demetri

These Felpro gaskets do not need re torqueing, or so I have heard.

RacerHog

Might check for pulled threads or bad head bolt in that case. Unless you question the proper installation?

64Imperial

I read through like 80% all these messages in this thread i was wondering is all this vacuum testing and stuff all a part of every engine build? i swapped my 413 to a 440 in my 64 imperial im about to start it for the first time and make my first attempt at timing any vehicle. After reading all this testing and things sounds complicated and im starting to think im going to have a nightmare in front of me. i turned my engine over and primed it with the starter and mechanical oil pump and I felt releived to hear nothing break or anything its a sign my torque converter lined up and everything properly this is my first build that was the scariest part so far now after reading all these extra things to get it to run right is intimidating! I wouldn't know where to start, tools to use or where to hook it.

demetri

There is no reason to suspect bad threads or head bolts. It was a mechanic error. Several of the head bolts, especially those close to the failed area of the gasket, were not tight. I torqued them down BEFORE I removed them. Two of them were less than 40 ft-lbs. All tightened up nice when I torqued the head back.


On top of that, he cheated me on the head work.


Anyway, that's life, the car is still fun, and will be more fun soon.


I also just noticed that the bracket that holds the sway bar on the control arm broke off. The way I jacked the car helped, but this must have been working its way out. I need to find a place to weld this back on. Any ideas what type of shop would do that?

demetri

Part of my problem was I was trying to take short cuts. Also, I was not sure about the timing due to doubts on the harmonic balancer settings. Another problem I had was the crazy AFB carburetor that comes from the factory super lean. Even the metering rod transition to enrichment was poorly done, giving me this crazy part load knock. Which, still for some unknown reason, did not happen when I first assembled the engine.


Anyway, the good news for you should be the following. I had done some testing of the car when the timing was no longer over-advance, and I had measured acceleration of 80-100 in about 4.5 seconds, may be less (4000-5000 on 2nd gear). And the car was not fully tuned yet. That is comparable to a 300 hp V8 mustang road test that I had recently checked, I think of 2008 or 2010 model, which had a 14 second 1/4 mile. My car will not, of course, do a 14 second 1/4 mile, because low speed acceleration is limited by the weight and gearing. But the high speed acceleration would be comparable to a 14 second car.


If you selected these huge cams that you were talking about, however, you may have different types of problems.

64Imperial

okay i see what you mean, my build everything is new and using a street demon 750 carb, and the 440 source non vacuum dizzy. the 440 whiplash cam supposed to not really have any problems lower end like normal big cams from what i read due to how they are made to use with low compression and stock heads so idk guess ill know in due time and i beleive my gears are low 4.23s if i remember right? and the stock stall is 2200 idk what yours is my trans and converter is different I literally cant buy, have one made or have them use mine to make a new converter zero options for me so if mine goes im looking at changing parts on my tranny to accept the newer style converters. the spline counts were diff mines 24 i think newer ones are 27?

demetri

I think your converter is only 10% higher stall. The 2.2 is the input to output speed ratio at stall, which is not the same as 2200 rpm stall. Mine is 2.0:1, and when loaded with the brakes on, I get only about 1500 rpm. But rememer, the converter is no solution for going fast. It is A solution for the dragstrip, when you are only focused on one performance parameter (launch) at the expense of all others. A high stall converter only wastes energy and power.


Best way to avoid my problems is find a shop with a chassis dyno and O2 sensor. They may be able to tune both carb and timing in a few hours. I do not know if there was such a shop in my area, but I wanted to go on a low budget and play with it myself. But I under estimated the diffuculty, surprised by how lean that carburetor was, and had a lot of unexpected failures involving fuel delivery, ignition, strange spark knock that did not follow typical behavior as I understood it (may be some bad gas along the way), poor assembly by the mechanic, etc etc. Also, the project was not a huge priority, I did not do that many miles with it.

64Imperial

yeah i was only looking fro a higher stall for larger cams sake but hughes told me that that cam will work fine with my stock converter cause of how they designed it for pretty much stock to very mild 440s, im not racing this its just here to look good and when i pull up sound even better for car shows and cruising around in to get attention.

demetri

Finally, I got everything assembled, and did the first test drive. Low speeds for now. Here is what I learnt.


Remember I was complaining about the spark knock that would not go away, even though I had substantially retarded the timing? Remember when I got it to go away at part load by using stiffer springs on the AFB metering rods, and getting the enrichment to start at 7 inches? Remember when I replaced the coil and the part load knock came back?


It looks like all this was caused by the communication of cylinders 3 and 5. Part of the reason the knock would go away is that leaking coolant would short the spark plug. The new coil may have brought cylinder 5 back temporarily.


Anyway, the new head gasket seems to have eliminated all these. I now have the timing at 500 or 600 rpm at around 25, and probably around 40 at 3000 (if you believe the harmonic balancer). The idle vacuum is now just under 15. I have plenty of part load vacuum, and I can go steep hills still holding 10 inches and accelerating, or 15 inches on shallow hills. Low end torque returned, I can almost spin the tires (remember, 5200 lbs, 2.94, SureGrip, and 30 inch, 235 tires, so spinning tires is a bit deal). No misfire. I need high speeds to test the high rpm performance, but I am not ready for that yet.


But that has been the problem all along. Also, I think that drilling the jets out on the AFB helped in enriching the car and getting closer to optimum A/F ratio. May be I can file the metering rods some more.


It has been a rough ride with this project.

demetri

More problems. First, the good news.


I replaced the stock mechanical pump with a high volume one from ebay (installing that was a bit of a headache, the bolt hole spacing was a bit too tight). I think this along with the electric pumps in the back keeps fuel pressure good at full throttle and high rpm.


But I still have a big miss at WOT and high rpm. Low speed and low vacuum acceleration seems fine, the engine is smooth and strong. But in the 4000 rpm range, it has serious interruptions. I may have had this problem before I replaced the head gasket, but the car was running smooth back on a long drive in May where I had pushed it in that range ... Remember, new coil, points, condenser. The only part not new is the ballast resistor, but I think that this either works or not, there is nothing in between. Plug wires are new, no visible arcing on idle.

Iowan

I would look at valve springs, hope you didn't use the stock springs, the seat presser might be to low, installed height to high. If you were to keep running it you could drop a valve, I suspect your floating the valves.

Been there done that on a mild build.

demetri

No, new valve springs installed (at least that's what the mechanic had told me, but I did see the double valve springs when I pulled the left head, and it was a tired valve spring that probably killed the stock cam). I have revved this engine to 5K in the past with no issues, and strong pull. And the miss really starts at 3500-4000 and continues on and off as I revved it to 4500.

RacerHog

Point Bounce?????

demetri

Not at 4000 and 4500 rpms ... I had this same set of points to 5000 a few 100 miles earlier.

Coronet 500

I would be looking at the pump, someone here had a problem with a cheap pump arm. if it is failing, even with the electric, it can be a restriction.

https://moparforums.com/forums/f81/wtf-19522/

demetri

I have a pressure gage in the dash, monitoring the fuel pressure. In this last drive, the pressure was much better than before. I held more then 3 or 4 psi much of the time, and still had poor running.


When I had arrived home from my last drive, I had a high and not so smooth idle. Next day I discovered that the PCV valve hose had almost come off the carb port. Will test again, but I doubt that this vacuum leak will affect much at WOT, since there is little vacuum then. But it is worth trying again.

demetri

Some more updates. I chased a few different possibilities, and none worked. One of them is a small coolant leak, and I suspected that a coolant hose may have a tiny leak wetting my ignition ... That was not it.


On the latest test, it looks like the hesitation seems to be fading somewhat above 4000 rpm. It starts at 3500, and seems to be fading above 4000 or 4200.


Could it be a carburetor issue? May be spray carb cleaner through the jets? Its crazy ...

Iowan

Did you verify the harmonic balancer as being good or replace with a new one?
If not there is NO way to accurately tune your motor, if you don.t take care of all the issues your just guessing resulting in misdiagnoses of problems.

demetri

I actually had the opportunity to do that when I had the left head off, but my own head was too full at the time


But as you saw in the series of posts, the spark knock issue was created by the bad head gasket, and is no more. I now have the timing set to a point where I have descent vacuum and reasonable throttle response, without been overly advanced (if I retard by more than 5 degrees I will see idle dropping again). I had the engine running without hesitations in the past with timing far more advanced and retarded than this condition. So, I do not think that timing is now driving the hesitation, and am fairly sure that the timing is close to optimum.


The problem is either electrical (likely something simple), or something crazy with the carburetor.


On the electrical side ... is it possible that I have a ballast resistor issue? I have heard that these either stop conducting or work fine. Is it possible that the ballast does not have enough resistance any more? This is the only part I did not replace in the ignition since I had the over-charging problem.


Thanks

demetri

I did more testing, with the new higher volume mechanical fuel pump up front. Even though the speed ranges vary some with temperature and humidity, it allears that the hesitations also dissapear in the 4500-5000 rpm range. The engine seems strong in that range, even when tested on 2nd gear. So, my problem must be lean mixture. That AFB cannot provide the fuel flow.


I think the next step will be to clean up that Q-jet and try. I think I am taking a step back in cfm (750 from 800) but cannot be halped.


Other than that the engine seems OK. Smooth, no pinging (with a mixture of 89 and 93 octane), and sufficient vacuum, good throttle response, etc.


I have heard that running the engine like that at WOT though may hurt exhaust valves or head gaskets, so I should probably quit testing it as is. Nothing more to learn.

Iowan

Your just guessing!

RacerHog

That's all you got.....


Hahahahahahahahahahahahhahaha....... Hohohohohohohohohohohoohhohohohoho........lolololo lololololololo

Iowan

Told him why before, just getting old. Like to help but'.......

RacerHog

demetri

Of course I am guessing (educated guess though). It would have been great if I had a tuning shop with chassis dyno and wide range O2 sensor ... but I don't. One of the reasons for posting here is to get help in refining the guesses. I was hoping to get help from some of these old timers that could tune a 440 with their seat of the pants. For example, it would have been great if someody had suggested that my earlier spark knock could have been due to a faulty head gasket, or that an Enderblock AFB is just not enough for a mildldy modified 440. But unfortuantely, these ype of people are typically too old to be computer literate.


The other side of the coin is that the furum is learning from my experience. And that is the other reason we are posting these things.


And remember. It is the trip, not the destination. Or at least the trip is big part of the joy. Test driving the car is a lot of fun. Even when not running right, it still is very fast, and very nice country road cruiser.

RacerHog

Good Times..... I think we talked about, Dual carbs awhile back on the lean fuel issue. Also thought we talked about a Holley at some point also?
Anyhow... Keep chipping at it.. You just never know whats off base?

Iowan

YOU CAN'T REFINE THE GUESS IF YOU DO NOT NO WHAT THE TIMING IS!

Coronet 500

Demetri, you are WAY out of line.

If you look back to post #84 and up, myself and Iowan were trying to advise and help but you dismissed us and said you know what the problem is. Now if you think you can tune this thing by ear and are not going to follow proper diagnostic techniques with the proper tools good luck and GOOD DAY ********!

demetri

I think that the timing is a closed issue now. I assume you followed the threads.


I was under the wrong impression, back from post 84 and earlier, that a 10.5 : 1 compression engine will spark knock before it reaches or about as it reaches optimum timing (an old timer tuner off this forum had agreed with that too). It turned out that this assumption was wring. But this is now a closed chapter. The timing, even if not at the perfect sweet spot, its close.


The issue now has to be the mixture. As you very well know, even if I was a bit off on timing, I would still not have misfire.


Racehog had suggested dual carbs or holley (after we started having strong indications that the AFB is not going to cut it) but there are cost and fuel economy issues with these suggestions.


So, here is what the forum should have learnt from my adventure:


1. A big cam'd 440, even with ~10.25 compression ratio and regular pump gas may not knock, even if the timing is advanced well above optimum (may be we can thank the excellent 906 heads for that).
2. Ederblock AFB 750 and 800 cfm will not provide enough fuel for a 440 even when maxed out on the jets, and will always be lean.
3. A bad head gasket can cause spark knock, even at very retarded timing settings.
4. Mechanics should not be trusted because they have no honesty and pride, and all the dirty work should be done by me as much as possible.


Had I known these three issues, I would have been way ahead on this one. May be you all knew about these and told me so ... Whatever.


I think I did know 4 but I thought this mechanic was different.

Iowan

If you took your car to a shop with a chassis dyno, as soon as it was diagnosed that your damper was bad your car would be off the dyno until it was repaired. I know this because a couple of friends of mine have both a chassis and a engine dyno in there shop. I use there equipment to baceline my stuff.
455hp 289 Ford, 525hp 440 Mopar, 650hp 440 Mopar not one had a bad damper on them!


I say you're blindly chasing your tail,
repair the damper, get a very good timing light, you need 37 to 39 total by 2500 rpm, that is a fast curve in the distributor, if you have the compression you say you do you probably need an additive in the fuel like Race-gas, my 525 hp 440 is 9.5 to 1 and that's all I would want on pump gas with iron heads.
My preference is Holley carbs, very easy to work on and tune, there are books on tuning Holleys, aftermarket parts etc. a 750 to 800 cfm double pumper will work very well for you. If you stay with the carb you have try the race-gas additive with regular unleaded, the Edelbrock carbs do not work well with alcohol in the fuel.

I can tell you what works for me, you have been telling us what does not work for you, stay on your path or fix a few things, I could care less.