1985 V8-S10 Blazer

[Blue_69_malibu]

That 670 Street Avenger is magical.....like Frosty's Hat.

Back in 1993, Dave's 3310 made my first 350 come to life. Literally. Glad I could pay the favor back.....24 years later.

[GMJohnny]

Hey Dave...

If you get to where you are going to goo up that header with copper stuff, I have a whole
jug of it from when I tried to put headers on the Vette, you're welcome to it!

GM

[TireSmoker]

Pulled out the double gaskets on the passenger side, replaced it with a new single gasket, and so far, so good. Fortunately, that's the easy side to do.

Only issue with it now is it wants to idle too fast. 1500 in neutral, 1200 in gear. It's a little annoying, but if close the idle speed screw any more, it has no effect. I wonder if this thing has a vacuum leak somewhere? It's like the 770 on his 383. Weird.

Gwen and I went for a cruise, up to Mentor. Ran down 20 from Painesville to 306, up 306 to Tyler, and Tyler past 615, around to Annabelle's (closed) and saw NOTHING cool on the road. Saturday night 10-10:30pm, great weather for cruising and not a single cool car was seen. Incredible.

I'm gonna try to head to TRP on Wed or 42 on Friday to see what it can do now.

-Dave

[GMJohnny]

Hey Dave....

I'm reading your post and you mentioned the idle being too high. What are the odds that the
throttle cable work you did to get WOT shortened the cable some so it wont let the throttle blades
close to give you a low idle? Just a thought.

GM

[Basement Paul]

I would recheck the way the carb base gasket is sealing against the manifold too. I had one not match up and it was basically wide open under the carb in one spot.

-BP

[TireSmoker]

Hey Dave....

I'm reading your post and you mentioned the idle being too high. What are the odds that the
throttle cable work you did to get WOT shortened the cable some so it wont let the throttle blades
close to give you a low idle? Just a thought.

GM

I fixed the problem, and John was right, the cable was a bit too tight. The other part was getting a permanent power source for the electric choke. Fixed.

Next up is the dome light. It seems so trivial, but with the tinted windows, it's really dark in there, especially at night. It's been an issue since the day I bought it. I'm not showing any power up there with a test light. But I can't find where the wires are going. I can see them go from the dome light over to the driver's side, and presumably down to the floor from there. (they dont go down the a-pillar, already checked) I believe they run back towards the center and should come out near the pedals, but no luck in locating them yet.

Otherwise I've been driving it quite a bit and very happy with it. Can't wait to get a time slip to see what the actual improvement is.

-Dave

[TireSmoker]

Swapped in the ZQ8 front sway bar tonight. Old sway bar was 1.15", new one is 1.31" Easiest item to remove/replace. Took a quick drive down through the curves on Wilson Mills and it seems to have less roll. I had Holley, so I wasn't pushing it too hard. But I'm calling it an improvement.

While it was up on the lift, I noticed that there aren't any leaks anywhere -- slight seepage from the drain plug, maybe, but everything is clean and dry under there after all the miles I've put on the last month!

The tailpipes rattling between the body and rear springs is extremely annoying. That will need to be addressed soon.

-Dave

[TireSmoker]

So, as mentioned in the TRP 9-20-2017 thread, I finally made it back to the dragstrip with the Blazer. Just to re-cap, I ran it down the track in 2016 after swapping out the Torker2 intake a busted Accel distributor for a regular Performer intake and HEI distributior. It ran an embarrassing 15.79 @ 89, finishing in 2nd gear. It was one of the most un-fun vehicles I ever ran down the strip.

So after swapping the 2.73 open rearend --> 3.42 posi, swapping TH350 --> 700R4 and upgrading the 350 with Summit Vortec heads, Lunati cam, Performer RPM Air-Gap, and Tony's old Holley 670 Street Avenger, I managed to run 14.35 @ 96 MPH. It was warm and muggy before the sun went down. Not a bad first effort, but a little disappointing. The original goal was 13s or 100mph, either would suffice.

In my 2nd round elimination, well after the sunset, I went 14.20 @ 93mph after lifting, but still breaking out on my run. This give me a little hope that 13s should be in reach with a little tuning effort. I also haven't touched the carb, and Tony reminded me later that there was still a heavy spring in the secondaries. With the better gearing in the Blazer vs. his Chevelle, I'm going to try a lighter secondary spring for next week.

-Dave

[TireSmoker]

So I guess I never posted a followup to that 1st time racing it. I went out the next week, changing the secondary spring and making some adjustments on the timing (it had too much advance, even though it wasn't pinging), but the results were basically the same. 14.30s @ 95ish. Bummer, it is what it is and I'm not making any major changes for a while.

The good news is that I finally got the exhaust fixed. It was too loud, it squeaked and rattled, had a couple leaks, and was just overall pretty lousy. I made an appointment with Paul Carson and he was able to knock it out this weekend. He basically redid the whole system, installed some flanges near the trans bellhousing which will make it much easier if I ever need to take it apart again, new large-case Dynomax mufflers (p/n 17747) and new tailpipes that exit out the back instead of to the side. WOW, what an improvement. It's nice and quiet inside. Probably erred on the quiet side, but I'm totally fine with that. Paul did some really nice work.

-Dave

[Basement Paul]

Looks real niiiiice. He does do good work, especially for what he charges.

-BP

[TireSmoker]

Small update -- I finally installed the WB02 sensor into the Blazer. It's an Innovate LC-2 with a DB gauge. Combined with vacuum gauge, maybe I can get some improvement out of the carb. A short test-drive on a not fully warmed up engine in record cold temps showed it being pretty rich.

With the snow and cold we're having, it's gonna be several weeks before I get to really take it out.

-Dave

[TireSmoker]

I finally pulled the trigger and am converting to EFI. I've done two Megasquirt installs, but this time around I wanted to try the Holley Sniper setup. It's a self-learning computer (a neural net processor!!) that will bolt right in place of a 4bbl. It's very self-contained.

First step was pulling the old tank. I had every intention of just putting a new sending unit/fuel pump into the existing tank, until I got it out. I don't know if that's undercoating or silicone or what, but I can't even make out where the locking ring is. A new tank was only $75 shipped, and it looks like a decent quality piece.

The factory hard lines are in excellent condition, and I will re-use them. The feed line is 3/8" and the return is 5/16". 1/4" is just a vent, I assume.

More to come..

Factory fuel lines

[wxo]

Hey Dave. How about explaining what a "neural net processor" is and why it's a good thing for this purpose.

[TireSmoker]

Hey Dave. How about explaining what a "neural net processor" is and why it's a good thing for this purpose.

I'll let this guy explain, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgVztdMrX4

(it's just a movie reference)

-Dave

[wxo]

OK, I get it. I'm a little slow catching on to the subtle humor.