Chasers 66 408 Restomod / ProTouring Coupe

[chaser012001]

The battle with the exhaust smell continues. I sealed any and all seams and holes. I also replaced the header gaskets using a set of FelPro 1487's that I had since I could sort of hear it and there was some soot on a couple spark plugs. The smell went away for a little bit and then came right back. It looks like the gaskets gave away again which is SUPER irritating given how much of a pain in the a$$ it is to deal with in such a tight space. Either way, I've gotten the whole effort down to about a 2 hour job. I think this weekend I'm going to put in a set of Remflex 3028. I'm debating adding some sealant as well but that doesnt really sit well with me. I think i'll try a set dry and if I continue to have problems I'll just do it again with some sealant.

Also in my quest to never leave well enough alone, I swapped the plugs out and gapped them to .50. Now I seem to have a low idle miss so I think I got a little ambitious with the gapping. During the header gasket swap, i'm going to set them back to .45 and see if that helps. I'm not ruling out the wires as well since I also monkey'd with those a bit to change the routing a tad. They were too close to the headers for my liking.

Outside of those two little things, the car is running great. I adjusted the pinion a little to eliminate some vibration (30 minute job with the 3link). This thing cruises SO good.

 

[Horseplay]

I am a big fan of Percy's aluminum header gaskets. Very thick and seal up excellent all by themselves.

 

[Dne']

I have no clue what mine are, other than there are "re-usable" and have never given me a problem and those same ones are in my newer engine now. However I get to pull my drivers side header off as it's right against the block, guess I'll take a hammer and dent it in a bit.

However, nice to hear that your car is cruising well!!
How about a recent pic of your engine?

 

[chaser012001]

I havent started on the header gaskets yet because i started to feel a miss in the engine. It's been really annoying because it was somewhat intermittent but then it turned into a full blow miss. It actually kind of felt like 2 cylinders but checking header temp, nothing was really jumping out as to which one(s) were dropping. Then again...its an uber cheap Harbor Freight infrared temp thing so it's probably unreliable at best.

Anyway, to try and rid it of these demons, I re-gapped all the plugs to .040 vs the .050 that it was. Miss was still present. I then swapped all the wires to known working ones...still a miss. I reset the computer since I did some tuning...still a miss. That left me to the plugs again. I've replaced them all (Autolite 3924) and gapped to .040. I wish i still had the first set of plugs because they were still jamming away when I replaced them. I did it as a "while I'm at it". I had those gapped to .035 and everything was honky dory.

I'm hoping to take it out in awhile to see if that remedied the problem. I want all my horses back!
I suspect that my tune being a bit on the leaner side, coupled with an ambitious gap, and driving the living sh*t out of it might have torched the plugs. That or MSD is living up to it's acronym (May Suddenly Die).
If this solves the problem, I think I'm going to make an appointment to have a local Holley tuner dial it in proper.

 

[jcs67stang]

If this solves the problem, I think I'm going to make an appointment to have a local Holley tuner dial it in proper.

Wait what, we have a local Holley tuner?

 

[chaser012001]

Yeah man! There's a place in Pacific, Mid Coast Performance, thats an installer and tuner for Holley EFI systems. If i ever manage to get a day off i'm going to run up there.

Last weekend, there were some shows near my hometown. Shortly before my dad passed, we managed to get the convertible up to the show in Hamilton, IL and then proceeded to drive around the countryside. When we were there, we kept talking about how cool it would be if we drove both our cars up there when I finished building mine. That was the only show we were able to make it to before he passed.

I was determined to make it to that show so I drove my car the 180 miles one way, through the rain, up there Friday. My nephew (Jeffrey) and I drove it to the show in Warsaw, IL that night and had a great time. It was his first car show and, after hanging out with me and the monster, is wanting to build his own car as well...unfortunately it's a late 70's C3 corvette but at least it's something...

Saturday morning I set out waking the convertible up. She was a little snotty but a battery, timing, carb adjustment, and a bottle of ATF later she was humming along!! I drove the convertible to the show since Jeffrey wanted to drive my car. We switched for the drive back. It's amazing how much different these two things drive. The convertible suspension is darn near bone stock...not even an arning drop. The handling is abysmal but I supposed that's how they drove back in the day.

I think my dad would have been really proud to have seen this. To make it even better, Jeffrey (nephew) is wanting to take the convertible to more shows. Since i'm not in the area, I told him to ask me first but I wouldnt have a problem with it. The car needs to be driven and loved.

PICTURES
Right after pulling it out of the barn...

Jeffrey was driving my car...

Playtime the night before :-D

 

[janschutz]

Looks like a fun day!