[TPR] Asa's progress

Fri Aug 14 06:41:39 PDT 2015

A reading from the book of Holley:-----
Holley carbs are calibrated for sea level operation and an inlet air temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Once you know the correct stock jetting for your particular Holley carb, you can determine whether you live or race at an altitude above sea level. For every 2000 foot increase in altitude, you can reduce the jet size by one size. If you had a carb which has a stock jet size of 80 and you live or race at 2000 feet above sea level, then you would use a #79 Holley jet in the carb. Similarly, a change in the carb's inlet air temperature may require a change in the jet size from the stock calibration. Many racers go a step further by combining all of the weather varibles, temperature, barometric pressure, dewpoint and humidity with the altitude of the track they are racing at to determine the "density altitude". This is a "corrected" altitude above sea level. From there they can determine whether a jet change is necessary to maintain performance or whether to change their "dial in" (if they are bracket drag racers). 
-----
So assuming you don't care if you run lean at sea level, your optimal jet size for 6000 ft is likely 3 sizes smaller than optimal at sea level. Now if you don't want to be changing jets then assume you will run rich during the race... 

BTW - the ATIS information at Ely airport would give you all the info you need to calculate density altitude if you wanted to get really picky :-)

 ____________
Steven Donegan
KK6IVC FCC General Class License
SSCC/NORC Life Member, Car #86
www.sscc.us

      From: mark skwarek via TPR <tpr at teampanteraracing.com>
 To: Asa Jay Laughton <asajay at asajay.com>; "tpr at teampanteraracing.com" <tpr at teampanteraracing.com> 
 Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 6:23 AM
 Subject: Re: [TPR] Asa's progress

Glad to hear about your success. You might want to make sure your jets are for the higher altitude in Nevada.
Mark 

     On Friday, August 14, 2015 12:50 AM, Asa Jay Laughton via TPR <tpr at teampanteraracing.com> wrote:

 In my best Gene Wilder voice...

ALIVE!.... ALIVE!.... IT'S ALIVE!!!

I forgot to grab the extra bits I needed on the way home, so after 
dinner it was back to Napa and then to Autozone to get the fittings for 
the fuel and vacuum.  Done deal, I picked up the brass fuel fittings 
from Napa though I had to do a two-piece kludge to get 90* and the size 
I wanted for the fuel line; at Autozone I picked up a large variety pack 
of vacuum fittings and a large variety pack of vacuum plugs.

Once home, I fit the 90* fitting onto the fuel log, an appropriate size 
vacuum fitting on the ported vacuum port and set about final float 
adjustments.

I'm beginning to love this little hand-held vacuum pump.  It came with a 
reservoir so you can either suck fluid without getting it into the pump, 
or push fluid out in a neat manner.  With that in mind, I used the pump 
to get some gas out of Shelley's Jeep (don't tell her that).  I then 
reversed the pump, attached it to the fuel log of the Holley and started 
pumping.

With the sight plugs removed, I could see the floats rising until they 
stopped.  They both stopped short of the sight holes so I raised them 
each about a quarter to half turn.  I'm sure glad I did this on the 
bench and not on the car... those center-hung fuel adjusters for the 
needle and seat can leak like a mother when you loosen the screw to 
adjust the nut.  Good grief!

Once the floats were adjusted I installed the sight plugs and put the 
carb on the engine.  I snugged everything down, routed the fuel lines, 
vacuum lines, attached linkage and the 12V feed to the choke.  After 
installing the air cleaner, I pulled the Halon fire extinguisher out and 
set it on the seat next to me.

For some reason, I kept thinking of the next door neighbor kid when I 
was young.  He was 16 or 17 and had an early 70's Camaro.  One night he 
was messing around with the carb (not that he was the brightest bulb in 
the box) and he got a backfire that lit it on fire... in the garage.... 
under the house.

The house burned completely to the ground.

I figured if mine caught fire I'd throw it into reverse and get it out 
of the garage, then put out the flames.

One pump on the pedal and she fired on the first turn... and idled 
smoothly without intervention.

HoooHAAA!  She's alive and purrs.

I grabbed my drop-light and did an inspection around the carb while 
running to check for leaks.  Finding none after a bit of engine rumbling 
I shut it down and quit for the night.  I have to pick up friends at the 
airport in a little while.  I'll monkey with fine tuning it all tomorrow 
and this weekend.

But right now... that old Holley 3310-2 (modified) from Mark is working 
after about $150 in parts and some of my evening time over the last week 
or two.

Fun times,
Asa  Jay

Asa Jay Laughton - W7TSC, MSgt, USAFR, Retired
&  Shelley Marie
Spokane, WA
******************************
http://www.racingagainstautism.com
http://www.teampanteraracing.com
http://facebook.com/racingagainstautism

On 8/12/2015 9:43 PM, Asa Jay Laughton via TPR wrote:
> Just about finished the carb tonight after running into some necessary 
> changes; all this prior to mounting on the car.
>
> I found the choke fast idle cam was broken and missing the 
> bob-weight.  The one on my current Holley was fine.  I swapped the cam 
> to the rebuilt 3310.  Then I had planned on using my existing choke 
> cover except that it really should have manifold heat (it's not 
> electric), but the passage in the intake is blocked because the heater 
> gizmo didn't fit properly when I rebuilt the engine.  So I thought 
> about using the electric that came with the 3310, except that it was 
> kind of funky with a hand soldered connection on one side; I didn't 
> really trust it.  Then my long-term memory kicked in and I scrounged 
> through some old drawers with Mustang parts.
>
> Aha!  An older Motocraft electric choke cover in great condition.  It 
> might not be calibrated for Holley but it's essentially the same.  So 
> I put that on.  Oh, but did I mention I don't really have an electric 
> supply to the choke?  More on this later.
>
> Then I noticed the linkage wasn't nearly the same.  I thought it was 
> close but didn't worry about it until tonight.  Argh!
>
> I thought about swapping the base plates, but the 3310 has larger 
> bores; that wouldn't work.
>
> I thought about swapping throttle shafts, but the screws in the 
> throttle plates are staked and it's too much work to swap; that 
> wouldn't work.
>
> As it turned out, the funky (I actually think it's GM) lever on the 
> primaries had a nice hole in just about the right spot where the 
> linkage needs to hook up.  And it just so happened that I had a spare 
> ball post that I could mount there.  Nearly perfect!  We'll check the 
> entire throttle throw once we have it mounted on the car.
>
> However, when I went to swap the electric throttle positioner which 
> holds the idle when the car is running and allows the throttle plates 
> to -completely- close when the ignition is switched off, I found the 
> accelerator pump mechanism is larger and in-the-way of mounting the 
> electric positioner.  Argh!
>
> Well, I -could- swap the pump lever from my existing carb but it's got 
> a lighter spring assembly and I'm not sure it would be calibrated 
> correctly (spring-tension-wise).  And I don't -really- need the 
> electric positioner if I dial the idle in correctly, so let's just 
> leave it off
>
> Well, wouldn't you know... that leaves me a 12V source that's only ON 
> when the ignition is ON.  Now where could I possibly use that?  OH!  I 
> know.... how about the electric choke?  Yea, that'll work.
>
> All that's left is to mount the fuel lines, do a final adjust on the 
> floats and hit the road.  But before I get that far I have a couple 
> more parts to get.
>
> The supply line on the car is a 5/16" metal tube, which means I need a 
> 5/16" hose barb fitting to 3/8" NPT fitting to the supply line on the 
> carb.  I can pick one up at Napa tomorrow.  The ported vacuum on my 
> present Holley is the small size, same as the vacuum advance on the 
> distributor.  The ported on this 3310 is about twice the size so I 
> need to get a reducer and some hose.  I'm currently running the dual 
> diaphragm vacuum advance, and no it's not necessarily been dialed in 
> properly.  I really need someone with a distributor machine, or I need 
> to cough up the money for a whizbang electronic distributor with 
> computer controlled advance/retard.  But you know... if I go that far 
> I might as well buy a fuel injection system that can take advantage of 
> that. <sigh>
>
> Everything else seems to be alright.  OH, one last thing.
>
> I sighted in the level on the intake pad, it' has a slight forward 
> tilt; that's expected on the Pantera.  Some time ago I purchased a 
> "wedge-plate" to try and level it up.  When I test fit it tonight and 
> checked level, it had about twice as much tilt to the rear as the 
> manifold did to the front without the wedge.  So I'm not going to put 
> the wedge on.  What I really need is a wedge at about half the angle 
> this one is.
>
> My thoughts are to set final float level on the bench by rigging the 
> base to be at about the same angle as the intake on the car, then 
> priming the fuel bowls manually and adjusting the floats via the sight 
> holes.  Since the needle and seats are at the far ends of the fuel 
> bowls and the floats nearer the meter blocks, I think I need to set 
> the front (primary) to be just a touch high, and the rear to be just a 
> touch low.  That should give me approximately the same amount of fuel 
> in each.  Any thoughts from other experts?
>
> Alright, enough of a tome for tonight, more tomorrow.
> Asa  Jay
>
> Asa Jay Laughton - W7TSC, MSgt, USAFR, Retired
> &  Shelley Marie
> Spokane, WA
> ******************************
> http://www.racingagainstautism.com
> http://www.teampanteraracing.com
> http://facebook.com/racingagainstautism
>

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