My first muscle car build thread (lots of pics)

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I like it, I think I am going to get lots of comments about how its not mopar paint and not factory color scheme. first person who saw it mentioned that. Oh well i think it looks cool.
 
I finally got underneath and greased everything and adjusted and put the spring on the clutch. It was one of those jobs that fought me every step of the way. anyway I also put my shifter knob on and banged through some imaginary quarter mile passes. I just need to clearence the headers more and it should be ready for the road.
 
First issue was the exhaust was hitting the drive shaft, sort of fixed the issue but it might need more attention. After that was done i drove it around and got on it a bit still wasen't feeling rite. Swapped distrubutors and now its feeling alittle better but we set the timing by ear so I have to check that. Idle needs to be raised, Low rpm driving round like a normal human feels like **** like its missing. raise the rpm the miss clears out. Not sure if its carb or spark related. Clutch after driving a bit needs adjustment pretty bad. Battery doesn't seem to be charging but the alternator is working well enough to run the car. Perhaps this is effecting the way the car is running? I'll try and iron the bugs out more tomorrow.


Did a nice little burnout though, It lays rubber pretty far as it is! With tuning it should be an animal.
 
very frustrating, Started the day out by noticing the ends of my intake manifold are leaking oil. :no:

Set the timing which with this other distributor is advancing properly. It was running a bit better with proper timing. couldn't get it to run any better though. Idle was being weird, i set it once at maybe 700 rpm. then i drove around the block and half way around it was around 1100rpm came back couldnt figure out why it was higher, choke wasn't on. Said IDK WTF and lowered it back down. Drove around the block a couple more times idle was too low now! WTF! This entire time it was also still not running rite, it sounds good but just doesn't have the power it should. If I cover the carb the car will die so no vacuum leaks. Dunno It go to the point where I just had to stop I was getting too frustrated.

Maybe at this point its a carb issue?
 
Spent the past couple of days messing with my oil leak and swapping to a working instrument cluster and a few other little odds and ends. Going to try and get it running better too but I wanted to fix the oil leak and let the rtv dry up good before I ran it.
 
If your idle is wandering, I would think you have some vacuum leaks or possibly timing is wandering...maybe the vacuum diaphragm is sticking?
 
SirDan said:
yeah I am thinking it might be leaking at the pcv. I yanked on the hose today and it didn't seem very tight.
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That could be part of your problem, but it shouldn't cause a wandering idle...if you're running rich, a vacuum leak will idle high, if you're lean or pretty well balanced, it'll usually drop idle. But, with leaky PCV valve grommets, I'd think your idle wouldn't "hunt" like you're describing...I might have to re read a couple sentences.
 
Just curious, is your throttle return spring on snug? Mine popped off a little while back and I didn't notice immediately, but my idle was a couple hundred high and somewhat variable depending on how I let off the pedal...after pulling into the driveway one night after work, I noticed it was close to 900rpm, so I took a quick look and sure enough, the return spring was hanging...after reattach, it dropped back to about 750.
 
Yeah I checked the springs and cable. I was hoping to mess with the engine today but it was not as nice out as i expected. I just screwed around and hooked my tach and reverse light up. And found out my gas gauge still doesn't work. tested the old gauge and it was still in working order. so maybe i have a bad sending unit or I unplugged a wire and it never got plugged back in.
 
What size of tires are you running on those cop wheels? I have a 71 Demon and I have 225 75 15s. They look awful big, but I need to get some coil over shocks on the front and that might raise it up.
Richard
 
blah, My carb had a vacuum leak where it met the intake fixed that all up and the idle was steadyish at least but, It still ran like a bag of ****. started going around the distributor taking a wire off at a time, found a dead cylinder. Figured it was a spark problem, so i swapped wires, cap and rotor with others and i made sure the spark plug was sparking. Still runs like crap. Compression test showed 125psi which might be okay considering the compression ratio (318block+360 heads). I had to stop working on it because rain was coming.

At this point, I am thinking ill check compression on a working cylinder and also swap plugs between the two incase something is wrong with the plug. Then after that ill take a valve cover off and probably find out my camshaft has wiped a lobe. :banghead:

pretty depressed though at this point, time for a beer.
 
Indeed it would be time for a barley pop...if you wiped a lobe though, you should have some rocker noise.

OK, refresh my aging memory as to the symptoms now...or is it still the same?
 
I forgot-have you already verified your timing is correct and the advance isn't sticking? Too much timing will cause it to run like poo even if it doesn't detonate since the engine would be fighting against combustion...and if it's stuck on low advance it wouldn't have power for ****.

Or maybe the pickup is getting flaky?

Check for more vacuum leaks when you get a chance too...
 
Cams good, I checked it. I also saw some black marks by where the intake runner meets the head. I sprayed some carb cleaner on there and the idle went up. I think I have a bad intake gasket. Better than a bad cam I guess.
 
SirDan said:
Cams good, I checked it. I also saw some black marks by where the intake runner meets the head. I sprayed some carb cleaner on there and the idle went up. I think I have a bad intake gasket. Better than a bad cam I guess.
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Do what I did before you end up wasting as much money as I did on intake gaskets and get the local machine shop to check it if its warped. I wasted about $100~ on intake gaskets thinking I was just a bone head:banghead:
 
SirDan said:
Cams good, I checked it. I also saw some black marks by where the intake runner meets the head. I sprayed some carb cleaner on there and the idle went up. I think I have a bad intake gasket. Better than a bad cam I guess.
Click to expand...

Always better to have a bad intake gasket...unless you were looking for a reason to change the cam out ;)

DarTT may be correct though and I can't recall if you're using the same intake you were before.

Stupid question: All the bolts are torqued down to spec right? I know SB Fords have issues with the intake gaskets settling and the bolts effectively loosen up...causes issues very similar to yours.
 
Oh my god, what a rough 2 days its been. Yesterday i pulled the intake off, what happened was the kit came with 318 intake gaskets 340/360 ports are slightly larger. I was under the impression that they just made all the gaskets in 340/360 size. It was a very slight missmatch that somehow I didn't notice when installing.

Put the new gasket on and got everything back together and it still ran like a sack of ****. I closed the hood and consumed a large amount of alcohol that night.

Today I woke up Checked real good for vacuum leaks and couldn't find any. Hammer was swapping intakes on his truck so I borrowed his carb for a few minutes which made no change. Then I started going around the cap pulling wires and it seemed like i had a cylinder or two not doing anything. Then my dad bought me a cap, rotor, sparkplugs and wires. Put those on and it seemed better but the idle was surging. I took it out in the street and laid rubber through first gear. The misfire was finally gone. It still doesn't run perfect I think there is a carb issue of some sort. Idle surges and the screws are way out.

I drove to the gas station and drove around a bit, wen't through all the gears on the trans finally. 4th gear has a nice whine to it but, the rest seem fine. So I guess the bearings and stuff are in decent shape just 4th gear is wore out. I guess it will be fine since 4th is only for cruising at high speed.

Anyway I'm pretty happy, Just gotta iron out this idle issue and then I can start tuning the carb and maybe modify the distributor so I can run more initial timing. I can't wait to drive this thing everywhere!
 
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