OT: Sick Truck

Jake in Escondido wrote in news:zZuQe.6756 $ct5.2358@fed1read04:

On the older Fords, initial advance is initial advance. The computer doesn't over ride the distributor. So you can bump the timing up until it pings (detonates) when you romp on it and then back off a degree or so. Every motor is different as far as how much initial advance it will take. The altitude you live at, the octane you run, and variables in the motor itself will all affect how much initial advance you can dial in.

Those motors respond well to all of the other old time tuning trick as well. A K&N air filter, bigger jets, free flowing exhaust, better plugs, hotter coil, cooler thermostat, etc. will all help wake it up.

Perfect candidate for water injection!

Your best tuneup: R&R 460 with a fuel-injected 302.

Dan gave you some good advice. Adding to that, run Premium fuel and advance the timing until it starts to ping WFO, then back off 1 degree. I love the platinum spark plugs. Bosch seem to work better for me, but I've only put 3 sets (+ 1 set of Ford platinums) in my 302 so far so I don't have a large installed base to go on. I quit the automotive field in '85 so most of my tune-ups were on non-injected engines.

(Oh, WFO is a Wide F*ckin' Open throttle)

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Water injection?... Please explain

/peter

And be sure the power valves are good. A bad one makes it run rich and kills your fuel economy (what little you have with a 460, anyway). That motor may use a 2-stage power valve - more expensive but saves gas at part-throttle.

We sold a ton of these in Holley back around 1980. I still have one NIB if anyone is interested. Doesn't look like I will be using it.

- - Rex Burkheimer Fort Worth TX

Tom Gardner wrote:

I'd put one of the Edelbrock carbs on it. I replaced the DP Holley on my old 360 with the Edelbrock, everything got better. Better throttle response, better mileage, no flat spot, all good and no bad.

John

Find a boat ramp and inject the vehicle into the water. Also known as the bubble test.

Ron Thompson On the Beautiful Florida Space Coast, right beside the Kennedy Space Center, USA

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Thanks All,

The truck isn't worth much and I am trying to keep this project cheap, so new motors, carbs, headers etc are out. I'll just fiddle with the timing.

BTW what is a "Power Valve"?

Jake

JohnM wrote:

Crikey, I thought he was talking about the actual water injector of J.C. Whitney infamy. They even got put on CA vehicles to meet early vehicle smog certification standards. Most of them leaned out the engines enough to fry them. I always wondered if the state commissioners got a kickback from those idiotic things.

LJ--Who turned in his Smog License in 1982.

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The initial timing parameters also include whether the vacuum advance line is connected or not. It depends on where the distributor gets its advance vacuum from: below the throttle butterfly, so that at idle there is large vacuum, or through a port that enters the carb bore

*just* above the throttle plate's closing point so that at idle there's no vacuum. Different engines used different sources. If the vacuum source is below the throttle, the vacuum line needs to be disconnected and plugged while you set initial timing, or you will actually end up with a very retarded setting and a sluggish engine, since vacuum will drop as soon as the throttle is opened and the timing will back off to some useless setting. You could pull the line off the distributor and determine whether there's vacuum there at idle, or find a Ford Truck maintenance manual and see what it says. Even if you couldn't figure it out, you could safely remove that line, plug it, set the timing and see what happens.

Dan

The power valve is one of the bad Holley ideas.. it varies the fuel mixture depending on manifold vacuum. Good carbs have metering rods..

If you were to get any improvement like I got when I swapped on the Edelbrock carb, you'd find the thing pays for itself pretty soon, especially at the price of fuel today.

I used to live out in your area, it was pretty cool. A bit whacky at times, but overall cool.

John