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DUDE! You and Roger, and Tony, and Priya are making me look such a slacker. To be fair to myself I spent the morning taking a class, and the afternoon doing about what I learned about. But, anyone said anything about that rubber fuel line... It does look 'new', but...
Dirty Dalton, get on that car in the garage! lol What do you use instead of a rubber line from the fuel pump?
The hard lines look really nice, but how is a rubber line at a low 6PSI from my fuel pump to carb a hazard? I can't see one leaking or popping with such low PSI.
So I haven't really been blown away with the performance of my car, but I've been driving really conservatively because I didn't have a Tach yet, and I know it still needs some fine tuning. I drove it for the first time with the proper 14x3" air filter and I could actually feel a seat of the pants difference in performance compared to the tiny filter that was on it! I then put a tachometer on , and proceeded to do some hard driving and redline pulls: OMG!!! This engine pulls so hard from 4k to 6500k!!!! Really impressed with this thing now!!! I'm going to borrow the wideband from my supercharged Jeep, and get the jetting perfect and make sure I'm in the sweet spot on this timing, make sure I'm getting all the performance out of this beast!
Noticed something odd when I was doing redline pulls the other day: smoke coming in my cab, that was from oil burning off. I thought about it, and it could only be three things:
1) God awful blow-by coming out of my valve cover filter (unlikely)
2) spilled oil on header from oil change (likely)
3) valve cover leaking and getting oil on header (likely)
When I got back to my garage I noticed some oil on the firewall by the passenger side head, but couldn't pinpoint the leak. so I revved the engine up high and watched it: smoke coming from the valve cover, and when I looked closer there was a hole in the valve cover! How did I over look this?! I know there were baffles put in by the previous owner, with bolts... Did one of the bolts come undone and wreaking havoc in my engine?!?! I started searching through my pics, and finally found that the hole was there when I bought the car! Don't have to have a sleepless anxiety ridden night thinking about a bolt swimming in my engine lol
Look like I'll have to pop it off real quick and seal it off, problem solved!
My step dad, and fellow Sr Gear Head, recently retired and has been looking for his next hot rod. After seeing my C3, and how much fun I was having with it, he set his sites on a C3 for himself! He wanted to stay away from a major project, just a nice honest driver that he could enjoy and tinker when we wanted to. He was realistic about his budget and expectations, but of course wasn't going to buy a turd. For his budget, he set his sights on the 73-82 cars to find the best example for his budget. We looked at a lot of cars, some were major bust and disappointments! And while we (mostly me) were getting exhausted at the end, a nice looking '78 came up for sale locally for only $12K... hmmm looked worth taking a look at. My step dad went that day and the paint looked great, interior looked great, birdcage/frame/mounts all rust free, drove great, had nice wheels, so he negotiated a good deal and took it home! We now have 2 C3's in our family within two months! lol the C3 disease is spreading fast!!!!
Next little project for me was to prevent a break down: Plug wires were dangerously close to headers, and already had some spots melt. I order wire looms, new plug wires, and heat shields (that couldn't be used) to make a setup that wouldn't melt my wires while joyfully hot-rodding
down the back roads!
So I ran beautiful new spark plug wires to my new previously installed plugs, and ran the Moroso wire loom kit , which work excellent to organize the wires and keep the off the headers.
everything did it's job and look great, except the wires were way too long! I'm not a fan of a bird nest next to my HEI, so I'm going to cut and re crimp all these wires so they look proper!
I ran into the same thing on an old Pontiac that had a SBC swapped in, I needed wire heat shields but had to make my own wires in order to get them installed.
I ran into the same thing on an old Pontiac that had a SBC swapped in, I needed wire heat shields but had to make my own wires in order to get them installed.
It's odd that they make them so long! The ones I ordered were SBC specific wires too.
Next up were the brakes: brakes work and have good pedal pressure, but there was certainly room for improvement and I have no idea how old the brake fluid was so i went to work flushing and bleeding the whole system. Thank god I did, because I've never seen so much trash come out of a brake system!
First thing I did was suction the old brake fluid out the MC, then topped her off with fresh fluid:
It's odd that they make them so long! The ones I ordered were SBC specific wires too.
There's your answer. They are to be routed straightish down from the distributor, and under the exhaust manifold, and buried in shielding for radio noise suppression.
There's your answer. They are to be routed straightish down from the distributor, and under the exhaust manifold, and buried in shielding for radio noise suppression.
You've done about the tires, correct?
Nice! 👍😁
Ah didn't realize that about the SBC wires!
"You've done about the tires" .. What did you mean by this?
Sunday sunshine and 70F, so you bet I was out and about in my C3 cruising with the T-tops off! I rolled over my first 100 miles on the car, did a run on the interstate, and cruised all over town. Car gets more compliments and crowds than anything I've ever owned, it's wild! Car is running fantastic and cruises great. The suspension is just shot, and I'm bouncing all over the place, it's super annoying! Since I have the nice new VBP front suspension, it's time to put it on!
The VBP kit I picked up was NOS - someone purchased and never installed. Came with beautiful new controls arms with new bushings and ball joints.
Started on the drivers side, and had to fight some parts off the car: Upper ball joint took some serious BFG work. There was some cursing and sweating in my garage this evening! lol
After I got everything removed I cleaned the frame with a wire wheel on my grinder then hit it with brake cleaner. No surprises or rot, just a nice clean frame.
Treated that bare metal to some chassis paint to clean it up and prevent future rusting.
The hard lines look really nice, but how is a rubber line at a low 6PSI from my fuel pump to carb a hazard? I can't see one leaking or popping with such low PSI.
May not leak or pop but if a belt lets go and tears the rubber line or a clamp comes undone for any reason you will have gas spraying all over the engine compartment until the fuel bowls run dry.
