im not sure i understand.

if you want to check for power, you would use the volts setting, not the ohms setting. check out the owners manual, its actually pretty good for that meter.

 

My first car was, dare I say it a hyundai. It was a big steaming pile of 1987 crap. Hope my 73 cuda makes up for that. Anyway listening to your story and Im thinking that the carb and intake are a good start. I know of a guy who has made well over 300 horse with plenty a 318 and they have all been pretty long lasting engines. Your going to be doing it a favour by increasing the amount of gas and air intake. It seems like a bit over kill to have dual 3" exaust hooked up on a 2 bbl 318 bigger is better though to an extent. your compression test wont tell you much about the oil rings, their purpose is to scrape the oil off the cylinder walls they dont hold compression. If it smokes when you first sart it and then goes away it could be the guide seals. if it burns blue all the time most likely the oil rings need to be replaced. Happy wrenching.

 

my dad threw away the maual. (my fault, i left it on the kitchen table). so i am trying to learn to use it online.

ok, so ill re-test my fuse/fuse box since i was doing it wrong. so set it to volts, then do i connect each lead to each of the fuse box clamps (the metal pieces that hold the fuse in), or do i ground one lead?

sorry for my ignorance in electrical. thanks

 

ok well i set it to volts and got the blinker power. but i found there was no headlight power. im just going to have to disassemble the dash and have my friend who is good with electrical help me out with everything, so i can stop asking you guys so many noob questions haha. thanks for all the help.

 

You might want to pick up a DC test light, it can help you find ground problems and it tells you if you have power and where it stops. They have a wide range of price the cheapest decent 1 is around $10 on the other end of the spectrum I have a snap on led test light that you just have to probe the wire and touch a piece of metal with your other hand, it cost me $45. The ones with a wire and alligator clip work great for figuring out if you have ground issues just clip to a good ground and then touch the wire that supplies the path back to the battery( the - ground wire) if the device you are testing comes on its on the ground side of the circuit.you can also supply power to a circuit by clipping on to your battery and then probe the + that is supposed to supply power to whatever it is your testing, if the device comes on its on the + side( be carefull doing this though you can melt things fairly easily with DC power) make sure you dont have any rings on or conductive jewelry it can burn your skin if the power goes through it. Your multi meter is a great tool and can be used in many different ways. one of the most usefull things is to check continuity. If you set it to ohms touch 1 end of a wire with the black probe and the other end of a wire with the red probe, if you have it set to audible mode it will beep and read 0 resistance or close to it if the wire is not cut(has continuity). Also you can check if a wire has been shorted if you touch the black probe to a ground and the red to the + wire on whatever it is you want to test in this case you should read no continuity. Make sure when doing ohms tests to have the battery disconnected.

 

thanks. my dad just found one of those little test lights after he read this. ill get onto that.

my dads friend came over last night and gave me a sears engine analyzer from like 1975.


i hooked it up, and it says my idle is around 900-1000, my volts are at 13, and the other stuff i don't really know much about. it tests RPM's, dwell, volts, low volts, points, and amps. anything i should know about what this thing can tell me? im not even sure what dwellis haha.

 

iwas just researching symptoms of off timing, and it sound like my car. hard starting, bad fuel economy, stalling, back firing. it is exactly what my car is doing.

i don't have a timing gun, but i might be able to ask someone to borrow one. im not certain though. is there any way to tell what my timing is at, and if it is wrong with out one? could this have caused damage running it like this?

 

I don't think you would do any damage with it set back too far. You can adjust the timing by trial and error and get it pretty close. Just advance it a little at a time and road test it until it feels right. If you advance it too far you will hear spark knock (rattling sound) when accelerating in high gear. This can burn the valves. Back it off until this stops. This should get your car running better.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nufrN3fPB3c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqTL-AQalA

 

aww man no plates on her yet?!?

 

no, not yet. i gotta get them. how much do you think insurance would be around?

i had to use my neighbors repair plates to get the car over to his garage across the street. haha

 

i wouldnt be afraid to put a 4bbl on that 318. but like mentioned before stay under 600 cfm and use vacuum secondary’s. and actually you can get a little better mileage out of a 4bbl as long as you don’t kick in the secondary’s. the primaries are smaller on a 4bbl than a 2bbl.

 

what i want to do is take my clock out of my dash and put a tachometer in its place. (the already doesn't work clock doesn't work)

the problem i have is, i have been looking at tachs, and it seems that most come in either 2 1/16 in. or 2 5/8 in. what is this measuring? the glass inner diameter of the tach or the plastic outer diameter?

i measured the glass clock face on the dash, and i got around 2 1/4. am i measuring the wrong part or will a normal aftermarket tach just not fit my car?

also, what is a accessory circuit breaker? i was looking at a wiring diagram and a black wire goes from the ammeter then stops and just says "to accessory circuit breaker"

 

i want to try that thing where you put water in the carb to "steam clean" the engine. Ive researched it, and some people say to add alcohol and some say don't. what should i do?

i was just going to use seafoam, but people say that it can be bad for old engines and old seals.

 

just use water. The idea is to just use enough water (a heavy dribble) at about 1500-2000 rpms.
most of the water turns to steam and this is what breaks up the carbon on the top of the pistons. old mechanics trick. 1/2 cup shoud do it.

 

alright thanks. i just gotta get some gas, and ill get that done. haha

 

your gonna put that in the gas?

water can't compress
any more than a slight mist in the combustion chamber can crack a piston

 

no, sorry i probably worded that wrong.

im talking about that thing where you dribble water into the carb while running to "steam" clean the pistons and such.

i just need gas because i guess after the water im supposed to "drive" it for about 5-10 min. to get any other excess water out. my car is probably low on gas, fuel gauge doesn't work, and don't want to take any chances.

 

sure, you gotta be careful doing it. Would be best to find an old time mechanic that did this back in the day. Tuurbo guys spray water into their motors with sophisticated systems. (aquamist etc.) This helps cool the incoming air. But yes, back in the old days of points ignitions, carburetors and poor valve sealing, driping water into a running motor was done all the time to clean the tops of the pistons of carbon deposits. This helped to eliminate engine knock due to excessive carbon buildup. Engine must be warm and at 1200-1500 rpms. dribble water into carb throut til it just stumbles than back off. I would not do this procedure if the motor did not need it though. With todays gas, it keeps the tops of the motors fairly clean so it is rare that this would need to be done nowadays.
{I know you all think im crazy on this one but it's true. This was done all the time in the old days} I've never heard of a piston breaking due to it.
I actually did this last week to an old S-10 pickup.

 

[quote=theomahamoparguy;40070. Tuurbo guys spray water into their motors with sophisticated systems. (aquamist etc.) This helps cool the incoming air.[/quote]

you can even add water injection to a non turbo car to pick up a few ponies! like gtx said water dont compress. it can raise comp ratio (very little) and cool the charge.

 

how do i know if i need this? when i had the valve covers off, there was a s**t load of black build up everywhere. like a decent 1/8th inch coat of it. this is what made me think i needed it.

 

Well. the water will only clean the combustion chamber and tops of the pistons. If you have a lot of buildup under the valvecover, that is entirely different. under the valve cover is considered part of the crankcase.So, there are three parts of the motor. the crankcase, the combustion chamber/cylinder and the water jacket.
The crankcase includes the lifter valley, area under the valve covers and the area surrounding the crank.
The water jacket includes the areas where water/coolant circulates through the engine block.
The combustion chamber includes the area above the pistons.

If you want to clean the gunk out of your engine, like under the valve cover, I think it would be best to remove the engine. (sorry)
How bad is it? (I had one that was so bad that you could not see the rocker arms. The sludge resembled a fudge brownie in the shape of the valve cover!!)

 

mmm that would be one damn good brownie haha. i guess it doesn't need to be cleaned. hank the guy i did the valve seals with didn't say anything about em' so it couldn't have been that bad. but how do i tell if i should do that water thing or not? what would happen if i did it and it didn't need it?

i heard that seafoam can hurt old engines because of old seals and such, but is there a product like seafoam but safer for older engines?

 

one plan for the car is a nice stereo and such. i am 16, but i like to think im not to much of an idiot. i dont want to chop up my dash and get the newest and flashiest thing. i just want something that i can hide from plain view and i can hook my ipod up to. also don't worry, i dont plan on putting the biggest subs possible in the car and blast lil Wayne. i like grateful dead and Jeff beck.

what i want to do is make a plate for the glove box to put the radio in. so far i have measured out the size of the glove box and drawn out the shape and 1 1/2 in. tabs around it on to 32 gauge. i am using 32-gauge as practice and then will probably use 1/16 in. for final.

i made 1 1/2 in. tabs because the glove box door bends inward slightly and i was worried about space for the radio.

once the plate is screwed in i planned on just cutting the hole for the radio and sliping that in. but i also still need a spot for things like registration and such. so i was going to cut out another hole and rivet in a box made of steel to make a little pocket.

the questions i have are, is it difficult to set up a radio like what i want? also, im guessing neither the radio or speakers are going to come with speaker wire, so what wire do i need for that?

here are links to what i plan on putting in:
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-PIONEER-CD-M...item45f1d5f051

http://cgi.ebay.com/PIONEER-TS-A6872...item1c108b21d5


the speakers and radio probably wont happen for a little bit, not until the car is on the road and doing good. just trying to get a start on a bunch of little stuff to keep myself moving.

 

cool man. I just put a radio in my dart. It will save you a lot of money because you can crank it up and ignore all the weird car noises hahahaha

Also, I saw jeff beck live last month....he's so good at guitar haha

ANYWAY. I bought a plastic case for my radio and bolted it under the dash. It looks nice, and I can still use my glove box. I will post a picture tomorrow, I've been meaning to for a while.

Some speakers come with wire.....if you have some old lamp cord lying around the house, that will work too. check out www.newegg.com for stereos and stuff.

 

haha. i don't even really listen to radio TO much. its pretty much for the ladies ya know. haha, i wish.

post a pic of that under the dash set up. i was thinking of doing that but i thought would stick out like a sore thumb in my car. i kinda wanted to just keep stuff hidden. form plain sight so it looked stock but then was really nice underneath.

thanks for the link to that newegg site. it looks like nice stuff for decently cheap. i always feel a little sketchy when buying electronics and stuff off ebay.

also, what is the difference between a 2-way speaker and a 3-way? what do they mean?

 

a three way speaker has more parts designed for better response of different frequency ranges. Really when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter because you're gonna put them in a rattly old mopar haha. just base it off price haha.

will post a pic tomorrow.

 

I got the black plastic case off of ebay for 5 bucks.

 

that looks good! if only i could find one to match my teal dash ide do it. haha

 

Get the black case and paint it teal.