TireSmoke.org

Yeah, when the valves are closed, I can still rotate the push rods, on all cylinders. All I do is crank down on the rocker assembly (60 ft lbs) and they're adjusted. I would be more concerned about it, but all the passengers side seems OK, and two of the drivers side seem OK. I used the same pushrods as before, from the same holes, on the same rockers.

I like the ideas though. I did spend a TON of time trying to figure this out already, but was on vacation all last week so didn't get to post about it.

-BP

I would loosen them up the rockers on those two cylinders until you hear the lifter ticking. Something is not right there. All you need is a little opening to idle correctly.

No oil pressure with short manual cranking vs idling so lifters might be pumping down during your test.

There's no way to individually adjust them... it's all or nothing.

-BP

I was thinking the nut bottomed out on the stud but you have the kind with a bar all the way across.

My money is on bent intake valves or some issue with the grind not causing them to seat correctly. I hope I am wrong

So tonight I finally got the intake back off. I learned a lot once I finally got the stupid cloth gaskets unstuck from the heads / intake. I read (after I got this assembly back together) that Edelbrock doesn't recommend using these overly thick gaskets with their intake manifolds, only the valley pan gasket (much thinner).

The way it looked to me, like the end seals I made out of black RTV, weren't sealing at all because the intake gaskets were really thick, causing a huge vacuum leak. Also, apparently I didn't get one of the pushrods on #3 back on correctly and it bent (a LOT) and fell off the lifter. Sooooo, tomorrow night I'm going to clean up the heads and intake gaskets again, replace all the lifters (since I have them anyway), and put a "new" pushrod into the #3 slot. If I have time, I'll RTV it all up again with the thin valley pan gasket, and put it back together.

I believe this will take care of my problems and get me going. More to come.

-BP

It took a little time, but I finally got this all put back together this morning. And I'm happy to report that it actually started right up and seems to run correctly. I let it run in the garage for about 20 minutes and all seemed good. So I took it around the block and it seems to run well there too. I didn't do anything but drive it carefully so at least I know I can go start it and drive it next time when I want.

Now, I need to give it a good cleaning, change the oil again, and put the street tires on it so I can put some miles on it.

It doesn't sound any different under normal conditions, so I can't wait to get on it to see what really happens.

-BP

BACK TOGETHER + RUNNING = SUCCESS!!

Today I filled the tank (first time it's been full in a LONG time), gave it a good washing, and put about 30 miles on it without drama. It never seemed to get over 170 degrees. I got on it a few times and it feels strong, but how fast??? It's tough to say. The only issue I can see is there's a few drops from the tranny pan, and running along at 65-70mph, it seems that there is a small miss periodically. This doesn't make too much sense to me though since it never misses under power or driving slower... I'm not going to worry too much about it right now.

Then I spent a couple hours cleaning my garage up and bringing it back to clean and usable again. I've had it all tore up for a long time doing this project. It looks good again.

-BP

The more I drove it, the more I realized that the secondaries were taking way too long to open, sometimes not until it hit second gear. Soooo, since I already had the lightest spring in the vacuum secondary chamber, I took one of my lighter springs that was a duplicate, and did a little chippity choppity and made it significantly shorter, but still tall enough to act as a return. That seemed to help, but I still wanted them to open sooner.

Since I took the carb all apart to make sure everything was operating smoothly, and I don't think I could do anything better with the secondary spring, I decided to take another look at the distributor. I haven't looked at the distributor guts in a LONG time, so I took it all apart only to find everything was in perfect operating condition, so I reinstalled it.

Tonight I decided to check the timing. Again, something I haven't looked at in years (I don't have to pull it to do intake, heads, etc). My timing marks only go to about 12 deg BTC, and that's right about where I had it set. This is about where I thought it was anyway. SOoooo, I gave another 3 degrees or so of advance (I'm ball parking since there's no marks up there) and that seemed to make a pretty solid difference. No more secondary sag, rubber in second gear every time, strong pull through 2nd. It's tough on 40mph roads in the dark to pull into 3rd gear.

I think I'm about ready to get back to the track pretty soon. I'm thinking my low 13's are starting to look realistic... I'm hoping.

-BP

This weekend I put over 100 miles on the Caddy. I got to visit the new TireSmoke HQ in person and also ride in Smoker's Chevelle. That thing is fast! We even got it a race with a pretty fast motorcycle. Cool.

I really enjoyed racking up the miles.

-BP

It's hard to believe that Dave's getting that much power out of a small block.....b/c it pulls like a very strong, well tuned big block. It's absolutely nuts.

Once everything gets sorted out, I don't think he'll have any trouble cracking high 11s.

For some reason, his front tires have a lot of tread left on them. His back ones.....don't.

The way the motorcycle guy turned around to look at what he was chasing when we turned off, I don't think he could believe he had to try so hard to keep up.

-BP

Basement Paul wrote:This weekend I put over 100 miles on the Caddy. I got to visit the new TireSmoke HQ in person and also ride in Smoker's Chevelle. That thing is fast! We even got it a race with a pretty fast motorcycle. Cool.

I really enjoyed racking up the miles.

-BP

Racking up the miles is fun. I can't wait till I can start doing the same.

Basement Paul wrote:The way the motorcycle guy turned around to look at what he was chasing when we turned off, I don't think he could believe he had to try so hard to keep up.

-BP

We were certainly haulin' the mail. I'm pretty sure we ran 3rd gear to over 5000 rpm, that should be well over 100.. Getting a good run is fun, but even better when one of your good friends is with you!

Now back to your regularly scheduled Cadillac thread.

-Dave

Even more impressive, all of our old cars are currently operational.

None are 100% but all are drive able.

This has nothing to do with your car, but I thought it was an appropriate thread to post it in, since it's a badass looking Cadillac. It was posted on the 24hr Lemons page on Facebook. I just thought it looked pretty awesome.