i made quite a bit of progress on the car today. little odds and ends. it took most of the afternoon. but i futzed with the idle setting, and the vacuum setting, and i pulled the door buzzer (that thing was SOOOO obnoxious). in the process of pulling that, i accidentally unplugged my mix-meter (the moving lights on the far left side) and my tachometer. so that was a huge wiring mess trying to figure out how to put that back together. i think we're good now. i'm not sure it's exactly how he had it, but hey, it's functional. i also made quite a few breakthroughs with the stereo, so the mix is almost where i want it now (about freaking time). i'm still gonna replace the stereo unit and those door speakers, though. other little bits. nothing major. but it feels really really good to be making some progress.
it seems to be running a little more rich now, after all the fiddling around, which will hurt my fuel economy somewhat, but it's still in the happy yellow area anyway, which i figure will save on spark plugs and crud like that. it used to be more orangy, which always bothered me, but now that i'm kinda used to it, i almost want it back. that's okay. it's where it's "supposed" to be now. no sense arguing with that.

the whole problem from friday was so stupid i could have kicked myself. okay... the fuel distributor is on the air box, where the filter is. it measures how much fuel to distribute through a flap in the intake that measures how much air is being taken in. so, the air goes in box, through filter, pushes flap, then through the intake 'pipe' (since i don't know the correct terminology), then the throttle body, to the manifold, to the engine, then exhaust. so, the rubber boot that connects the intake pipe to the throttle body had somehow slipped off of the intake pipe, from vibration. this excess vibration was caused by the vacuum set screw, which had vibrated out of it's threading completely, and was just sitting on the manifold. a little bit of teflon tape on the set screw, putting the intake stuff back together, and we were back in business. i think there's still a small vacuum leak somewhere, but i can't tell where it's coming from. i pushed up the idle a bit (it was completely backed off) and then shut the vacuum a little more. using the two in conjunction i managed to reach a semi-happy idle.

with the idle completely backed out:
when the vacuum is wide open, it idles at like 1200 rpm, very very smooth, a little on the rich side. as i close the vacuum, the idle will drop. it stays smooth down to maybe 1050 rpm. anything below that causes a sort of stutter. basically, it starts to bog down (to maybe 800 rpm), the fuel unit senses the problem, and richens the mix, so that it jumps back up to about 1250 rpm. it just winds up feathering up and down like that. sometimes it'll keep running, sometimes it can't pull out of the drop, and stalls.

with the idle pushed about 1/16":
i put the vacuum past the previous 'stall point' to find the new 'stall point'. turn back half a turn or so to find the 'smooth point'. the P.O. said that it's supposed to fluctuate a little (but i have a hard time believing it's SUPPOSED to stall out completely from the fluctuations.)
after the engine has revved for awhile, it will idle happily at about 950 rpm or so (it sounds so sweet with that 290 degree cam in there). as it continues to idle, it will begin to bog down, and fluctuate. it just seems to get progressively worse until a certain point. it drops to about 600 rpm, then revs to 1100 or so, and fluctuates there. that's the maximum fluctuation. it varies from that, but it won't stall out anymore, and it seems to be about as happy as it's going to be right there. i just hope nothing vibrates out of position again. which, i'm sure it will. but for right now it's as good as i can get it. it's still running richer than what he had it. but eh. i'm not so sure i like the way he had it. he said he had it tweaked and all, but i think it's just one of those finnicky cars what will need constant attention as conditions change. all the final adjustments were made on a warm engine (after about ten moderately fast miles) and a fresh tank of 92 octane from speedway. i really should go to mobil and get the 94 octane, but it's so far out of my way. speedway's good enough. but admiral is the devil. you won't ever see me filling my car up there anymore. i just don't trust them.

and i also did the math on my gear ratio situation. if i take the "guage" values (speed/mileage) they will be close. but the "actual" values are going to be about 106.67% of the "guage" values. so, for every thousand miles i put on the odometer, figure on an extra 67 actual miles. whoopty frick. but it has a moderate impact on calculating mileage ... and speed. with a pretty heavy foot all the way through senior banquet and senior skip day, i got 21.5 'actual' mpg. which isn't terrible. it's definitely not the 30 he promised me, but it's not bad. plus i figure, running 110 octane, that number would go up a few more miles. not that i'm gonna run race fuel every day. but sometimes you gots to splurge on your baby. i also don't think that it's the 200 horses he promised me either. i doubt he ever had it dyno'd. i'm curious to see what it would dyno at, so i'll be on the prowl for a place with a chassis dynamometer. i'm thinking, with all the exhaust work and intake work and cams and compression and everything, a generous figure is 150 hp. which would translate into at least 120 whp, which still isn't bad. especially not for a car that light. but it isn't taking me very long to stuff it full of heavy "junk". i need to check the spare, and throw in the cross-iron and jack. some other time. i'm frickin' tired right now. and i'm totally flunking calculus.

oh. speed. yes speed. here's the conversion table i made:

"guage"..............."actual"
25...................... 26.7 mph
35 ..................... 37.3 mph
45 ..................... 48.0 mph
55 ..................... 58.7 mph
70 ..................... 74.7 mph
94 ..................... 100.0 mph
115 (buried)......... 122.7 + mph

i haven't buried it yet. but i've hit 100 'actual'. and i've been shifting at 6500 rpm. there's no reason for me to go beyond that, because the next gear will pick up at at least 4000 rpm anyway, so it's no big deal.

i have to work on going into second still. and he said something about using the e-brake to maintain traction during drag racing. it beats me. i can't wait to pick up some r-compounds and slap 'em on this bad dog. but i'm thinking brakes should be the first performance upgrade. and maybe a couple strut tower braces. i want to set this up for oversteer drifting. that would be feckin' sweet.

and with that...

bedtime. "all my homies and my bitches say 'whaaayoohhhhh....'"

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