Hands-on experiments since the '70s in Performance (GPM) and/or Economy (MPG)

[Sean Buick 76]

Always a hood story!

 

[Erik the Awful]

My '76 Cadillac Sedan DeVille was ugly. It was a very faded light blue with a rotted vinyl top. Within an hour of buying it I had the vinyl top ripped off, revealing rust holes in the back pillars that you could put a fist through. If got some silver exhaust tape and stuck it over the holes. I took the hub caps and fender skirts off and stashed them in the trunk. My friends installed air horns without telling me while I was TDY. I had the rusted exhaust cut off and true duals run all the way out. It looked and sounded "IDGAF".

Traffic parted for that car.

I'd been driving my RX-7 for years, and I hated GMT400 drivers at the time because they ALL drove aggressively around me and cut me off. Driving the Caddy was an entirely different experience.

Then the engine started spewing oil and the rust was too bad, so I scrapped it and kept the engine (now in the Jag). If I'd had the space and skills I have now, that car would still be on the road.

 

[Road Trip]

Why won't this car drive more than 20-25 minutes at a time? ($350 ex-Winnebago dinghy)

At first the owner seemed incredulous that I wanted to buy the car instead of the 'bago, but they
had a clean title for it, and after a little back & forth the car was mine for $350. (They emphasized
that it hadn't run in years, so at first they didn't want to sell it, only to have it come back a few days
later with me demanding my money back. {More on this later.})

I had to actually promise them that I wouldn't come back with the car no matter what.

In hindsight, I have to admit that having a new (to me) cash on the barrelhead Fiesta incoming
felt like a score. In my mind I was already driving it to/from work with my frugal flag flying triumphantly.

As soon as the cash was counted and the Bill of Sale ("As is, as shown") & title was in hand, I called the
insurance company from a pay phone, gave them the VIN, got the insurance turned on, proceeded to
the DMV, and paid for a title & registration. Bought 4 new spark plugs, a new fuel filter, a couple gallons
of gas, battery. Went home and rummaged around for half gallon of old antifreeze, a length of radiator hose,
some tools from the basement, a hand air pump, a can of fix-a-flat, and headed back to the car, accompanied
by my buddy who found it.

When we returned, the PO was watching out the front window with a quizzical look. I guess they just assumed
that a tow truck would be sent to retrieve the yard art. So we set about reviving the heavily oxidized sleeping
beauty. My buddy went to work airing up the tires while I busied myself under the hood.

First thing was to pull the (4) old spark plugs (they looked OK) sprayed WD-40 into each cylinder, and
spun the engine over with a breaker bar. It felt like it should. New plugs went in, followed by stuffing
the new battery. Pulled the gas line to the mechanical fuel pump and put a catch pan underneath. Took the
piece of radiator hose, removed the gas cap, and blew into the tank, and got maybe a 1/2 gallon of
redwood stain out of the tank? Flushed the line with maybe a quart of fresh gas, buttoned it back
up, and put the rest in the tank. I then spun a new factory style fuel filter into the 2-throat Weber.
(See attached.) Sounds a bit overcautious, but this is what I was taught from previous experience
with awakening old yard art installations.

Finally, after checking the oil & coolant levels (OK) and a couple of squirts of WD-40 down the carb
throat, it was time to turn the key. After a few seconds of cranking it fired right up, and after
a few seconds of roughness, settled into a smooth fast idle with normal sounding valvetrain. (Solid
lifters.) Fortunately the clutch disc & pressure plate hadn't rusted into permanent direct drive, for it
seemed to be working alright. (Super simple cable clutch)

My buddy had all 4 12" tires pumped up, life was good & getting better in Fiesta land. It took us
about 90 minutes of focused effort, but it lived! To the seeming surprise of the PO still in the
front window, we were driving the dinghy away from it's old mooring under it's own power.

~20 minutes later, I pulled into my driveway with my newest statement vehicle. Across the circle,
Mr. Jones (never knew his real name) looked up from polishing his black 911 & just shook his head.

You simply can't make this stuff up. And even though I didn't own this shirt (at the time) ...if I
did, I would have worn it while eating the victory Tex-Mex meal and washing it down with an ice cold Schlitz.

One of the best days of my entire cheap thrill chapter of the car hobby. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Road Trip]

Why won't this car drive more than 20-25 minutes at a time? ($350 ex-Winnebago dinghy)

..."And now, the rest of the story." (insert Paul Harvey voice)

****

The following weekend I started by moving the safety-related bits from the old to
new ride. (Tires, headlights, wipers, etc) Drove it into town for errands a couple of
times, each time about 10-15 minutes of running. Cranked in a little more timing, and
the car responded like it was happy to be back on the road. So I figured we should be
safe to commute the following Monday.

What could possibly go wrong?

That first Monday, the first 25 minutes of the commute down busy I-93 towards work was
smooth & uneventful. And then suddenly, the power suddenly dropped off, and I was
reduced to crawling down the breakdown lane in 1st gear with the throttle floored. So the
last 5 miles took forever to traverse. Barely made it to work, but went in with my game face
and fielded all those questions about what was I going to do with my new Signal Orange eyesore?

After my shift was over, I went out to the car, wondering if it was going to start? Sure enough,
it started flawlessly, acting as if nothing had gone wrong on the way in to work? WTF?
But it didn't fail to disappoint, for after driving about 20 minutes, the bad behavior returned,
and I ended up crawling the last couple of miles to the homestead?

After eating dinner and giving the car a chance to cool off, I decided that the symptoms really
made it seem like a thermal intermittent, so I swapped out the Duraspark box for a known-good
one out of my just-retired, rusty but reliable DD. The next day, the same exact behavior occurred --
first 20 minutes or so, great...followed by jerking down the breakdown lane in 1st, barely running.
Eff me! That night, I swapped in the known-good, flown-good distributor - this *has* to be the
source of the thermal intermittent?

Still no joy. Wednesday was the third consecutive day of the Jerk of Shame into work. This car was
too simple not to fix, but WTF? That night I decided that the swaptronics session was over, and we
were going to figure this out. Thinking back to the redwood stain that came out of the gas tank, I
tee'd in a Fuel Pressure test gauge and taped it to the outside of the windshield:

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(Rock-steady 5.5 lbs. of fuel pressure showing to the carb whenever the engine was running.)

Given the mantra that we needed Fuel, Spark, & Compression in order to run, I also connected up a timing light and had it on the passenger floor board,
laying on top of a piece of white posterboard, and I was determined to find out which system was flaking out and causing the car to start crawling
after ~20-25 minutes of running?

Right on time, the power dropped off...and the fuel pressure was still rock solid! With my right hand I grabbed the timing light,
squeezed the trigger, fully expecting nothing -- nope, the gun flashed brightly/steadily onto the posterboard??? My old school
'live data' troubleshooting defeated, I dejectedly jerked back and forth the last few minutes of my 4th straight ignominious
morning commute.

Man, I had to either get this figured out quick or cut my losses and move back into the rusty but oh so reliable primer DD...for
at my day job my specialty was troubleshooting computer systems that onsite, district, and regional reps were having
difficulty with...so getting beat by a subcompact that was simpler than most riding mowers wasn't gonna do my
reputation as a troubleshooter any good.

When driving old, it's not always unicorns & rainbows. This was s*cking my will to drive old beaters in order to beat the system...

 

[Road Trip]

- It matters where you measure fuel pressure -

That day at work my mind was racing. Obviously there was a flaw in
my troubleshooting implementation, but where? I decided to take a
1/2 day of vacation, and left for home at lunchtime.

Slowly jerking past my 911 owning neighbor, I chugged into my
driveway and shut the car off. I immediately opened the hood
& removed the air cleaner. Running the throttle by hand, the
accelerator pump made gurgly sounds instead of shooting a
stream of fuel into the primary bore? Wait a minute, I was
showing 5.5 lbs of fuel pressure right to the moment I turned
the car off?

And then it hit me. Since the fuel filter threaded directly into the
Weber, I was measuring the fuel pressure between the fuel
pump and the fuel filter, not the input to the carb itself!

If the week-old fuel filter was plugged, of course the fuel pump
is going to be able to keep the pressure up, while the carb
bowl would simultaneously go dry. (Insert head palm. D'oh!)

And this is what the new fuel filter gave up back through the inlet when
I tapped it against a flat surface and the gas in the slurry evaporated:

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(Apologies for the blurry photo -- this was back in the late '90s when I was between camera systems, and was getting by on
those old disposable box 24-shot film cameras.)

Voila! The filter would plug tight, the car would lose power, I'd park it, shut the car off, and somehow the FOD in the filter
would settle, clearing the screen, and the cycle would repeat?

Since I needed an immediate fix, I couldn't wait to locate an NOS Fiesta tank (in Hemmings?) and get it shipped to me, so I
needed to install a virtually perfect tank. After briefly considering and discarding the idea of using a similar sized cleanable
aftermarket fuel filter, I had the idea of installing a large EFI filter used on the 5.0 HO '88 Mustangs.

At the local parts store, they had 2 in stock. I bought both. These EFI filters were about the diameter of a
12 oz coke can, and about 3" deep. According to the specs, they were good down to ~20 microns. I installed
an EFI filter on the output side of the mechanical fuel pump, and threaded in a 2nd brand-new factory fuel filter
into the carb. I figured that the EFI filter upstream would keep the stock filter downstream from plugging up.

And it worked! I wailed on the car all the way to work the next day, and the car ran flawlessly. But although
the new EFI fuel filter lasted 100x as long as the original, the improvement was from ~30 miles to ~3000 miles.
So about every 6 weeks or so, the bigger fuel filter would start to plug, and wouldn't keep up when I had both
barrels open, but it would cruise if driven gently down the road. In response, I'd grab one of the spare EFI filters
for just such occasions in the back, switch it out in a couple of minutes, and I'd be back to full power.

I was wondering how many filters it would take to clear up the gas tank...but after about 6 EFI filters & 18,000 miles
later with no end in site, I finally had enough, and through a local Ford dealership I think I scored the last US-spec Fiesta
gas tank in their entire nationwide parts system?

And when I finally dropped the old tank, I couldn't believe how much FOD was *still* in that tank. Obviously the PO must
have run afoul of a neighbor (or fellow camping park patron) ...for the tank looked like it had a *lot* of foreign debris
poured inside?

...And just like always, once you finally fix everything, it all starts to make sense and all the mystery disappears.
No wonder the PO was afraid of selling it. Sometimes it worked. But not for long.

****

Why did I share all of the above? Just to reinforce the fact that it takes a long time to fix something that isn't broken.
(Ignition system) And that thermal intermittents aren't the only things that run for xx minutes and then fail to proceed.

And that those big EFI fuel filters will handle ~100x as much debris before clogging as compared to the old factory fuel
filters for carbs. (Keep this in the back of your mind if you ever find yourself a long way from home and you're fighting a
funky gas tank, either in your rig, your boat, emergency generator, etc. Sometimes the biggest EFI fuel filter can be a
valuable bandaid and save the vacation until you can get the real fix in place.)

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. And the first 4 days of commuting was consecutive doses of Humble Pie.
...But on the 5th day it ran so well I decided to go ahead and get it repainted.

So it's not just @DeCaff2007 who has to go through a trial by fire like this. I just happened to do mine back before we
aired our dirty little $h!tb0x secrets in public on the interwebs. :0)

May your DD be a trustworthy travelling companion --

 

[Erik the Awful]

To the seeming surprise of the PO still in the
front window, we were driving the dinghy away from it's old mooring under it's own power.

I bought my second Cadillac for $100 because the seller needed money for Christmas presents, and he thought the motor had wiped a lobe. It was backfiring horribly, through a set of Flowmasters. It sounded like a double-barrel shotgun. I bought it and didn't have a way to tow it off, so I jumped under the hood and started checking things. Big Caddys run a 1-5-6-3-4-2-7-8 firing order, and the PO was a Chevy guy. He'd wired it 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2. It put the spark plug wires in the right order and it fired up and ran smooth, right as he was walking out of the house with his kid to make a run to the store. He fired up his other Cadillac, and I could hear it running like butt. He did not look happy.

Come to find out, that motor did have a lot of problems. The front oil pan seal was missing and replaced with a goop of RTV. The freeze plugs were rusted through and seeping. The #8 piston rings were broken and there was a groove in the cylinder wall. At the time NAPA sold a single-cylinder re-ring kit. I honed that cylinder and installed the rings. That 472 is the backup motor for my Jaguar.

Since the fuel filter threaded directly into the
Weber, I was measuring the fuel pressure between the fuel
pump and the fuel filter, not the input to the carb itself!

Yup, I ran into that with a Quadrajet when I was a young tech. I'd never tore into one and I didn't realize that big fitting on the inlet held a filter.

 

[Road Trip]

Q: The company is bought, my job moves where I can't go = Severance Package taken

A: What is a Cross-country Road Trip?

So after nearly 18 years of brick on the throttle at my day job, suddenly my computer
company (DEC) was bought by a company in Houston who's motto was
"(IBM PC) Compatible with quality".

And just like that my job was relocated from New England to Houston. Sorry, no can do.
And in an instant I went from a corporate level computer systems support engineer...to a
severance package recipient. What should I do in order to mentally downshift & decompress
a bit?

Of course. Collect all the go-faster bits that have been accumulating, put it all into 1 motor,
and upgrade the DD sporting the new paint job! (reply #50)

Port match intake to euro-spec Big Valve head:

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The US-spec Fiestas got a 1600cc engine with a smaller valve crossflow head, smallish but neat Weber 2-stage 2bbl carb, and a cast iron exhaust manifold.

The hot hot setup was the Big Valve head with a Dual Weber DCOE carb setup on one side, and a long tube 4-1 header on the other.
Not very streetable, sluggish until the far side of 4K rpm, and would make the daily commute more chore than peppy hot hatch.

On the other hand, the Goldilocks street solution seemed to be to port match the intake to the euro Big Valve head, install a single higher cfm
2-stage 2-bbl Weber, a 'fast road' cam, and the long tube header. The photo above is what I came up with after a couple of evening porting
sessions with a spare intake manifold.

I picked up a lightened flywheel for a song on ebay. Lightened front & back, this helped transform the engine from just
pulling hard with OK transient behavior to a more immediate, zingy engine. To me, a slightly shorter duration cam + lightened flywheel
is much more fun to drive than a longer duration cam and a full weight stock flywheel. Ready to go at all rpm, crisp response, more zip, zing.

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Crank flange side of stock manual trans flywheel vs lightened version of the same. Much lighter.

So there it is. And after a bore, with the exception of the header I had a stock-appearing big bore
1700cc engine that was a slightly detuned version of the Formula Ford motors. (Basically imitating
the hot hatch enthusiasts over in Europe.)

So after breaking in the new engine, what next?

You guessed it, a Road Trip from NH to Olympia, WA in order to visit some family members I'd seen
far too little of while drinking from the fire hydrant of life.

First stop on the way out:

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Who knew that having your job moved too far away to follow would be this much fun? :0)

 

[Road Trip]

In order to take in the very best of the local flora and fauna while traversing our country, the next planned stop was The Corn Palace, in Mitchell, SD:

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Kitsch has met it's match. I found a place where the car looked normal by comparison. And who knew that you could decorate with corn like this?



Possibly overwhelmed by the visit to The Corn Palace, I relaxed my grip on the reins and allowed the machine
to set the pace out towards the Devil's Tower:

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Not floored. Not flogging it. This is what a deep-breathing crossflow Kent engine with a 'fast road cam' wants to do
with an 1800 lb car on just the primary venturi. I refer to this as the sleeper Supercruise mode. This was one of those
cars where if you didn't pay constant attention to the speedo it would naturally climb to the torque peak and hum a happy tune. :0)


Of course if you're gonna play, you gotta pay. After many miles & smiles of the smoothest-ever Perfection
on the endless Interstate, the following day the driveability went sour and the engine became quite balky while
easing down the state roads the last few miles to the Devil's Tower:

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(Swapping out badly glazed plugs after Supercruising to the Devil's Tower.)

Fortunately I was carrying a bag o' tools and a fresh set of colder
spark plugs just in case this combo of components was going to land
on the far side of the stock plug's heat range. (It sure did. Wish I'd
gotten a photo of just how shiny the porcelains were -- looked like they
had just come out of Miss Gwynn's pottery kiln in elementary school art
class. And I wasn't thinking, for if I'd kept them they would have made
some nice Christmas tree ornaments. Like accidental bits of internal
combustion jewelry. :0)

The fresh plugs brought back the purrrrfection. And at the next parts
store I passed, I was sure to buy an even colder set to carry as a backup
strategy if I managed to glaze these freshly installed colder plugs. (Nope, these
one-step colder plugs were in the sweet spot of this tune. They remained
in service for the rest of the cross-country trip.)

The Devil's Tower had been on my list of things to visit ever since watching
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but the next stop was up on my
personal Bucket List:

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How cool was Mt. Rushmore? Knowing how it was created, it was genuinely impressive in person:

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There are so many amazing things to see in our country.

 

[Road Trip]

Driving through the town near Mt. Rushmore, I couldn't understand why there
seemed to be so many bikes/riders out this way?

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On the way towards the next stop, (Old Faithful) the answer became obvious. The 2000 Sturgis event:

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(credit: Pinterest)


Unfortunately, at the moment I can't lay hands on my own Sturgis photos. As you
can imagine, I have a photo of the Signal Orange Fiesta in the center of a literal sea
of bikes & bikers. Everyone was pretty cool, but if I was reading between the lines I
was that day's court jester in a bright orange cage. I was an accidental Stranger
in a strange land.

The next stop was Yellowstone National Park, and Old Faithful delivered the goods
on schedule:

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(Credit: Turn of the century 24-exposure Disposable Box camera
way overdelivers. And the Canon Pixma printer/scanner does a
better than expected job with 25 year old prints. And freebie Picasa
software helped further extract what was buried in the original image.

Hint: If you have faded family photos you can bring them back to
life by importing them into the digital domain and making use of
some freeware. Fun stuff.)

****

Unfortunately, the photos of the Fiesta next to the Space Needle,
the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, and Graceland must be sequestered
in a different shoebox of old photos, but I'll allow the theater of your
mind to fill in the blanks. This is what happens when you don't organize
your pre-digital domain photos carefully enough.

****

This has been a bit of a long windup in an area where we're specifically allowed to
describe non-GMT400 projects. My hope is that the previous posts will help
to explain why I hope to do even greater nonsense with the chore truck. :0)

I guess it boils down to the fact that I enjoy a fast vehicle that is supposed to
be fast. But for some reason that I can't fully explain, I really & truly enjoy
making a 'supposed to be slow' car or truck much faster than it should be.

It's gotta be my playful sense of humor. If it isn't fun to drive, why bother?

As always, thanks for your time & attention to my interweb graffiti.

Cheers --