[TPR] Monday August 20 (later)

Tue Aug 21 06:00:44 PDT 2012

All sounds great !! Good job Asa.

Bud "Mr. Burnout"

--- On Mon, 8/20/12, Asa Jay Laughton <asajay at asajay.com> wrote:

From: Asa Jay Laughton <asajay at asajay.com>
Subject: Re: [TPR] Monday August 20 (later)
To: tpr at teampanteraracing.com
Date: Monday, August 20, 2012, 11:02 PM

I think we had a really good day today.  :)

I'm taking vacation from work this week so Shelley, Sam and I can take some time as a family.  We reserved a cabin at a local lake for a couple of days.  It will be nice to get away and just be with family.  That's one of the reasons it was so important for me to get this fired early as opposed to later.

Here is how the day went:
- Pressure tested the cooling system, found the fancy thermostat gasket wasn't going to work, replaced with standard paper gasket and sealing compound.  (that story was in the earlier email below)
- Found oil drips under the car, inspected, found the front bung on the pan was loose (I thought for certain I tightened it before).  Tightened it over one turn, so I hope it's good now, will continue to monitor.
- Primed the oil system with my drill and the shaft from an old distributor.  Read oil pressure on the stock gauge in the car.
- Stuck the dizzy and fired her up.
- Set the idle to about 1,750 or thereabouts and let her warm up to about 196 where the thermostat should open and shut her down.  Allowed to cool a short while.
- Burped the system at the radiator and swirl tank (I have petcock at the top drivers corner of the radiator; makes it easy to burp air out).
- Repeat the running/shutdown/burp scenario about four times over a few hours, making sure the thermostat opens, the radiator is circulating, the fans come on.
- Used some Engine Brite and a scrub brush on the engine compartment (now with the car outside), hosed it off, let it dry and then Armor-All'ed the heck out of it.  Looks nice and clean now.
- Installed the hatch loosely (to prevent accidental entanglement while driving)
- Installed the drivers seat loosely (lap harness kept me firmly in place)
- Took her for a drive, ran her moderately hard between 45 and 80 MPH in third gear, up and down, up and down for a few miles.  Monitored temps and oil pressure, all seem good.
- brought her home hot, parked, shut down... no boil overs.  Wrapped it up for the night.

HOLY CATS!  Does this thing accelerate now, and that's without getting into the secondaries!  Jimminey, do they go even faster once they break in?  I didn't take it above 5,000 RPM, though I got close at one point and it seemed to fade.  I later remembered the Pertronix I have in there has a built-in rev-limiter and I think it's factory set to 5,000.  I hadn't bothered to change it earlier with the stock engine, but now with this magnificent soul powering her, I had better change it to 6,500 or a little less.

About the only thing left to do now is put the deck lid back on.
Time to make reservations.  :)
Asa Jay
Asa Jay Laughton, MSgt, USAFR, Retired
& Shelley Marie
Spokane, WA
******************************     
http://www.racingagainstautism.com
http://www.teampanteraracing.com
http://facebook.com/racingagainstautism
On 8/20/2012 5:25 PM, Asa Jay Laughton wrote: 
Yes, it's ALIVE!

Mad Dawg wrote me earlier asking about that (possibly) leaking thermostat gasket.

I had purchased a brand new reusable gasket from Summit.  It's actually a really cool piece.  It consists of a hard material (kind of like Bakelite) about an eighth inch think with a rubber sealing surface bonded into it on both sides.  The objective is for the rubber to act like an o-ring and seal both the top and the bottom.

I have no doubt this probably works very well for two -very- flat surfaces.  However, in my case, the housing "tube" that connects the top of the thermostat to the swirl tank is the original welded assembly.  It turns out the diameter of the embedded o-ring in this fancy gasket is just inside the flat part of the flange welded to the tube.  Therefore, it doesn't seal well in my application.  I checked it this morning with a pressure tester and sure enough it was weeping coolant.

Soooooo.....  Out it came this morning and was replaced with a standard paper gasket with some Hondabond on both sides.  It now does not leak.

I have a brand new stainless version of this pipe with a nice large sealing area flange on it that I'm sure would work fine.  However, due to other modifications I'm currently using, I can't use that pipe unless I want to cut it down several inches.  I don't really want to do that yet.  I cut down the original pipe for the current configuration which includes a TEFBA filter.  In the future I'll probably mode the cooling system again and will use the new pipe and will then be able to test that fancy gasket again.

Here's a cool note for today: I installed two drain petcocks in the engine, with a hose connection on them, this part from Napa:
http://napaonline.com/Catalog/CatalogItemDetail.aspx?R=WH_6660_0367751284

This was huge help today as it allowed me to drain enough fluid to remove the thermostat housing without getting coolant all over the front of the engine.  I have one of these installed on each side of the engine and in the radiator.  It's very nice being able to attach a hose and route it directly into a container.  Helps save on really messy floors.  :)

The engine is running so rich it's making my eyes water.  All I did was crank the mixture screws to full rich (remember it's an "emissions" carb and has limited travel of a little over 3/4 turn.)  We'll run it this way for just a bit longer and then lean it out.

One bad news part.  The heat riser didn't fit this manifold, so I'm running -without- it.  Which means.... no choke.  <sigh>  I'll have to fix that up some other way maybe.

Asa Jay
Asa Jay Laughton, MSgt, USAFR, Retired
& Shelley Marie
Spokane, WA
******************************     
http://www.racingagainstautism.com
http://www.teampanteraracing.com
http://facebook.com/racingagainstautism
On 8/20/2012 3:59 PM, Mad Dog Antenucci wrote: 

Teaser Alert - Yea, that is what he looks like when he's in the garage doctor. ;-)

From: Charles Engles <cengles at cox.net>
To: 'Asa Jay Laughton' <asajay at asajay.com>; tpr at teampanteraracing.com 
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 3:50 PM
Subject: Re: [TPR] Monday August 20

“IT’S ALIVE!!!”

Dear Asa: I would expect that things are going well in your garage…..      Chuck Engles

From: tpr-bounces at teampanteraracing.com [mailto:tpr-bounces at teampanteraracing.com] On Behalf Of Asa Jay Laughton
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 5:35 PM
To: tpr at teampanteraracing.com
Subject: [TPR] Monday August 20

Asa Jay Laughton, MSgt, USAFR, Retired& Shelley MarieSpokane, WA******************************     http://www.racingagainstautism.comhttp://www.teampanteraracing.comhttp://facebook.com/racingagainstautism

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