screw with blue Loctite, and found that a .040" spacer reduced my centrifugal advance 4*, now providing 16* of advance. And each .003" change either way with the spacer changes the amount of advance 1*. The engine is running really good now. AFR's are pretty stable from idle through cruise. I still want to make some additional refinements (I'm a tweaker), but it is really a night and day difference from when I first got it running.
|
|
|
Post by mongoose on Jun 26, 2015 20:29:30 GMT -5
Wow... it's hard to believe the last time I posted anything into this thread was over 2 1/2 years ago. It's also hard to believe that my Cutlass has sat under a car cover for 14 months now. And tomorrow I'm finally putting the engine back in the car. Last year in April, I had the car was running really well. I really had the carb dialed in, throttle response was essentially instantaneous, and it pulled pretty hard up to 5500rpm. Taking it out for an early morning romp to get my day started right, that when I heard a noise. Turned out the a weld on the front bracket of the windage tray broke loose, which allowed the #2 rod to grab a hold of the tray, and promptly intermingled the tray with the rods and crank. Not as bad as it sounds, but I tore everything down to check things out, and one thing leads to another... you know how that goes. Anyway money wasn't as free flowing as I would like (when is it ever), so everything took longer to work through, prepare, and get everything back together. While it was all torn down, I took care of a few things that needed work while there was down time. One of the biggest was replacing the switch pitch stator solenoid which had shorted out at some point, so the convertor would only operate in low stall. And while I was at it, I sent the convertor off to a Buick specialist (yes, blasphemy) for an upgrade so high stall will be somewhere around 3000rpm, which will be a nice complement to my engine combination. So finally tomorrow morning I'll be bolting the 455 back into the car, and I hope by Saturday evening that I'll be doing some light cruising in my old friend that I've missed for the last year. All dressed up and ready to go to work
|
|