Success!

Post date: Oct 29, 2012 2:21:40 AM

I never thought I'd get so much practice at removing and reinstalling intakes!

First go with SCE gaskets with the silicone bead (permatex on intake ports and black silicone for water) didn't seal due to poorly machined intake from the factory.

Second go with Flatout gaskets (spray hi-tack on intake ports and black silicone for water) sucked oil in the corners.

Third go with Cometic gaskets (spray hi-tack on intake ports and black silicone for water) leaked air at #6. Somehow the bolt between #6 and #8 got flooded with oil, too. Not terribly impressed with the high dollar gaskets.

Forth go with SCE standard gaskets (spray copper on intake ports and clear silicone for water) finally sealed well.

I also opened up the idle tubes from 0.036" to 0.038" and the down channel from 0.055" to 0.059".

The distributor advance curves don't work out at all like Accel says they should. I get almost no difference between the two stiffest sets of springs, with both giving full advance by 2,250. I'd prefer a more drawn out advance curve as pinging happens mostly at 2,000 rpm when lugging. I also mapped out the vacuum advance can. It's currently at 2.5 turns out. Also switched to BKR5E plugs (one step cooler). Haven't read them yet, but got about 60 miles on today and had only the slightest hint of pinging once at this setup. The idle needs a little more fuel, as the idle screws are about 6 turns out. But at this point it does affect the A/F ratio. So now it'd idling around 15:1, cruises between 14.5:1 and 15.5:1, hits 12:1 when floored and goes up to 16:1 when lugging.

The shiftworks kit came in. First try was with their brackets, and that failed miserably. Nothing would line up, had to seriously stretch the cable, and still didn't get any gears to work. Put the stock brackets back on and it just worked. The cable mount bracket is universal - they have a handy drawing showing all the mounts for it. I had assumed the selector bracket was universal as well, but it must not be. We'll see when I finally get the 200r4 I guess.... I also noticed that the selector hits the header when in park. This could be tough on the cables that have the big boots.

It's surprising how much of a difference that cable made! With the repop, shifts were still a little stiff, it was hard to get park and first, and it was just kind of rough. The new cable is just silky smooth. You only feel the tranny detents - not the cable. Well worth the money!

Today only had one interesting issue. I tried using two different advance stop bushings, which should have changed the advance curve by at least 4 degrees. Well, they didn't. So out it came and took a closer look. I noticed that the reluctor would shift a bit easily, then kind of hang up, before getting to the final few degrees of advance.

This took a few tries to figure out. One spring mounting peg on the shaft has kind of a bump on the bottom. Almost looks like a rivets. The reluctor has two holes - one side is a large oblong hole for normal advance, the other side has a small hole to lock out the advance. Guess what? That bump would sink into the small hole. So small movement was fine, but then it had to "pop" out of the hole.

In a Chevy install, this would be fine since the shaft is pushed upward. But in an Olds where it pulls down? Nah, it'll act like an advance limiter on its own!

So some time with a small grinding wheel and here you go:

It's still not moving as much as their spec, but certainly moves easier.

The drive went amazingly well. Idle is still a crap-shoot, but I suspect this cam is just a bit too much. I expect it to get better with some more work.

The old engine had a bad shake at 3,000 RPM and up. This one? Nope. Nice and smooth. Revs easily, still scares me when I get onto it while in the correct gear. Flooring it in 3rd isn't too alarming - the kickdown isn't set up right yet. But in 1st and second? Holy cow. I can't wait to get a proper rear end behind it, as it's tough to keep any traction. So really getting onto it just means peeling out. A lot. If I feather it in, I can only spin a little through first and hook into second. It's hard to tell time, but it gets up to 70MPG really fast.

The really stupid mistake of the weekend was pinching the old coil resistance wire under the distributor hold-down. While in the driveway I noticed a lot of smoke, but couldn't see where it was coming from. Looked like the driver valve cover was leaking, so snugged it back down and didn't think about it. Then after driving about 10 miles I took another look, saw some more smoke, looked closer, saw the wire curved where it shouldn't be. Tried to pull it out and it was HOT. Didn't have any tools, so had to drive it home. The wire cooked all its insulation. I'm actually quite lucky that it didn't start a fire with all that old wiring.

So that's what I get for leaving unused wires flopping around even though I had insulated the end.

Theoretically I can get 14+ MPG if I keep tweaking the carb. It's too much fun to drive it at 8 MPG, though.

So now I can switch back to body work, electrical, and try to get a dyno session. There's still several little ticks and occasional odd noises, but I can't do much until all the exhaust leaks are sealed off. I've learned that exhaust leaks can sound like just about anything!