Colin visits airkooledchris (and freezes his arse off)
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 10:53 am
[albumimg]2652[/albumimg]
We started at 9, got some fuel and sat down for a hey-how-ya-doin and an intro into how the day was going to progress....
Colin reminded me that its just as important to know WHY your doing what your doing as it is that your following directions blindly (ok, moreso) so we had to go over the ABC's first on valve adjustments, dwell, and timing.
Time to head out to the van and get started. Set the hydraulic lifters properly, where we found 2.5 turns on #2 and #3 exhaust valves, which is likely more about my own mistake in setting them last time around than their changing that much, but we'll know more when/if I replicate those findings (hopefully lack thereof).
Time to fire up the motor. Gasps can be heard from Colin as he ponders what in the H are those sounds? Lots of nonspecific sounds. We cover what some of them may or may not be and move on, for now.
Set dwell, schooled on filing points (you don't need to buy new ones every 3 months?) got our magic number and moved on to timing.
Got the timing set where we wanted it and continued to ponder the noises.
Piston slap? Main bearing? maaaaybe that alternator is making some of those sounds? move on to the next step and we'll come back to that...
The dreaded compression test is next. This is where the motor starts threatening us with terminal counfoundedness.
#1 66
#2 85
#3 110
#4 120
ooooooooo k? no.
[albumimg]2650[/albumimg]
some oil and another test
#1 90
#2 110
#3 150
#4 160
ok, maybe I got a bit too much oil in #4 for that one. doh.
time for a test drive. see if we can tell what those noises are and how they effect the overall drive ability. left the engine lid cracked a hair to get a better sound in the cabin..
after a bit of cursing my throttle cable tightness and funky 1/2 gate on the shifter (feels normal to me!) we hit the road. my motor proclaimed it's displeasure for being driven gently, where it sounded like absolute ass and was all jerky/etc, but once we started pushing it she came back to life and said 'more please' - it was confirmed this motor is a bit of a masochist.
more driving tests. yes, it really does take my van 20+ seconds to go from 50-60. owch.
turn around and try it the other direction, same result even with different driver.
yikes, that is really slow, though I guess to be expected with the low compression.
now is a good time to mention this is an AVP longblock that ive had since July of 2006 and have only managed to put 16k miles on it thus far. I haven't beaten it, no huge long trips, no hot climate, I run every effin gauge I can and have done everything that I could think of since day one to make it happier. (more on it's individual history some other time, but needless to say im pissed that its probably not going to live very long at all.)
time to check for vacuum leaks. yes, there are some. right where the intake runners go into the head, so new gaskets are on the list to get those tightened up.
another strange anomnoly, pulling the #3 plug from the dist cap seems to make zero difference in the overall sound and power of the engine.
one of the best cylinders compression-wise is seemingly working the least to the overall power of the motor.
another strange anomoly is that the #1, the lowest, has the absolute biggest effect on the motor when pulled.
no wonder it's dying, its apparently doing the lions share of the work, though we have no idea why/how.
the rest of the day is a blur really. we covered the AFM, cursed my too-tight silver wiper screw (now stripped and still in its same position.)
While I had previously setup my LM-1 to get a decent mixture as measure from the tailpipe, the vacuum leaks likely were causing it to run lean as all 4 plugs were powdered sugar in appearance.
I have since swapped out those intake runners with another set I had sitting around, after sanding them smooth and flat and installing new gaskets.
at idle now it holds 15# vacuum very steadily, where previously it was erratic as hell.
between our enrichment and the fixing (hopefully) of the vacuum leaks, it's likely rich as a pig now, but ill wait for testing to see for sure.
the more time that passes the more it seems to have all been some sort of dream, which thankfully ive both learned and been inspired by.
im trying not to let my previous thought process get in the way of all of this new data, but it's a work in progress.
I wanted to get this posted before too much of the day was lumped together into one long memory....
[albumimg]2651[/albumimg]
more happened, updates to follow.....
We started at 9, got some fuel and sat down for a hey-how-ya-doin and an intro into how the day was going to progress....
Colin reminded me that its just as important to know WHY your doing what your doing as it is that your following directions blindly (ok, moreso) so we had to go over the ABC's first on valve adjustments, dwell, and timing.
Time to head out to the van and get started. Set the hydraulic lifters properly, where we found 2.5 turns on #2 and #3 exhaust valves, which is likely more about my own mistake in setting them last time around than their changing that much, but we'll know more when/if I replicate those findings (hopefully lack thereof).
Time to fire up the motor. Gasps can be heard from Colin as he ponders what in the H are those sounds? Lots of nonspecific sounds. We cover what some of them may or may not be and move on, for now.
Set dwell, schooled on filing points (you don't need to buy new ones every 3 months?) got our magic number and moved on to timing.
Got the timing set where we wanted it and continued to ponder the noises.
Piston slap? Main bearing? maaaaybe that alternator is making some of those sounds? move on to the next step and we'll come back to that...
The dreaded compression test is next. This is where the motor starts threatening us with terminal counfoundedness.
#1 66
#2 85
#3 110
#4 120
ooooooooo k? no.
[albumimg]2650[/albumimg]
some oil and another test
#1 90
#2 110
#3 150
#4 160
ok, maybe I got a bit too much oil in #4 for that one. doh.
time for a test drive. see if we can tell what those noises are and how they effect the overall drive ability. left the engine lid cracked a hair to get a better sound in the cabin..
after a bit of cursing my throttle cable tightness and funky 1/2 gate on the shifter (feels normal to me!) we hit the road. my motor proclaimed it's displeasure for being driven gently, where it sounded like absolute ass and was all jerky/etc, but once we started pushing it she came back to life and said 'more please' - it was confirmed this motor is a bit of a masochist.
more driving tests. yes, it really does take my van 20+ seconds to go from 50-60. owch.
turn around and try it the other direction, same result even with different driver.
yikes, that is really slow, though I guess to be expected with the low compression.
now is a good time to mention this is an AVP longblock that ive had since July of 2006 and have only managed to put 16k miles on it thus far. I haven't beaten it, no huge long trips, no hot climate, I run every effin gauge I can and have done everything that I could think of since day one to make it happier. (more on it's individual history some other time, but needless to say im pissed that its probably not going to live very long at all.)
time to check for vacuum leaks. yes, there are some. right where the intake runners go into the head, so new gaskets are on the list to get those tightened up.
another strange anomnoly, pulling the #3 plug from the dist cap seems to make zero difference in the overall sound and power of the engine.
one of the best cylinders compression-wise is seemingly working the least to the overall power of the motor.
another strange anomoly is that the #1, the lowest, has the absolute biggest effect on the motor when pulled.
no wonder it's dying, its apparently doing the lions share of the work, though we have no idea why/how.
the rest of the day is a blur really. we covered the AFM, cursed my too-tight silver wiper screw (now stripped and still in its same position.)
While I had previously setup my LM-1 to get a decent mixture as measure from the tailpipe, the vacuum leaks likely were causing it to run lean as all 4 plugs were powdered sugar in appearance.
I have since swapped out those intake runners with another set I had sitting around, after sanding them smooth and flat and installing new gaskets.
at idle now it holds 15# vacuum very steadily, where previously it was erratic as hell.
between our enrichment and the fixing (hopefully) of the vacuum leaks, it's likely rich as a pig now, but ill wait for testing to see for sure.
the more time that passes the more it seems to have all been some sort of dream, which thankfully ive both learned and been inspired by.
im trying not to let my previous thought process get in the way of all of this new data, but it's a work in progress.
I wanted to get this posted before too much of the day was lumped together into one long memory....
[albumimg]2651[/albumimg]
more happened, updates to follow.....