The Lawn Dart

[Deceus]

So the cam seems to be undamaged. I was getting the right lift on the lobes I could check. Someone made a good point that if the lifters were in good shape then that lobe is most likely fine. I suppose it's awfully difficult to partially wipe a lobe in 150 miles, they flatten pretty fast when things are properly fucked. Checked the pushrods that weren't bent and they all came within .005" of 7.500" so I only ordered six new pushrods.

Got the rockershafts and rocker arms where they need to go now. Just need to throw the new pushrods in when they get here, torque down the rockershaft and reinstall the intake. Definitely going to pull the valve covers and make sure everything is oiling well when it's back together. Thankfully it's going to be mid 50s this weekend.

[ScottyB]

yikes man that sucks, but honestly that's pretty awesome you were able to diag the problem and get right to the busted parts straight away vs continuing to run the engine and potentially really tear it up. i wouldn't have thought it would run well at all with the parts swapped into the wrong places like that but i guess its a nice surprise to thing that if it ran that well like that...it might be amazing once its fixed!

[Deceus]

yikes man that sucks, but honestly that's pretty awesome you were able to diag the problem and get right to the busted parts straight away vs continuing to run the engine and potentially really tear it up.  i wouldn't have thought it would run well at all with the parts swapped into the wrong places like that but i guess its a nice surprise to thing that if it ran that well like that...it might be amazing once its fixed!

Yeah it's just the shafts so the only real difference between right and wrong sides of the engine is how the oiling holes are oriented. I think when I slapped it on with my dad we both assumed there were oiling holes on both sides of the shaft. That's one of the drawbacks to buying all new everything for cars from the 70s. Sometimes you don't get shit for instructions. There's a big notch on the stock shafts to let you know where to place them but this one from Mancini just had a tiny dot punched into the end.

I should be firing it back up this weekend but worse case scenario I'm selling my mountain bike and picking up a roller cam and some assembled aluminium Edelbrock heads if it's still having issues. I still have all the stuff to drop the engine out of the car without much hassle and need to replace the k-member anyways.

[Deceus]

Got everything back together tonight without much issue. Hoping the intake seals well as it was a little harder to do this time with the engine in the car and not having fresh clean surfaces to start with. Spent most of my time scraping the remnants of the old intake gasket off the heads and intake. Had to be careful and make sure nothing went into engine so I had to do it by hand. It seems I've lost my set screw that holds my throttle cable in the end piece on the carb so i didn't bother trying to fire it up yet. Fortunately I think Home Depot actually carries M4 set screws. I also need to get another jug of antifreeze since some of it wasn't useable. I think I had a bit of rust built up from filling and draining everything on the runstand and not hooking up my overflow tank right away. Hopefully it fires up without any issue tomorrow since it'll be a good day to take it for a cruise.

Gotta say, as frustrating as it can be to take 2 steps back more times than I care to count. It's really cool to be this fearless about a car. I wouldn't dare attempt something like this on either of my other vehicles but I wasn't going to bat an eye at removing my heads and stripping them down if I had to. There's really nothing on this car aside from the transmission that I'm not afraid to tear apart and fix ... which is good because next up I have to disassemble most of the front end and replace that k-member.

[Senor_Taylor]

Hoping for good things for you tomorrow!

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[Deceus]

And she's back. Had a REAL bad backfire issue at first but noticed it coming out the carb and the exhaust. It also sounded like it was happening to just one cylinder on each side. I realized I must've crossed 2 sparkplug wires and sure as shit I did. 5 and 7 were put on right but I must've mislabeled them when I took em off because they were definitely on backwards. Gonna pull the valve covers and make sure everything is oiling correctly tomorrow. Then I'll let it get up to temperature to make sure nothing is leaking and then the real test is going to be laying into it a bit to see if oil is still seeping out of any where. I'm only worried about the rear main seal since the intake has new gasket (RTV) and the oil filter isn't likely to be a problem. Think that was the only 3 places I was losing oil. Not a big deal if it is still leaking there since I'll have to drop my K-member soon anyways to replace it.

Bullet dodged ... hopefully. Thank god I didn't build this with a ridiculous cam because this is the second issue that would have been WAY worse if my valves didn't clear my pistons.

[Senor_Taylor]

What a rollercoaster, man.

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[Deceus]

What a rollercoaster, man.

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Spent the night planning/pricing an EFI conversion. I've heard from a few reliable sources now that my current carb just isn't going to behave well while cornering hard. It's just not meant for something like autocross. The biggest issue I face is fuel supply. I went with a stock mechanical fuel pump to keep things simple and quiet but that barely feeds a standard carburetor. I was looking at a holley pump and regulator/filter combo but then I came across this:



It's basically like having a miniature gas tank with a sump pump in your engine bay. No floats or anything so it won't have any issues handling some g-forces. The real selling point is that it hooks up to my stock setup. Basically my mechanical pump keeps the tank filled and the internal pump feeds the EFI. Just have to run a return line back to the unit and then another one to my fuel cell. Between this and a Holley Sniper I could probably swap everything over in an afternoon. It's definitely real tempting now. Still looking at close to $1500 all said and done though. Good thing tax time is upon us and the gf is willingly to pitch to get it done before autocross starts back up. One problem at a time though, just glad this is as easy as I was hoping it could be.

[Senor_Taylor]

Is an EFI setup that much more expensive than this setup here? Especially considering performance gains and ease of tuning? Also keeping that intake cleaner since you're spraying fuel into it.

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[Deceus]

Yeah it's a good bit more expensive, this carburetor was like $350 I think. Not much to gain in power either but it will just run better across the board. Won't have to change anything in my current setup other than ditching the carb and putting the EFI unit in it's place. They even make them look mostly the same:



Basically just have to hook up a fuel supply and O2 sensor then it's ready to go.


I should add that choosing not to go EFI still means spending $600 on something like a Holley double pumper and then likely paying for an O2 sensor and dyno session to get it dialed in properly. So in reality going EFI isn't really that much more than staying with a carburetor.

[Deceus]

What a day, what a day. Figured I'd have a nice easy day. Just wanted to change my oil, get the car up to temperature, do a quick test run and clean up some of the wiring. It was pretty smooth up until the test run. The run itself went pretty good. The valvetrain is a lot quieter and engine definitely feels like it's running a bit healthier. But when I pulled into the garage, I notice a small puddle of oil coming off the bottom of the transmission. I figured the excessive blow-by may have ruined the oil filter seal so I made sure it was snug and gave it another quick run. The ground was wet this time so I noticed a series of nice oily rainbow puddles in the driveway this time. My passenger side header was also smoking a bit. Took a close look and noticed the oil was on the outside of the bellhouse and not by the filter. I traced it back up to the engine and found a few small puddles on the backside of the block. My intake wasn't sealed well at all in the back and the oil was running down the top of the bellhousing. I figured the bead of gasket maker I used was a little thin around the distributor so it wasn't too surprising but still a little frustrating. Kinda hard to eyeball how much you need especially with the engine in the car instead of on a stand. I think I might switch back to the cork gaskets this time and just coat them with RTV to be safe. No water leaks so I can't be too mad.

Figured I just continue on with the day like nothing happened. Wasn't ready to crack that can of worms just yet. Did some pretty good work on the wiring, still need to cut the spark plug wires to length and put some better thought into routing them. Was pretty happy with the outcome, even if it took most of the day to get done. Some before/afters:







Drained the coolant before dinner and broke all the bolts loose. Was hoping when I cam back I could pop the intake off cleanly and not have to replace the intake gasket but it tore at one corner at one of the water jackets. Wasn't going to risk that so I just cleaned all the surfaces and covered everything back up for another day.

At some point I'll just get to enjoy the fruits of my labor and just enjoy the car ...

[Deceus]

So I got the intake back on. I order a slightly fancier intake gasket this time around and it definitely seems like money well spent. I used the cork gaskets front and back this time with a bit of gasket maker on top to be sure it stays in place. Had a small leak at the back of my driver side valve cover that gave me a mini panic attack but that was fixed when I tightened it down a bit more. So that battle seems to be finally over.

Got it up to temperature, drove it around the block and it didn't leak a drop of anything. The engine definitely feels happier too. It wasn't really sluggish before just not as violent as I was expecting given my experience with my dad's build. Started on my Corbreau harness since it was just sitting on the workbench. Ended up cleaning the whole backseat area since it was pretty rough. Scrapped off some of that original 1973 carpet off the back of the backseat. Hit the underside of my package tray with some rust converter and drilled some holes for the plate I made for the belt.











It's not the best setup but definitely the easiest right now. I only plan to do autocross this year so a rollbar and 5 point would be a bit overkill imo but on the top of the list of things to do for next year. It'll be a while before I have the balls to push triple digits in this thing and if I hit anything hard enough for any part of this to fail, I'm likely getting crushed by my engine and/or transmission anyways.

Really wanted to hookup the relay kit I have for the radiator fan. Right now it's just on when the ignition is on. Having the fan kick on while I'm cranking the starter is a rather large power draw so it needs to be resolved. The problem I found is that you can't just use a temp sensor. The relay kit came with a massive switch that apparently needs to be screwed into a cylinder head waterjacket to work properly. Obviously it's a little too late for that. Normally you could get by with using the intake manifold but mine doesn't have provisions for that. They make waternecks designed to be drilled and tapped for these but I already dropped $85 on the one I have. FAK. Then I stumbled across these probe sensor fan controllers and viola, problem solved. It just takes a key power source (which I already have) and constant hot + ground. It's not quite as accurate as a sensor buried in a cylinder head but it's adjustable to make for it. You simply get the car up to the temperature you want and turn the knob until the fan kicks on and it's set. Still gotta wire it up but I'm glad to not be doing anything drastic or relying on a manual switch.




SOoooooo it's tax time. Normally that doesn't mean shit for me but I have a kid living with me now and a gf that wants to donate to the make chris happy fund. Going to be placing an order for a tubular k-member and an EFI kit real soon. Neither should take more than a weekend to install and then this thing is race ready after an alignment.

[Jake]

Looking good!

Nobody is questioning your build because the attitude throughout has been "burn Visa burn" with no questions about inner peace or your purpose on this earth.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Looking good!

Nobody is questioning your build because the attitude throughout has been "burn Visa burn" with no questions about inner peace or your purpose on this earth.

+1 keep on keeping on my man!

[Deceus]

I'm trying to reel in the Visa before the interest free period is up but I'm not too worried about it. I'll gladly pay a bit of interest to have this thing ready at the beginning of the season vs the middle of it.

The EFI conversion is going to be cake but I am dreading the K-member swap a bit. I already sourced the new(older style) motor mounts I need to make it happen. I have a ton of power steering fluid so I may just disconnect the power steering lines and steering column to make that part a lot easier but messy.

Still a lot left on the wishlist like a race-weight hood and subframe connectors but I'm feeling pretty good about being able to actually drive this thing next month. Started pricing trailers too since $50 an event for a uhaul is going to get expensive. Couldn't seem to find any used car haulers that weren't ~80% of the price of something new. Verona is likely driveable but I'm afraid of that given the amount of leaks I've seen on this thing so far. This money pit might have an end at some point but it ain't here lol.

[Deceus]

Saw this and though it was too perfect. Couldn't get the controller to kick on the fan yesterday but I forgot it needed both a 12v trigger AND a 12v source. Got it wired up right now but it was too late to test. Still got to drive to pickup little man since it was 75 degrees, so that was fun. He's getting more comfortable around the car after the open header incident.

Motor mounts get here tomorrow and K-member is getting in Monday. As much as I'd like to take advantage of this 3 day weekend it looks like we're getting sub-freezing temps again tomorrow and I'm stuck with the kid by myself until Sunday night. Looks like it's going to be pushing close to 80 early next week though so I may play hookie and try to knock it out then.

[Steve85]

I remember having issues with the old SBC and hated draining fluids to take the intake off and then cleaning and trying to reseal everything. The dry intake of a modern engine is one my favorite things..

Keep at it, the EFI should help with the autocross times by, you know, keeping the engine running and all 

[Deceus]

I remember having issues with the old SBC and hated draining fluids to take the intake off and then cleaning and trying to reseal everything. The dry intake of a modern engine is one my favorite things..

Keep at it, the EFI should help with the autocross times by, you know, keeping the engine running and all 

Yeah having to lean over into the middle of the car to scrap glued on gasket from the heads AND keep the tiny pieces from falling into the lifter valley was extra shitty. I was not a fan of having to do it twice. I ended up just soaking up all the oil in the lifter valley to look for all the little pieces that made it in and simply dumped some fresh oil over everything once it was done.

I'm still dreaming of putting a modern Hemi in this thing eventually. It's nice to say "I built it myself" but if this thing can't get reliable then it's no use to me. Fortunately it's been small issues and some cut corners coming back to bite me in the ass (like a cheap carb)

[Deceus]

Finally tested the fan controller and everything seems good there. Couldn't do much else this weekend other than clean and spend money since I was home alone with a needy 4 year old.

The K-member swap still had me a little anxious but mostly because I REALLY didn't want to hand the car back over to a shop for an alignment (or anything for that matter). I just don't like the idea of it considering how old it is and how much of it is aftermarket. The last shop was asking me way too many questions about the alignment they should have had the answers to and it made me uneasy. So I now have a set of toe plates and a camber caster gauge on the way. If I can build a car, I'm sure it can dial in a suspension. Camber and toe are the only things I can really adjust at the moment anyways which is just a matter of dialing in tie rods and my cam bolts on the upper control arm. Extra caster is built into my control arms but they're not adjustable. Should be fun ...

[Senor_Taylor]

Ain't nothing a ruler and a piece of string can't fix.

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