Howdy fellas,

well, as most of you know, i just put a new motor in my car. as a matter of fact we just got it running properly friday night. the engine is 355 (fresh rebuild) with 461 double hump heads (2.02 inatke, 1.60 exhaust valves). it has Crane Gold Roller rockers (not sure if that are 1.5, or 1.6), and an unknown cam (but shes pretty healthy). Up top is an edelbrock performer, a home made dual snorkel air cleaner w/ a K&N filter, and my old q-jet, with stock primary metering rods and jets and DR rods and a G hanger in the secondaries. the exhaust is comprised of flowtech shorty headers, 1.5" primaries, dumping into 2.5" true dual exhaust w/ hooker aerochambers (2.5" offset in, 2.5" center out). the tranny is a 700r4 with a B&M Stage 2 shift kit and a generic 2700 rpm stall converter and 3.23s with no posi outback.

now, my first question is how do i adjust the cable that runs from the gear shifter to the tranny? No matter how hard i try, the shifter will not click down into first, and as a result i am forcedto start in 2nd gear when manually shifting and this is killing my times. the tranny does the 1-2 shift at 4500 rpm, and i want the 1-2 to be at least 5500 rpm, as this motor pulls real strong up top.

also does any one else have any ideas on how to improve performance? the car ran 14.2 at sparta on saturday and i know i can get into the 13s; the motor definetly has it in it. The car did not bog with when i floored it and the secondaries appear to be opening at teh right time, so i think i am okay for that adjustment. i am still looking for a B hanger for the secondaries and next time i take it to the track i am going to bump the timing up a little more. but i would really like to get my shifter adjusted properly so i can have full contol over which rpm i shift at.

 

Im no carb junkie but from what I understand from talks with my bro, holley street avengers are nice pieces. Obviously a posi would help, personally that would be 1st on my list. Next time your at the track rip the filter assembly off for a run to see if its restrictive.
BTW what did you get a generic 2700 stall from?
greg

 

at a local speed shop, i got a 2700 rpm stall convertor for 375 plus stax. the convertor is made in markham, ontario, by Markham Convertors and has a 1 year warrenty. it is fine for racing as long as you dont shock it too much, ie using nitrious or real wrinkle wall slicks.


posi is definetly on my list, number 1 in fact.

 

I had a similar problem when i installed my TH350 in my TA. I broke 3 different shifter cables. The cables bind up very easy and must be routed carefully. It took me a while but I got it to work eventually. I'd check the linkage first to make sure everything is ok there. Take the cable off the bracket and see if you can hit each gear with the cable off, by moving the bracket with your hand. Next check to see how the cable is routed. Make sure there are no major bends or kinks anywhere. Also, try to see if the shifter will go in first with the cable undone from the bracket.
When I finally chased down my problem, I found that the actual shift linkage bracket on the trans put the cable at the wrong angle, causing it to bind. I had to go get a 700R4 brakcet from the junkyard. The brackets Hurst supplied in their TH350 conversion kit sucked. It could be the bracket on your trans is bent a bit, causing the cable to kink.

As for getting your car, you may want to invest in a spring kit for your distributor. You can adjust the ignition curve with these. How do the plugs look?

 

i have a couple of lighter springs in the distributor already, but i may have to play around with the mechanical advance a bit