Project Thread... my regal
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So I'm begining to wonder about the motor in this thing... pulled my plugs today because it had a bit of a miss under load. They were oil fouled again... (side note... cleaned the plugs and the miss is gone)
There were a lot of receipts in the trunk but there were no pistons, rings, etc... on the receipts. I'm wondering if they just threw a cam in it and did the normal bolt-on stuff and didn't touch the short block... Even if it was a really fresh rebuild I would expect the rings to be seated by now...
So the plan is to drive it and have fun with it and clean the plugs every month or two... and save up for a 400 crank and rotating assembly... hehe
There were a lot of receipts in the trunk but there were no pistons, rings, etc... on the receipts. I'm wondering if they just threw a cam in it and did the normal bolt-on stuff and didn't touch the short block... Even if it was a really fresh rebuild I would expect the rings to be seated by now...
So the plan is to drive it and have fun with it and clean the plugs every month or two... and save up for a 400 crank and rotating assembly... hehe
Here's a pic of the Q-Jet:
Went to the junkyard today and got the vacuum pulloff for the secondaries for $5. Just gotta hook it up after work...
Went to the junkyard today and got the vacuum pulloff for the secondaries for $5. Just gotta hook it up after work...
Update:
Still got some tweaking to do on the carb. I think the check ball for the accelerator pump isn't sealing. The transition into the secondaries is really smooth, but it hesitates on hard acceleration on the primaries... runs better warmed up than it does cold, but I'm not running a choke so that's expected. It may be a bit lean on the primaries too... but it's still way better than the holley. Starts right up first time every time now instead of the long crank when it's warm with the holley.
Had a fun ride home from work last Tuesday... Float stuck on Monday night, but a quick tap with a screwdriver freed it up and it was fine... or so I thought. Tuesday I got into the secondaries pulling away from a red light and as I settled back down to the speed limit it started to act funny. Was breaking up and required more throttle to maintain speed. The further I got, the worse it got so I pulled over... gas was pouring out of the vent tube really bad! 🙁 Had to floor it to start and it wouldn't stay running unless it was pretty much wide open... so I popped the top off the carb and pulled the needle and seat out and cleaned it up as best as I could. Once I got the motor cleaned out (HUGE cloud of black smoke LOL) it ran OK the rest of the way home. I was off work on Wednesday so I pulled the carb off and cleaned it out really good and replaced the fuel filter. Then I drained the oil/gas mixture out and put oil back in...
No more sticky float, no change in oil pressure, and no noises so I am confident I didn't hurt anything... cars are fun...
Still got some tweaking to do on the carb. I think the check ball for the accelerator pump isn't sealing. The transition into the secondaries is really smooth, but it hesitates on hard acceleration on the primaries... runs better warmed up than it does cold, but I'm not running a choke so that's expected. It may be a bit lean on the primaries too... but it's still way better than the holley. Starts right up first time every time now instead of the long crank when it's warm with the holley.
Had a fun ride home from work last Tuesday... Float stuck on Monday night, but a quick tap with a screwdriver freed it up and it was fine... or so I thought. Tuesday I got into the secondaries pulling away from a red light and as I settled back down to the speed limit it started to act funny. Was breaking up and required more throttle to maintain speed. The further I got, the worse it got so I pulled over... gas was pouring out of the vent tube really bad! 🙁 Had to floor it to start and it wouldn't stay running unless it was pretty much wide open... so I popped the top off the carb and pulled the needle and seat out and cleaned it up as best as I could. Once I got the motor cleaned out (HUGE cloud of black smoke LOL) it ran OK the rest of the way home. I was off work on Wednesday so I pulled the carb off and cleaned it out really good and replaced the fuel filter. Then I drained the oil/gas mixture out and put oil back in...
No more sticky float, no change in oil pressure, and no noises so I am confident I didn't hurt anything... cars are fun...
Update!
She keeps doing this to the plugs:
I was worried the rings were shot... That's alot of oil on the plugs. I read somewhere on this site that someone had problems like this with the M/T valve covers because there is no baffle under the pcv valve on these valve covers. So I popped the valve cover off and sure enough there was no baffle... So after a little brainstorming I came up with this:
I also threw another set of plugs in her and she runs much better! Hopefully this will be the end of the fouled plugs and bad oil consumption. If it does I can put the money that I would have spent on the stroker crank assembly into a better set of heads and wake this engine up...
She keeps doing this to the plugs:
I was worried the rings were shot... That's alot of oil on the plugs. I read somewhere on this site that someone had problems like this with the M/T valve covers because there is no baffle under the pcv valve on these valve covers. So I popped the valve cover off and sure enough there was no baffle... So after a little brainstorming I came up with this:
I also threw another set of plugs in her and she runs much better! Hopefully this will be the end of the fouled plugs and bad oil consumption. If it does I can put the money that I would have spent on the stroker crank assembly into a better set of heads and wake this engine up...
Buick: 2 Mustang: 0
Just walked away from a mid to late 90's Mustang from about 45-50 mph twice in a row! Pulled up next to them at a red light and left them in the dust when the light turned green... they didn't get on it at all, but just accelerated normal at that point. When I leveled out around 45-50 (speed limit 45) they caught up to me, pulled along side, and just hung there even with me. So I did what any self-respecting G Body owner would do and put the pedal down. And easily pulled away from them. I let off at about 75-80 or so and settled down to around 50 and let them catch up. When they pulled up next to me again I dropped the hammer again and pulled away from them again. And my transmission doesn't downshift above 40mph or so, I was in third gear the whole time... I love beating "souped up" cars with my two tone brown grandpa car...
Just walked away from a mid to late 90's Mustang from about 45-50 mph twice in a row! Pulled up next to them at a red light and left them in the dust when the light turned green... they didn't get on it at all, but just accelerated normal at that point. When I leveled out around 45-50 (speed limit 45) they caught up to me, pulled along side, and just hung there even with me. So I did what any self-respecting G Body owner would do and put the pedal down. And easily pulled away from them. I let off at about 75-80 or so and settled down to around 50 and let them catch up. When they pulled up next to me again I dropped the hammer again and pulled away from them again. And my transmission doesn't downshift above 40mph or so, I was in third gear the whole time... I love beating "souped up" cars with my two tone brown grandpa car...
I've been doing some research on the engine in my car and it looks like it's a 350 crate motor. Casting number is 3970010 "Hecho en Mexico", code is "MB28800". Apparently this is a basic stock-replacement motor with 8:1 or 8.5:1 compression and most were four bolt mains. Probably making around 200 horse with the cam and headers. Would I be able to bring the compression up enough with just a head swap or am I gonna have to change pistons to get a decent power increase? I'm thinking I would be happy with a 100-150 HP increase... for now...
So the fact that this thing has a really low compression ratio got me wondering why it prefers mid-grade gas. I also noticed that it cranked over hard when it was hot but I thought that was just a bad starter because I was having other issues with it not cranking at all at times... Anyway for the fun of it I threw a timing light on it and the timing was off the scale at idle! Had to be somewhere around 20*! Backed it off to 8* and the car now runs fine on regular which is good for my wallet... I have a feeling the jacked up timing may have been a factor in the death of the starter...
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