jt1

I wish somebody was repoping that Gnose/air dam/flare combo. What a sweet looking car. John

The court papers were filed in Bertie county, east of Rocky Mount near the coast. That doesn't mean he lives there, just where the action took place. I haven't heard of the guy. Where does he live? jt

Bill, I've been on vacation a few days and haven't got to check in here. Glad to see you making progress. The map looks pretty good, and the best thing is you have a baseline and can evaluate changes. Edelbrock has excellent tuning info on their site. A wideband O2 meter is a huge help when fine tuning the carb. The biggest eye opener for me was that the adjustments were so sensitive. Many times I was jumping back and forth over the right spot because my adjustments were too large, especially with the idle mixture screws. Keep up the good work. John

There is a grading contractor working on site. Right now, they're cleaning out one of the aeration ponds left over from the cotton mill days. That is indeed progress, but not the same as actually grading on the track itself. I hope they get it going, I would like to run there. They've had a number of hurdles to overcome, but haven't given up. John

It could be either, hard to say. If your damper isn't marked, the best thing you can do is get a timing tape, then using your light and tach, check the timing every 500 rpm from idle until you reach max advance, 4K or so. Do this without the vacumn, then with it, and make notes or make a graph. Then you have a base line. It's best to plug the line to the vac port and work with the mech first. Generally the more initial you can run, you will have better idle and sharper throttle response. If you get too much initial, it will be hard to crank, especially when hot. This is determined by your cam and cranking compression, so you have to experiment to see what works. Next determine the total mech you need. The best way is max power on a dyno. If you can't do that right now, stick to 34-36deg total. The trick is to keep the total around 34-36 and get enough initial for good idle/response. You normally need to limit the amount of mech advance by bushings(MSD), a plate kit(HEI), or by welding the slots in the plate (PITA). The weights and springs control how quickly the mech comes in, changing the shape of the advance curve. I think there is a writeup on MSD's site that explains this much better than my idiotic rambling. You will have to hunt it up yourself. Lastly their is the vac advance. It can do two things: Add in some advance at cruising rpm to help out gas mileage. This is important if your car gets driven much, not so important for a weekend hotrod. The second is to add some timing at idle to help throttle response. You just have to check and see what yours is set up to do. Some folks may use 10 deg inital at idle for easy cranking, the use the vac to pull in 10-12 more deg for good response off idle, then a total mech advance of 36 for max power with no vac, then maybe 50 deg for max mileage at light throttle cruise. Others may just use the light throttle advance, and not add any at idle. So there are some benefits to the vac for a daily driver, but not so much for a hot rod. To sum up this bunch of crap, you want to run the max timing you can while maintaining easy cranking, no pinging under any conditions, and no surging or bogs. John

I don't think the same shifter will fit different locations, but I'm not absolutely certain. Is the shifter on your trans bolted down in the pic? It sorta looks like it may be just sitting there.. if so, you might have plenty of clearance with it bolted on. jt

Try backing some more timing out. If you're using a vacumn advance, you probably need to work with it. jt

Here's a pic of mine when it was new: You can see the difference in the shifters. The gold colored ring on mine hit the stock shifter opening, and I trimmed the opening about 1/2" to give it some clearance. Yours appears to be further forward and you might have to trim more or use another shifter. jt

Gary, that is a sweet little ride. I've always had a soft spot for the roadsters. Nice Job!!!!!! John

I see one pic now. That shifter is a good bit different than mine. I think I have some pics of mine on the computer at the office, I will post them tomorrow if I can find them. I hope you got a 0.69. The 0.83 is pretty worthless except for a track only road race car. It only gives about a 500-600 rpm drop from 4th. When you put it in, be sure to indicate the bellhousing to the crank. Tremecs are real sensitive to excessive runout, and that may be where some of the shifting complaints originate. John

Mike, what makes a seat "hans specific"? jt

The complaints I have heard were about the trans being notchy. i think using the right fluid helps a lot. You want Synchromesh fluid. I don't see the pic, red X for me. The rearmost position works well with the stock opening if you are using JTR mounts, maybe a little trimming required. I think the 5.0 shifter is larger than the stock unit. I did a good bit of research when I bought mine. The 3550 and the tko are identical externally, the higher torque rating comes from internal parts. The bolt pattern and input shaft can be ford or chevy. They all use the toploader output yoke. The chevy input shaft is fine spline, and uses a muncie bellhousing. I've been pleased with mine, it's lasted 4 years now in a road race car with no problems. John

I have a tkoII. Supposedly the tko's are stronger that the 3550's, although I don't know the details. I didn't have to hammer the tunnel any in my 73. I did have to trim the hole for the shifter about 1/2" to accomodate a Pro 5.0 shifter. You will want the shifter in the rear position. When you get it, pull off the shifter and make sure all the rods are in neutral before you put it in the car. If one of them is in gear, you pull the trans back out. No need to discuss how I know this. Some folks have complained of the shift quality, but I have been very satisfied with mine, and would buy another. Either Fortes or Hanlon has a lot of Tremec info on their site, you might want to check them out. John

I've passed 4 I think. It's kind of like hitting your thumb with a hammer- it feels so good when you quit! jt

Pretty cool old truck......but the load it's hauling is lean and mean...... jt

Yasin, what model is your car? I have a 76 280 parts car. John

The lowest profile one I have found is one of the ram air box spun aluminum jobs. I run a 4"x14" with a eddy rpm air gap and a stock hood. I'm using a Holley, I don't know if it will fit an eddy or not. http://www.ramairbox.com/bases.html Pretty sure I've got the Part # 14AL/DBase1.5 . jt Edit: If you want one of the Eddy triangular foam ones, I've got one I'll sell you for like $15 shipped or something like that.

Once again, I'm a huge fan of that car. Nice job. John

When a block has been decked, sometimes pistons can wind up above the deck. It's really not a big deal unless it's excessive, and 0.003" isn't enough to worry about. That gasket has a 4.2 bore and is 0.061" thick compressed, way overkill IMO. It's expensive and you lose all the quench benefits. I would use one of the 0.041 felpro gaskets, like the 1003. That will give you a quench distance of 0.038, which is just about perfect. If you want a little more, Ferrea makes a 4.060 bore 0.045 thick head gasket which is very nice. You can get them from CV Products. John

No joke. If they don't match, you've got a switched title/salvage car/stolen car situation to deal with. Get it straightened out before you lose track of the seller. jt

Maybe, maybe not. Chasing a drivetrain noise can be tough and frustrating. Sometimes they don't originate where you think, and it's just a process of elimination to find the source. However, based on what you said, the flexplate would be the first place I would start. John

Double check all the flexplate bolts. jt

Happy Birthday HybridZ!!!! Best Forum on the net!! jt

Eric has got to you, hasn't he? jt