I got to actually drive the car a little today. My brake problem was that I had the lines swapped at the master. I found this out after trying literally everything else.

The 6 speed is the best thing I have done for this car yet. I only drove it in our back lot at work, but its a big parking lot. I had no problems getting up to 40 or so mph and having plenty of time to stop. If I even ease into the gas while in first, it will lite up the tires at 30+ mph. Basically that means untill I get bigger/better back tires, I cant go WOT in first gear. The fun part is that this is with the Torker II manifold which everyone seems to agree is a piece of junk. I cant wait to get a good manifold on here. I still have some small stuff to do before I can take it on the street, but by the end of the week I should have all that stuff done.

 

Should be quite a difference when you get the intake swapped, glad nothing else happened to prevent you from driving her.

You should be happy to know that I am picking up my T56 (Along with an LT1) this weekend for my camaro, too.

Keep up the good work!

 

I took the car home on Saturday. At first everything went 100% perfect. The car actually ran cooler than I wanted it too. And it was 95 degrees out but the temp guage was right at 160. But then I started to have a few small problems.

The crossmember I made sits a little to close to the seal at the back of the tailshaft and makes the dust seal touch the driveshaft. This makes the car sound like a baby squeeling when driving slow. So I need to take the crossmember out and notch the top of the tube to give more clearance. Thing is, I knew before I should have done this, but I got impatient and put it together anyways.

Then the car smokes a lot at idle. I thought this was from the PCV I just put on sucking oil, but now I dont know. I put a small clear catch can inline to the PCV tonight and sitting still revving it up, there was no oil at all in can. I let the car run for about 15 min or so. It may be running pig rich though. I pulled one plug and it was as black as can be. I'll try playing with the carb tomorrow. The last time I drove it yesterday, the engine started to break up under light throttle so I need to get it fixed.

Then the last thing is that I need better gears in the back. The 3.50 gears I have were ok with the auto since the convertor could slip, but now if you take off real easy, the motor bogs when you let the clutch all the way out. It takes off best if you let the tires spin over 2 to 3 times. I'm going to try to order the gears (4.30's) and the plate that is supposed to go between the Lakewood bellhousing and the block in the next 2 or 3 weeks. Since I have to take it easy on the trans (found this out after beating on it a few times) then I would rather break the new gears in at the same time rather than doing it seperate and dragging the break in period on. The plate will lower the engage/disengage spot of the clutch pedal.

Bradley, congrats on the motor/trans setup. I've only put about 20 miles on mine since the trans swap, but I freaking love it. Unless I build a dedicated drag car, I'll never own an auto in a fun car again.

 

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Well I think I found my oil burning problem. I pulled the carb off tonight to check that the primary's and secondaries were opened the same at idle. They were not so I'm going to adjust that. The idle slot on the secondaries were opened a lot and you could not see any of the primaries. Then I looked down the runners and saw that cylinder 6 was wet at the intake gasket. Pulled the plug and it was soaked. Since I have to pull the intake anyways now, I'm not going to put the Torker II back on. I'll look at this as a good reason to upgrade to a Vic Jr. manifold. I think the gears and everything else is going to get pushed back for a while. I want to get this fixed so I can drive it if I want to. Then next month I'm going skydiving for my birthday so I need to save money for that. I'm just glad that I think I found the oil problem now. Although I wont know for sure till I change the intake.

 

Done anything new recently?

 

Wow, somebody cares!

Not really though. I've been tuning the motor a lot lately. After switching to the Victor Jr. manifold, a lot of tuning bugs came out. Took the car to the track, which wound up just being an embaresment. Ran a 15.3 spinning past the 1/8th mile mark. Then a 14.9 bogging the motor down so bad off the line I about stalled the motor. Then changed gears about 400 rpm early so it wouldnt spin and didnt go to the floor till a second or so into 2nd gear. Other than that, I've been enjoying driving the car. The 6 speed was the best thing I have done. For a comparison, the first 3.5 years the car was driveable, I put 419 miles on the car. In the last 2 months or so that I've had the 6 speed in, 150 miles on it. By the end of this month, I will have probably put 70% more miles on the car in 3 months, than I did in over 3 years.

Heres a pic with the new manifold. I still cant decide if I like the plain aluminum look, or the charcoal gray I had the old manifold. I do like how this one sits higher though. Not having the carb sit down between the valve covers makes everything look nicer.



What about you? You still have to sell yours?

And nevermind all the paint missing under the master. That was from trying to fix my stupid brake problem a while back. I'll touch it up eventually.

 

Of course I care! lol

I do like the regular aluminum look of an intake, when they're painted it just loses some of its..... "pop", I guess. Atleast your getting it to run down the track, even if it didnt go the way you would have hoped, lol. I hate how brake fluid eats through everything, such a pain.

About my car, I decided that I am atleast going to give my best effort to get it running before I sell it. I need a car that I can drive, so I can get a job.. Haha.

 

A bit under a year later..

Any changes?

 

Sorry a bit off topic. BTW awesome work.

What shop is that? It looks like a chain/franchise type place. just wondering.

 

Digging this thread back up as the car is back at the shop for a list of things to get done. It will stay here till October, when there is a car meet I'm going to try to have the car ready for. I am going to take it to the track again though before then, if it'll ever quit raining.

The list of things this time are to give the car a quick paint job just to make it one solid color, new carpet, build a center console from scratch, wire in a new switch panel with push button start, build a custom AC system with the blower/evaperator under the dash not the hood, and turbo the car. That's all the big stuff. And I'm going to try to get it all done by October 12th

 

you by chance have a video of this car running really curious how it sounds?