Captain Ledd
04-18-2008, 11:49 PM
does anyone have experience trying to tune these things?
Now I have the firing order right, new throttle cable (moves nice and smooth), and got everything plugged and adjusted.
Adjusted the idle mixture screws out to get about 18 inches of vacuum, turned them back in to just get the vacuum to fall back off and then turned them back out 1/4 turn. Also adjusted the accelerator pump linkage to the lowest slot on the connector arm thingy so it dumps the least amount of fuel in - only very recently, the below is with it at the 3rd of 4 holes from the bottom.
now for what it's doing:
It has no power, as in it feels like my 4 cylinder has more power (I did get to drive it around the yard today). when you try to throttle up (no load on the engine) it coughs, sputters, backfires (vacuum gage is of course going ballistic), until it's up to speed, and then runs perfect, flawless even, even up into the fairly high RPM's. Under load it's even worse. I stalled out almost every time in first gear in the T18 (4.56 gears and 33's). under load even when it's up to speed it has very little power it seems, and coughs alot.
I have no idea what else to adjust or tune on this thing. it came off a very well running and surprisingly strong 289 and never sat long at all, so I don't think it needs rebuilt. I know the person I got it from too so I know it wasn't manhandled.
The only other thing I can think of is since I know it's been rebuilt, had the HO cam put in it, if it might need premium? I don't think it'd do that though.
I almost thought the intermittent miss that has now cleaned up was a stuck or sticky valve. Most of that has since completely cleaned up except for when gas is being added.
Timing: I have no idea. it seems to run the best where I have it, I have a yellow paint line that doesn't seem to line up with much. there are 3 things that it could line up with: a hole that looks like a pointer in it, a "C" chunk out of the bracket - middleish, this is where is seems to tun sorta best around but not lined up with, and an actual pointer allll the way at the end (everything described is on passenger side of engine, from left to right)
I think that covers it..
Now I have the firing order right, new throttle cable (moves nice and smooth), and got everything plugged and adjusted.
Adjusted the idle mixture screws out to get about 18 inches of vacuum, turned them back in to just get the vacuum to fall back off and then turned them back out 1/4 turn. Also adjusted the accelerator pump linkage to the lowest slot on the connector arm thingy so it dumps the least amount of fuel in - only very recently, the below is with it at the 3rd of 4 holes from the bottom.
now for what it's doing:
It has no power, as in it feels like my 4 cylinder has more power (I did get to drive it around the yard today). when you try to throttle up (no load on the engine) it coughs, sputters, backfires (vacuum gage is of course going ballistic), until it's up to speed, and then runs perfect, flawless even, even up into the fairly high RPM's. Under load it's even worse. I stalled out almost every time in first gear in the T18 (4.56 gears and 33's). under load even when it's up to speed it has very little power it seems, and coughs alot.
I have no idea what else to adjust or tune on this thing. it came off a very well running and surprisingly strong 289 and never sat long at all, so I don't think it needs rebuilt. I know the person I got it from too so I know it wasn't manhandled.
The only other thing I can think of is since I know it's been rebuilt, had the HO cam put in it, if it might need premium? I don't think it'd do that though.
I almost thought the intermittent miss that has now cleaned up was a stuck or sticky valve. Most of that has since completely cleaned up except for when gas is being added.
Timing: I have no idea. it seems to run the best where I have it, I have a yellow paint line that doesn't seem to line up with much. there are 3 things that it could line up with: a hole that looks like a pointer in it, a "C" chunk out of the bracket - middleish, this is where is seems to tun sorta best around but not lined up with, and an actual pointer allll the way at the end (everything described is on passenger side of engine, from left to right)
I think that covers it..