cletus's vg valiant

[cletus]

since photobucket has turned into a bag o' dicks i downloaded all the good pics and deleted it.

 

to celebrate heres some burnouts i did when i was cool and had a turbo still

 

 

[cletus]

I was thinking about various options to make the seat situation better as it has always been shit. The arse of it was saggy and one time I was hoofing it up a hill when it had the good engine in it and the seat back broke. When I fixed it I mucked around with the springs to de sag it a bit but it ended up very uncomfortable as you end up sitting on your tailbone which hurts after 20min driving.

I was thinking about putting some late model seats out of something else but didn't want it to look dumb. 

So I pinched the seats out of the plymouth and aside from the hooks for the rear seat back being in a different spot they fit straight in, I had to take the seatbelts out because the seat goes slightly further back and hit the retractors- I put static lap and diagonal belts in instead which I also got out of the plymouth.

Interior is now mostly black so I think I'll vinyl dye the door cards black as well.

 

I forgot to take pics apart from cletus Jr acting the goose

[cletus]

Tyre sizes

It had a 195/60 on the front and a 205/60 on the back. The fronts looked a bit small as last time I replaced them I changed brands but never really liked the slight difference in size

Swapped the 205/60 on to the front and got some 205/70 for the back that are cheap enough to skid on at drag day

 

[cletus]

Went for a tour around coromandel with a couple of mates for the weekend. 

Seat situation is so much better on the posterior

 

[cletus]

Bought an alternative set of wheels.

I bid on the original auction and lost, they were old crusty wheels that needed a tart up.

then they ended up back on TM after being polished and painted the correct gunmetal colour, they got cheaper over a few weeks then I got them for $400 plus freight up from nelson.

they are not perfect- but I got them on the car today with a couple of new rear tyres and I'm quite pleased. 

205/60 front, 205/70 rear

 

 

[cletus]

its had a few wheel and tyre combos which I will barry on about

originally, when I got it

 

[cletus]

then some slightly narrower tyres on the front, wheels painted black, hubcaps

 

[cletus]

14x7 tridens, 195/60 front and 205/70 rear

 

[cletus]

I had some 15'' wheels made for drag use, I think they were 15x7 with ET Street tyres, ran standard rims on the front

 

 

[cletus]

then had some standard rims widened, 195/60 front and 205/60 rear, painted them grey to start with and had hubcaps, later powdercoated black and ran no hubcaps with bullet nuts

 

[cletus]

and had a set of eagers on the tridens for a while, I ended up putting those on my ute.

 

[cletus]

Tuning time

I went to Tauranga in it a few weeks ago and I figured out the fuel consumption at 15.6l/100km.

Which is a bit dumb. It hasn't bothered me in the past but since gas is getting spendy I think there's no point wasting it. 

I've suspected it was a bit on the rich side as its never needed a choke and it runs good when it's cold. I put a wide band on it and it was a bit all over the place but averaged 13.5-14 afr when sitting at 100kph.  

Did some googling on tuning edelbrock carbs and found this

 

[cletus]

So that got me confused cause I didn't know what the heck that means.

 

 Thought about putting a holley on it cause I know how they work but then found the manual and figured out how the chart works

it's actually quite simple once you have the list that is on the next page which wasn't on the internet 

 

Edelbrock carbs have a primary system which has a jet, with a rod that goes in and out, controlled by vacuum . 

So you pick a combo of jets and needles based on where in the chart you want to be. 

 

[cletus]

Ended up at position 11 on the chart, tried 10 but that had a part throttle hesitation.  11 is a smaller (.083 instead of .086) jet and the standard rods. 

 Put the wide band on today and went for a drive,  seems pretty good, runs well, cruise afr is mid to high 15 now. 

Also put a bigger needle and seat in while the carb was apart, I suspect it has a fuel flow issue which only ever happens at the drags so I'll see if that helps

[cletus]

Well the fuel usage is better. Worked out to be 13.8l/100km now. Also it ran it's best time at the drags with this engine, 14.2@94mph  

It still has a problem which only shows up at the drags, which i avoided by shifting at 5k. If i rev it any harder it gets the splutters .

I thought it was fuel supply issues but now I think the lifters are pumping up . When I put it together the block was decked 40 thou plus the heads had a little skim. I took a punt on the stock pushrods still working, but they are longer than ideal.  

I would also like to get a distributor with a vac advance back on it to help with economy some more

 

Here's a pic of a skid I stole from the drag day thread, just so I'm not a boring fuel efficiency nerd

 

 

[cletus]

Ha

Left it till the last minute before drag day,  finally got around to getting some 50 thou shorter pushrods 5 years later. Put them in tonight but a bit late for road testing and waking up all the neighbors, but it did start, and didn't rattle

Also rock auto to the rescue again, got a distributor with a vac advance so in another 5 years I might get around to putting it in 

 

[cletus]

Put the other distributor in, now has vac advance again. Runs a bit better, I'll see if its more ecom on pertol over the holidays 

I managed to pull the ends off 2x leads swapping them over which is a pain in the bum, a couple looked a bit manky in the ends so ive ordered a new set off my favorite supplier of parts. 

Who, it appears, sort out the GST issue at purchase so no problems there. 

 

[cletus]

Bloody barn find m8  

Hasn't had much use lately, I did a friend's wedding last year in it but I think that's the last time it got driven , hasn't had a wof since June last year  

Might need a bit of panel work in the next few years, the paint faults have not healed themselves. Also needs a windscreen rubber as that leaks a bit  

[cletus]

Green car is out for a while to get certed so I thought I'd make the most of having some room in the garage, and do a bit of maintenance on this thing so it can get a wof

New tyres, a quick polish of tridens and bolt those back on, adjust the brakes, grease balljoints etc, and a couple of little fixes  

I wanted to raise it a little bit as the roads are so chooched and there are speed bumps growing everywhere so I changed to a 205-70-14 on the front and a 215-70-14 on the back. They are pretty balloon spec, that plus a turn and a half on the torsion bars, plus a pair of more progressive shaped bump stops, it drives much differently now, it's quite a lot more comfortable. 

I ordered a windscreen rubber and filler strip a few weeks back and surprise @Valiant hemi performance didn't actually have the parts in stock so it's on back order  

 

 

[cletus]

Bunnings bumpstops.

40 dia at the bottom,  30 tall rubber. 8mm stud 

I've used them on a few different things now, they are reasonably soft so they work quite progressively 

And they are $13 each so pretty cheap