408 Build Thread
In between races and playing in the pool yesterday, my son and I managed to get some work done on the Dart.
I used an AutoZone 20% off coupon when I bought my Edelbrock Thunder Series 800 cfm carb and the only one they had available was a manual choke version, so I snapped it up. I figured I've been driving cars for 40 years with various forms of chokes, I could probably get away without running one. I was wrong. At cold start, I would have to keep pumping and feathering the gas or the engine would die, restart and repeat. So I broke down and bought a manual choke cable. It was easy to install and took about thirty minutes. Now, I can pull the choke out, start the car, let it idle high for a minute, push the choke in and drive away.
We checked some connections and got the tach to work. It's an older Sun Super Tach II and we had it wired to the tach wire coming out of the MSD distributor just as the directions instructed. We couldn't get it to work and we knew the tach was working fine on the old engine. We took the tach lead and jumped it to the negative side of the coil and the tach sprung to life! I'm not sure if it's because it's an older tach and not compatible with the E-curve distributor or what, but it's working now and that's all that matters.
We did a couple of little things like tidying up some wiring and painting my horns and putting them back in place. I only had flat black paint and I don't care for the look, so they'll be coming back out for a coat of satin paint or maybe I'll coat them with some clear that I have. They look better than what they did, so I'm going to consider them a partial success.
Keeping with the two steps forward, one step back theme, now my turn signals don't work. I checked the all the fuses and couldn't find anything wrong, it was getting late and it was time to eat so I'll have to dig into it deeper later. Today is Memorial Day and I have to work because of a demanding customer, but only a half day. I plan on going out to painter Shawn's shop at noon to work on the hood and scoop. Hopefully, I'll have some pics to post tonight when I get home.
In between races and playing in the pool yesterday, my son and I managed to get some work done on the Dart.
I used an AutoZone 20% off coupon when I bought my Edelbrock Thunder Series 800 cfm carb and the only one they had available was a manual choke version, so I snapped it up. I figured I've been driving cars for 40 years with various forms of chokes, I could probably get away without running one. I was wrong. At cold start, I would have to keep pumping and feathering the gas or the engine would die, restart and repeat. So I broke down and bought a manual choke cable. It was easy to install and took about thirty minutes. Now, I can pull the choke out, start the car, let it idle high for a minute, push the choke in and drive away.
We checked some connections and got the tach to work. It's an older Sun Super Tach II and we had it wired to the tach wire coming out of the MSD distributor just as the directions instructed. We couldn't get it to work and we knew the tach was working fine on the old engine. We took the tach lead and jumped it to the negative side of the coil and the tach sprung to life! I'm not sure if it's because it's an older tach and not compatible with the E-curve distributor or what, but it's working now and that's all that matters.
We did a couple of little things like tidying up some wiring and painting my horns and putting them back in place. I only had flat black paint and I don't care for the look, so they'll be coming back out for a coat of satin paint or maybe I'll coat them with some clear that I have. They look better than what they did, so I'm going to consider them a partial success.
Keeping with the two steps forward, one step back theme, now my turn signals don't work. I checked the all the fuses and couldn't find anything wrong, it was getting late and it was time to eat so I'll have to dig into it deeper later. Today is Memorial Day and I have to work because of a demanding customer, but only a half day. I plan on going out to painter Shawn's shop at noon to work on the hood and scoop. Hopefully, I'll have some pics to post tonight when I get home.
