Yeah, that's why I mentioned my junk all runs good. Who knows what it is over the internet? I'm sure through process of elimination he'll find it.
Percolation? Heat soak? Don't drive during summer??
- Thread starter DentalDart
- Start date
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Yeah, that's why I mentioned my junk all runs good. Who knows what it is over the internet? I'm sure through process of elimination he'll find it.
My car runs awesome, until it dies and won't start back up
, Ill try the gas in a bottle trick. No misses, the timing is great, the carb was adjusted really good (maybe not as good since I tinkered with it a little... my bad) I'll also invest in a new ignition kit. The jegs Hi-rev box any good? Shoot, if it works its probably better than my who knows how old orange box... that and the ballast resistor are the only 2 things besides the wiring harness that haven't been replaced...
Yea aarcuda runs holley carbs as well, i got the avs2 because i got a good deal on it and it had good reviews. I never had any problems with the car until putting everything back together...
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
That the hard part. We're all spit balling but many of us in the same circumstance could figure it out just if we were there in person when it pukes and shuts down. Often just by the WAY it shuts down, but over the internet all that nuance is lost.
@DentalDart is pretty sharp tho, so throw enough stuff at him and he'll work out the solution based on his own path of least resistance LOL.
The first time he posted about it dying at burger King, it sounded exactly like what had happened to me my first week with my dart - so since then I've been convinced that with the headers and cam and that carb it's a losing battle. But dying after 15 mins in the driveway was not my experience and also suggests electronics more than anything.
Before taking the car apart I could drive it anywhere in the city and did. Drove it on the freeway and down the strip on a hot September day and the only problem I had was due to overheating because I hadn't done the radiator yet...
My car runs awesome, until it dies and won't start back up
I'll also invest in a new ignition kit. The jegs Hi-rev box any good? Shoot, if it works its probably better than my who knows how old orange box... that and the ballast resistor are the only 2 things besides the wiring harness that haven't been replaced...
Do you have a spare ignition box? Maybe drive it and take one with you. OR I've done this on Fords with the Duraspark boxes and they are real similar. I carried a bottle of water with me. When I got one that would cut off, I would pour water on it to cool it off and it would restart. Almost every time. Just a thought.
No I don't have a spare ignition box or ballast resistor. I am failing the old mopar owning game by not having some spares of those...
You sure are! Lamer! lol
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Ah, I didn't realize it had headers still back when it ran everywhere.
Could be that when you had that buzzing coil issue something got cooked. I hate throwing parts at a problem, but in this case I might try a cheap parts store ecm (if it still dies, try @JPar's gas squirt first, and if that don't do it, swap your original ecm in. If it fires then, you'll have an answer). Then once you have a better idea, figure out how much you want to spend on igniton. A cheap ecm isn't trustworthy (two is one) but last I looked they were cheap.
If you really want to learn electronics, I might suggest an hei driver conversion as a project since getting good Mopar ecms these days seems difficult at best (but I'm no expert).
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
I like the water idea. Cheaper than a spare box too!
Hard to have to do at freeway speed though.
Maybe he could rig a windshield washer pump to water cool it. Problem solved
But seriously. I like the cheap way. Should rule it in/out quick.
Just don't mix up your water and gas squirt bottles @DentalDart
j par
Well-hung Member
I'm certainly not going to bite on the theory that the car is in the southwest and that's why it's not running good with said carburetor... Like he said it ran absolutely fine before, something has went wrong and I'm sure it's not the carburetor...
When it dies a couple tbsp of gas from little gas bottle.. (this will eliminate a fuel supply issue)..
Have the $6 ballast resistor ready and just plug it in after you try the gas and if it doesn't work you don't have to screw it to the wall just plug in the leads..
It ran just fine on ethanol gas before and now all of a sudden it doesn't for no reason? See why it just doesn't make sense?...
When it dies a couple tbsp of gas from little gas bottle.. (this will eliminate a fuel supply issue)..
Have the $6 ballast resistor ready and just plug it in after you try the gas and if it doesn't work you don't have to screw it to the wall just plug in the leads..
It ran just fine on ethanol gas before and now all of a sudden it doesn't for no reason? See why it just doesn't make sense?...
j par
Well-hung Member
Here let me make some sense of why I think this is utterly ridiculous. So what you're telling me is if you had this car before the invention of EFI for aftermarket you would have never been able to get the car running correct? So back in the seventies and before fuel injection was widely used people couldn't run their cars in the southwest without trouble?...
Remindeds me of when I had a warehouse job about 15 years ago and drove my duster to work in the snow and I had people ask me how I drove that thing in the snow to work because it didn't have front-wheel drive or whatever like modern cars? I said what did you think they did in 1972 not go to work because it was snowing?...
Likely your car running good had absolutely nothing to do with the EFI you put on there but something to do with either another part you change while you were doing that or maybe just a bad ground on the ignition system that was accidentally fixed...
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
You're right, it doesn't make sense. It wasn't part of the original data that it was fine before (I misremembered the header/manifold situation).
I just know I struggled massively with heat issues when I was still in Vegas, so I relate to his situation. I tried literally everything (heat shielded gas lines, Re routes fuel lines, spacers, hear shield under the carb, and even a return fuel filter) and it still had massive problems until the weather turned each year (while my holley running buddy had zero issues all summer long... Drove me nuts!). I share that info to dispel the idea that a heat shield or spacer will help much, because neither did anything for me in the same situation. The thing that made the biggest difference for me was a new clutch and fan, but it wasn't a 100% fix either. The return filter helped some, but fuel would still boil in the lines/filter after shutting down and heat soaked. Hell, I could hardly be under the hood right away after shutting it down. Even in our air conditioned warehouse where I stored it every weekend. I also tweaked timing all over, jetting, rods, springs, fuel pressures, you name it. As soon as the highs dropped to the low 80s it was fine.
But there's more to @DentalDart's story than I remembered, and it points at electronics. The fuel squirt idea is a great suggestion in any case and will certainly rule in or out the notion of vapor lock. But since it was fine before, I doubt vapor lock is the root cause.
I'm sure you're right. You're still a goofus.
j par
Well-hung Member
A return fuel filter? I'm not going to take this any further than this one more question because I don't want to derail and I don't want to seem like I'm arguing..
The only mod or extreme I've heard of for an Edelbrock carburetor is to drill the opposite side or the driver side of where the fuel comes in tap and make a bypass line that comes out... Take a line coming from that through a pressure regulator and run it back to your tank... Ad a high-volume fuel pump and you have a constant Rush of cold fuel circulating through your carburetor that's back pressure regulated and the rest of it circulating back into the tank....
Still he didn't have a heat soak problem before and now he does? I think we're both thinking it's something electrical that's following him, but nothing should be ruled out..
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I blame the shittastic Edelbrock carb. I had two of them, neither would work worth a **** once hot. The fact that I could pop the top off and watch fuel boil (even after it was cool enough to get under the hood) while it was sitting, even with a spacer (phenolic, wood, didn't matter) was a good indication. Highest temp I recorded was 198F with my ir thermometer on the carb body too. So it's not like I had some nuclear engine or something. The carb just plain did not like heat.
My buddy had a 440, holley, same weather and gas and no trouble. Hence my blaming the carb. He also had an Edelbrock, but it was mounted to an international boat anchor motor which never got that hot under the hood, so it ran fine on that motor.
Once the temps were out of the ridiculous summer highs, the problem literally vanished. The bowls would go empty after parking, but the stalling and bucking and stumbling all cleared up.
I always wanted to try a snokled air cleaner to see if cooler air (versus an open element) would help. My guess is that it would, but I always wanted to go efi anyway and on top of that, even when it ran well the bowls would still empty after parking which made for long cranks which causes me headaches with batteries too (batteries also do not like heat). So in the long run, the instant starting and convenience of efi was a great solution (for ME). I have no doubt the heat could have been dealt with better by using a better carb and adding some cool air.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Haven't heard of that with an edel carb. I would have tried it! I added the return line because I had already made up my mind on efi, but I kept telling myself the same thing: this should work! Carbs work, why won't they for me? But yeah, in the end it just didn't work for me.
We agree though, @DentalDart's situation is different. It worked, little was changed, now it doesn't. Probably unrelated to my experiences, but yes ruling it out should still be done just in case something else fuel related is going on.
j par
Well-hung Member
What did the plugs look like?...
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Always depended on the tune up. But final tune never showed awful plugs. Wish I had pics. But they were never bright white nor super dark. It was also decent cylinder to cylinder.
I could list all the changes, from the larger two core alum radiator to the clutch fan (which replaced the direct drive fan), to the heater core bypass and even trying different thermostat temps (including none). When the weather was hot, it just didn't operate correctly.
The only reason I even brought up my issues was because I didn't want to see a lot of effort get spent in vain, because somewhere someone could probably have made my combo work, but the typical suggestions did squat for me. I really think cooler air to the carb would have done a lot. Looking back, I wished I had tried it.
I replaced the coil, wires (2 sets), plugs (2 sets because people say some run better, but they ran the same lol), distributor w/ mech advance, the rotor in the distributor, pretty much everything at some point in the last year.
Yes I have... i have a weird coil... it sparks all the time when I put the ignition on, you can hear it... heres a fun video, does it with both of my coils... only thing we can think is it is because of the tach on my steering wheel.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
I really think this is related. If the tach does it, disconnect the tach. If not, then I bet the ecm has issues.
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