Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback
As soon as I clear one hurdle something else jumps up and bites me in the butt. Every time I make plans something screws them up.
The weld shop still didn't get around to the valve covers yet. It's just a 5 minute job. I guess I can't finish them today.
UPS did drop me off some packages from JEGS today. - The replacement Optima battery, the piston top stop tool, and a set of Max Wedge head gaskets.
With the top stop I checked the accuracy of our harmonic balancer TDC mark and it was right on the nose. Although it's good news, it also means that I haven't solved what's going on with the starting issue on the Roadrunner. I re-checked the rotor phasing and it was spot on.
We've been following the instructions to a T. This thing should have fired right off and only needed minor tweaking. - That's why I've been double checking everything. The motor was a fresh rebuild when we bought the car so things such as the condition of the harmonic balancer were unknown but assumed to be alright. I'm tempted to pull the engine apart and check to see if the cam is properly timed with the crank.
Because the motor sounded as though it had too much advance I decided to test my theory. To properly adjust the timing further retarded I'd have to re-do the rotor phasing. It's not a major job but rather than go through the entire process I thought I'd try doing a simple distributor rotation first. I dropped the timing about 10' and hit the ignition. Although it didn't pop right off, it did start much easier. Without re-phasing the rotor I'm not sure I could have gotten any better results. Tomorrow I'll re-phase the rotor positioned at 15' less advance than the FAST instructions recommend. They have you set their system up with the distributor set at a 30' advance. Their ECU controls the distributor's actual timing so I'm not sure exactly when it's giving the spark signal when cranking yet. We hadn't gotten far enough on things to have put a timing light on it.
The parameters are supposed to be fully adjustable with our laptop and we'd tried retarding the initial timing with it when my son was still here but it didn't seem to help. If I don't see any improvements in results I'll try bugging Mike (from MRL) for advice. He's set up a number of engines with FAST efi systems and said he's had perfect results so far.
View attachment IMG_6257.jpg
As soon as I clear one hurdle something else jumps up and bites me in the butt. Every time I make plans something screws them up.
The weld shop still didn't get around to the valve covers yet. It's just a 5 minute job. I guess I can't finish them today.
UPS did drop me off some packages from JEGS today. - The replacement Optima battery, the piston top stop tool, and a set of Max Wedge head gaskets.
With the top stop I checked the accuracy of our harmonic balancer TDC mark and it was right on the nose. Although it's good news, it also means that I haven't solved what's going on with the starting issue on the Roadrunner. I re-checked the rotor phasing and it was spot on.
We've been following the instructions to a T. This thing should have fired right off and only needed minor tweaking. - That's why I've been double checking everything. The motor was a fresh rebuild when we bought the car so things such as the condition of the harmonic balancer were unknown but assumed to be alright. I'm tempted to pull the engine apart and check to see if the cam is properly timed with the crank.
Because the motor sounded as though it had too much advance I decided to test my theory. To properly adjust the timing further retarded I'd have to re-do the rotor phasing. It's not a major job but rather than go through the entire process I thought I'd try doing a simple distributor rotation first. I dropped the timing about 10' and hit the ignition. Although it didn't pop right off, it did start much easier. Without re-phasing the rotor I'm not sure I could have gotten any better results. Tomorrow I'll re-phase the rotor positioned at 15' less advance than the FAST instructions recommend. They have you set their system up with the distributor set at a 30' advance. Their ECU controls the distributor's actual timing so I'm not sure exactly when it's giving the spark signal when cranking yet. We hadn't gotten far enough on things to have put a timing light on it.
The parameters are supposed to be fully adjustable with our laptop and we'd tried retarding the initial timing with it when my son was still here but it didn't seem to help. If I don't see any improvements in results I'll try bugging Mike (from MRL) for advice. He's set up a number of engines with FAST efi systems and said he's had perfect results so far.
View attachment IMG_6257.jpg