Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback

[1967 'cuda]

! Seriously though after looking at those pics, take it easy shoveling that stuff. It can quickly put some stress on our bods without much warning.

Amen to that! Around here if you dont get it cleaned up asap,it melts and becomes near impossible to shovel. Seems to weigh as much as lead..and just plugs the snow blower immediately.

I'm sure hoping the snow is done for this winter. Today I chopped up that last drift that was in front of the garage and tossed the snow onto the lawn. It should be melted away in another day or two. I guess if we do get any more snow it shouldn't last too long anymore.

 

[mosleyme]

After the failure at the tuner shop my son has decided that we should try removing the MSD equipment (control box & distributor) and switch back to the Chrysler electronic controller with the FAST distributor. I'd left all of the wiring in place but disconnected from it when we installed the MSD setup so it shouldn't be too difficult to make the change. The worst part will probably be having to notch the head to clear that FAST distributor.

If this swap doesn't cure our headaches the next step will probably be to re-install the MSD parts and disable FAST's timing capability. The technicians at FAST swore their system was fully compatible with the MSD equipment we've got but we've been unable to the timing stable when we've tried the two together. I don't know if the multi-spark is throwing their ECU fits.

Is the MSD distributor locked out? You have to pull the distributor apart to do this. Sorry about jumping on this late... Another thing you can do to test the waters is tell the EFI to leave the timing at zero, do not connect the EFI to the MSD input (white wire usually) and let the MSD take care of the timing. Long run you do not want to do that but it would be a test. Put a timing light on it and see if the timing moves. If it does the MSD is moving it somehow.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Is the MSD distributor locked out? You have to pull the distributor apart to do this. Sorry about jumping on this late... Another thing you can do to test the waters is tell the EFI to leave the timing at zero, do not connect the EFI to the MSD input (white wire usually) and let the MSD take care of the timing. Long run you do not want to do that but it would be a test. Put a timing light on it and see if the timing moves. If it does the MSD is moving it somehow.

I appreciate any advice, mosleyme. It'll be another few days before I'll get a chance to work on the Roadrunner's efi.

We'd meticulously followed the installation procedures and whenever in doubt, called FAST's tech line for clarification. Yes, our timing was locked out and rotor phased according to instructions. Hopefully I'll have new info in the next few days.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Well, I made it to the Lincoln swap meet this morning and the weather was great. Even at 4:00 a.m. when I got up, the temp wasn't bad.

I've always joked about the possibility of missing out on a cheap Hemi if I didn't go and lo & behold my dream came true today. I picked up a 426 for just 25 bucks!!

OK, it's only 1/6th scale, but it's still cool and a lot cheaper than what they usually sell for. It'll have to do until the real one gets done later this year.

Another thing I picked up was a sign for the basement cave. It wasn't a necessity but at 10 bucks I couldn't pass it up.

Someone was selling a cast iron 440 sixpack intake that had us scratching our heads. I realize it's not uncommon to find them at swap meets but the strange thing about it was the casting date. We knew that Edelbrock had made the first year (1969&1/2) intakes for Chrysler out of aluminum and had made cast iron ones for production in the '70 and '71s. This intake clearly has the casting date 10/9/68 on it. What's the scoop? I couldn't find an explanation online.

They were asking $800 for it and the carb parts seemed like junk. The front one was almost non-existant and the back one was frozen shut. No linkage, etc, etc... We scoffed at the price but were still mystified by the date on it.



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[360DartGT66]

I love the sign!

That intake must weigh a ton!

 

[Average Joe]

I appreciate any advice, mosleyme. It'll be another few days before I'll get a chance to work on the Roadrunner's efi.

We'd meticulously followed the installation procedures and whenever in doubt, called FAST's tech line for clarification. Yes, our timing was locked out and rotor phased according to instructions. Hopefully I'll have new info in the next few days.

Hey John, I had the same problem. Take the Phaseable rotor out and put the standard MSD rotor in. Set you base timing at 15 degrees. IF you do this I can send you a tune that I ran in my car.
It should work for what you guys are doing.Let me Know
Thanks,Joe

 

[1967 'cuda]

I love the sign!

That intake must weigh a ton!

When I brought the sign home I thought Teresa was going to be thrilled with it. Instead of unloading a bunch of car parts she'd see that I had more than 30 weight oil running through my veins. I asked her how much she thought I paid for it expecting her to name some extravagant price. She made a frowny face and said she hoped I didn't give more than 10 bucks for it. Sheesh!

I've heard that the cast iron six pack manifolds were a lot less desirable because of the availability of the lighter aluminum ones. The big question about this one is whether or not it's some rare oddball because of that casting date. I wonder if Chrysler made a few that Edelbrock used as a template for their aluminum ones back then.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Hey John, I had the same problem. Take the Phaseable rotor out and put the standard MSD rotor in. Set you base timing at 15 degrees. IF you do this I can send you a tune that I ran in my car.

It should work for what you guys are doing.Let me Know
Thanks,Joe

When we phased the rotor as directed we noticed that the ECU's displayed timing was way different than what our timing light showed. According to FAST they should have matched. If we used the FAST controller to set our initial it was almost impossible to get the car to start. Our timing light was showing way too much advance. When we tried to compensate by retarding the timing we were able to get it to start but it never ran well. I'll try your suggestion.

 

[360DartGT66]

I haven't grasped all that you've written about this but could it be that the controller is faulty? Did you swap it out for another unit?

It does happen, you know, electronics do get sent out with faults. Some things can be really difficult to check in production.

 

[1967 'cuda]

I haven't grasped all that you've written about this but could it be that the controller is faulty? Did you swap it out for another unit?

It does happen, you know, electronics do get sent out with faults. Some things can be really difficult to check in production.

That was one of the things that we'd considered too. We sent the original ECU back to FAST and had it upgraded to their Sportsman edition and checked. It makes it less likely to be where the problem lies but I still wouldn't rule it out.

 

[famous bob]

That was one of the things that we'd considered too. We sent the original ECU back to FAST and had it upgraded to their Sportsman edition and checked. It makes it less likely to be where the problem lies but I still wouldn't rule it out.

what`s this about the sportman edition ? haven`t heard about that one -----bob

 

[1967 'cuda]

what`s this about the sportman edition ? haven`t heard about that one -----bob

I found a video on it where they're installing it on a Mustang. I believe it cost us an additional $400 for this upgrade from the EZ-EFI 2.0 system.

 

[360DartGT66]

That was one of the things that we'd considered too. We sent the original ECU back to FAST and had it upgraded to their Sportsman edition and checked. It makes it less likely to be where the problem lies but I still wouldn't rule it out.

:thumblef:

 

[barbee6043]

Well, I made it to the Lincoln swap meet this morning and the weather was great. Even at 4:00 a.m. when I got up, the temp wasn't bad.

I've always joked about the possibility of missing out on a cheap Hemi if I didn't go and lo & behold my dream came true today. I picked up a 426 for just 25 bucks!!

View attachment 1714879011

OK, it's only 1/6th scale, but it's still cool and a lot cheaper than what they usually sell for. It'll have to do until the real one gets done later this year.

Another thing I picked up was a sign for the basement cave. It wasn't a necessity but at 10 bucks I couldn't pass it up.

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Someone was selling a cast iron 440 sixpack intake that had us scratching our heads. I realize it's not uncommon to find them at swap meets but the strange thing about it was the casting date. We knew that Edelbrock had made the first year (1969&1/2) intakes for Chrysler out of aluminum and had made cast iron ones for production in the '70 and '71s. This intake clearly has the casting date 10/9/68 on it. What's the scoop? I couldn't find an explanation online.

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They were asking $800 for it and the carb parts seemed like junk. The front one was almost non-existant and the back one was frozen shut. No linkage, etc, etc... We scoffed at the price but were still mystified by the date on it.

wasn't there a problem with Eddlebrock producing enough to cover ma mopars needs for the 69 1/2 ? but that early cast date makes you have to figure mopar made the prototype in cast iron and before Eddy did their intakes???? interesting!!

 

[1967 'cuda]

:thumblef:

It has been really frustrating. Every time we've watched one of the videos like this, - it appears as though a two year old could install these systems. My son was pretty confident that all of the problems we'd had were going to go away when we upgraded. Instead, we only seemed to have worse luck. I'm still hopeful that a concerted effort will get rid of all the glitches we've had.

 

[1967 'cuda]

wasn't there a problem with Eddlebrock producing enough to cover ma mopars needs for the 69 1/2 ? but that early cast date makes you have to figure mopar made the prototype in cast iron and before Eddy did their intakes???? interesting!!

We were thinking along the same lines. I'd thought I'd be able to find out more info online with a Google search but didn't come up with anything. I did find another intake that had been advertised on eBay a while back that the seller touted as 'super rare' because of the casting date but he didn't seem to know for sure the background on it. Every article I read only mentions aluminum intakes made by Edelbrock being used for 1969.

 

[360DartGT66]

Super rare or not, they still add a significant amount of mass to an already heavy package.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Super rare or not, they still add a significant amount of mass to an already heavy package.

Agreed. Two guys that were with me at the swap meet each own '69 Sixpack SuperBees. They rarely drive their cars so weight wouldn't be as much of a concern as originality or value. They were both curious about the date code though. If they knew (for sure) that it was an extremely rare piece that could have added value to their vehicles, they might have picked it up. - But they were both mystified by it.

 

[ariffle]

nice finds John!

 

[1967 'cuda]

After having been offered advice from Joe on the FAST efi setup I decided to start from scratch and make certain everything was set correctly on our 383. I wanted to be sure that I knew exactly where everything was set before making any new adjustments.

I started out by verifying TDC and rechecked the phase on the rotor. - Even if we were to go without it later, at least I'd be satisfied that I'd had it set correctly according to FAST's tech.

The obvious things that should never be taken for granted such as firing order, distributor play, good grounds, fuel pressure, etc... came next. So far everything was spot on accurate. No carbon tracking in the distributor cap, proper battery voltage, - I couldn't find anything wrong.

The car was difficult to fire and it had a tendency to pop back through the throttle body. In the back of my head a little voice kept telling me it sure seems like a timing issue. - But that voice has been telling me that for quite awhile. I'd always assumed that the FAST ECU was screwing with it and I could never be sure where the heck it was at when things were being controlled by a temperamental computer.

When we'd sent the original (non-Sportsman edition) ECU back to FAST we were pretty sure there was a problem with it. Surely the new one would have cured any problem we had. We had a new MSD Digital6+ control box too and it shouldn't be the root cause of issues now. Man, I really was banging my head against the wall.

Then it occurred to me that when we got the new ECU back from FAST we also decided to make other changes to the motor. - We'd added a set of tti headers and the aluminum Edelbrock heads with new adjustable chromoly rocker arms from COMP Cams along with matching lifters & pushrods. The headers were unlikely to have had an adverse affect on timing but incorrect valve lash could be a factor.

The decision to install the heads was spur of the moment. We'd discovered that the flow numbers weren't good enough for the horsepower goals we had for the proposer 512 build but knew they'd be a decent improvement over the stock heads that were on the Roadrunner. I'm used to slapping the stock Mopar rocker shafts on and not worrying about adjusting lash. My last experience setting lash was on a small block Chevy almost 30 years ago.

I have read several different ways to adjust lash and I've talked to a number of guys that disagree on what the best procedure is. Nonetheless, I knew I had to re-check the setting I had.

Given the behavior of the engine I felt it likely that the arms had too much of a load on them. My guess was that the valves were opening a little too early and causing the backfire.

Neither the heads nor the block had been shaved. We had gone with stock length pushrods. I figured it would all bolt up easy. We checked for proper alignment of the rockers to the valves. It all looked good. The only thing that seemed odd to me was that we weren't able to back off the adjusters on the rocker arms far enough to get excessive play. Like a dummy, I figured that was normal.

We haven't bent or broken any parts but I'm afraid that we've had the valves opening early. With the lack of sufficient starting clearance when adjusting the valves, (I had NO up & down movement on the pushrods) I made my adjustment by tightening further until I was able to feel less ease of rotation. Because we're running a hydraulic cam I'm thinking I'd forced just enough oil out of the lifters when I bolted the rocker shafts down to allow the pushrods to spin but already had too much load on them.

After removing the plugs, plug wires, and valve covers I decided to take off the cooling fan too. - That way I could rotate the motor without having to crawl underneath the car and I could watch my dial indicator to make certain the cam lobes were precisely where I wanted them before making any new adjustments.

I may not have it done yet, but I have confirmed that the valves were adjusted too tight. Now I've got to try to figure out how to solve this. Even with the adjusters backed out all the way, there's too much of a load. I'm thinking about shimming the shafts. I'll have to determine how much I need first. If this doesn't work I'll probably install the stock rocker arms/pushrods.

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[360DartGT66]

I hope that does it!

 

[1967 'cuda]

I hope that does it!

Gosh, I'd sure like to think that this will solve ALL of the problems but I still may be calling Joe to bail us out. Obviously the heads weren't the problem when we had trouble with this system initially because we were still running the stock heads then.

I guess I should never underestimate my ability to screw stuff up.

The only thing that I am not planning on verifying mechanically (right now) is the synchronization of the camshaft with the crank. I had always thought this 383 should have been producing more power back when it was still running a Holley. I really don't feel like tearing it down further to degree the cam. I'm hoping the builder down in Missouri got it right.

 

[360DartGT66]

Had to check the map. Neighbouring state, Missouri. Close enough to go down and bark at him if need be.

 

[69_340_GTS]

Your push rods are too long. Normally you need shorter ones if you install adjustable rocker arms.

 

[famous bob]

Your push rods are too long. Normally you need shorter ones if you install adjustable rocker arms.

was going to ask about your pushrod length also . :coffee2: