Re: Un-f@#$ing an 86 LG4 Quadrajet
 

Thanks! It's been fun slowly getting her back up to snuff again.

Yesterday's fun was figuring out that one of the POs removed the thermostat. It's relatively cold right now for Portland, down in the 30s, and the heat just wasn't coming on and the needle on the temp gauge just never seemed to move off the first peg at 100. I wasn't sure if the t-stat was stuck open or missing, so I bought a 180 degree version and sure enough, nothing was in there.

I took it for a drive this morning to drop off my daughter at school and it runs sooo much better cold now that it's warming up properly. And we didn't freeze to death! Yay!

Re: Un-f@#$ing an 86 LG4 Quadrajet
 

I thought I'd give yinz a quick update. I have been chipping away at little stuff this year making it nicer and nicer. I redid the driver door weatherstripping for example and that was a huge improvement.

But back to the engine. I took it in for a smog check this week and it failed miserably. HC limit is 220 ppm, I was over 700. It was also smoking a little bit.

So first I changed the oil with some 15W/50 synthetic I had laying around, and that greatly reduced the oil burning.

Next up was a new set of NGK plugs. While I was replacing the plugs I figured out that the ignition wires weren't installed correctly, so I moved a few around to get them in the right place.

Finally I dialed back the base timing so it at about -2 degrees with the distributor connector unplugged. It runs fine at that setting and the pinging seems to be gone.

So I took it back over to try the smog test again, and it passed! Woot! Not bad considering the air pump is missing.

The first time the measured it the reading was about 400 PPM. But I had been sitting idling for at least 5 minutes. After running it at 2500 RPM for a few minutes it blew a 216 at idle. Yay!

The idle is still a bit higher than I'd like, and it's not because of the AC solenoid. So I need to double check the MCS dwell. But frankly it runs great, starts easily, and is a blast to drive. It was nice a sunny here today so I popped the t-tops, cranked up some 80s hits and picked up my daughter from school and took her shopping while we enjoyed the sun.

Thanks again to all who helped me save this beast, especially naf.

Honestly I have been a Mustang fan most of my life. But the stupid rest suspension design on the Fox and SN95 chassis never impressed me. This Camaro is like a big go-kart, I would love to get it on a track someday.

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