So, I still need to do a full writeup on the conversion, as well as sort and upload the pics, but in the meantime, The car has been running (mostly) OK.
Last week was a big test of the car, but before that, I got a new part in:
I managed to score a pretty good deal on another grille for the car. It came from back east, so all the steel fittings need replacing, and overall, the whole grille needs refurbishing, but it's straight. The new grille didn't come with an emblem, so I stole the one off the grill that met a deer at some speed.
With the new grill fitted, It was time for a road trip to LA.
The view coming down I-15 into Victorville on a Thursday night:
Then, I was up early Friday morning, and made my way over to Irwindale Speedway, for the start of the Roadkill Zip-Tie Drags cruise:
NotLaw;n3545061 said:
Unfortunately, it was at Irwindale, that I once again encountered symptoms of a problem that has turned out to be serious.
I had noticed while driving from my hotel to Irwindale, that the car did not seem to be running right. I was down on power, and having to ride the clutch much more than usual to get away from stops.
This had happened twice before, not long after I had the EFI installed, and it turned out at that time that for some reason I was never able to adequately explain, the ignition timing synchronization was walking.
The first time the sync was off from where I set it, I pulled the distributor, and noticed signs that the gear on the TFI dizzy was showing some wear. Since the gear only had 200 miles on it, I was concerned, and replaced it with a composite gear that I ordered from Summit (this was the week after Christmas.
Not long after I had the car back in cedar, it was misbehaving again, and the timing was off again. A simple re-sync of the dizzy fixed it.
with the issue happening a third time though, I was starting to get seriously concerned. I resynced the dizzy
again at Irwindale, (the EFI had about 3200 miles on it at this time BTW) but, I also noticed that I was approaching the limit of just how far I could turn the distributor, before the body was going to start hitting fuel rails.
At the time, I was concerned, but not enough to abandon the trip quite yet. However, charging issues with the alternator, an impending blizzard at home, and my friend's car having mechanical issues that meant he was not going to make it to our meetup in Tucson all conspired to make me decide to abandon the trip, and book it back home.
With the snow storm that hit, the car has been off the road till last Friday, when I deemed that it had been long enough that most of the serious sand on the roads had been cleared away, and went for a drive.
It did not go well.
About halfway through the drive, I got on the car
hard, as I was merging onto the interstate, and from that point on, it was running like dog-shit;
no power at all; hills that I could usually climb at 80 without even thinking about it, I had to bury the pedal just to go 65, and it was idling terribly.
Anyways, I was dark at that point, and I didn't have my laptop to lock out the timing and retime it again, so I limped it home.
Yesterday (saturday) I started poking around the engine. I pulled the dizzy (it looked fine) and I looked at the cam gear as best I could (it looked fine too) and then I checked for play in the timing chain by rocking the crank back and forth by hand, and watching the dizzy rotor.
I have just over
10° of play in the crank, before the dizzy rotor starts moving.
*
sigh*
I'm pretty sure that the timing chain is to blame, (though it could be cam gear too)
The chain that's in there is a double roller, but it's not a fancy one, being a $27 Melling unit.
I don't particularly like the stretched timing chain theory, since the chain that's in there
is a double roller, and its less than a year old. I don't think it has more than maybe 10 or 12k miles on it. Hard miles, true, most of them have been at or above 3000 RPM, but I don't think that's outside what a timing chain should be expected to live through.
Anyways, I've got a small oil leak at the back of the intake manifold too, so timing cover and manifold are coming off over the course of the next week, and I'll be tearing things apart until I find a damaged part.
On the bright side, the EFI is working
flawlessly The car starts, idles, and runs great (when the timing is synced)
It's also running very clean apparently, as even after just over 4000 miles, the oil is still translucent and honey colored. (yes, it's synthetic, but still 4K miles is not a small amount)
I also saw 25 mpg once, on the run between Cedar City and Las Vegas (loosing a lot of elevation there might have helped
)