Betty White, the now not so neglected race car

[HRH]

I also had my sticker guy make one for the back decklid. Reminds me not to take things too seriously.



And here's what I was playing with today. Gotta love the 15,000 pound forklift. I call her Big Bertha

[HRH]

So I got quite a bit accomplished on Betty White yesterday. Got the new injectors installed. Ended up fucking off the fuel rail when I removed the injectors. I didn't realize they were so close to the nipples in the injectors. Should have cut the hose with a razor knife, instead used snips. Yep, squashed the end of one shut, mildy squashed two others. Ended up putting it in the vise and cutting off the squished end then stuck a centering punch in and tapped it back to mostly round. Below the bell, so no issues with sealing, thankfully.

Changed out the bad vacuum advance on the distributor. Removed the little water pipe that goes to all the air bleed stuff on the manifold, ended up putting a bolt in the small section up from the water neck. Not ideal, but better than yanking off and welding up that outlet or using an early one without the outlet. Also put the old (new) fuel pressure regulator from Ugly Betty on the car as well. A nice Aeromotive unit. Unfortunately I think the gauge is going to hit the hood, so I may need to hole saw the hood ( I've already fucked it up and cut shit) or make a little elbow piece to relocate the gauge. We'll see. And apparently I didn't take a picture of it all back together so I'll have to do that today. Still runs rather crappy, haven't figured out the workings of the Motec completely. Got it better, but not happy yet.

[HRH]

Ah hah, here is the finished picture! Decided against fiddling with it today, going to wait until this Friday when it's supposed to be 53 high, that'll be a lot nicer with the door open.

[HRH]

Also confirmed timing spec is 20 DBTDC at 700 rpm, and compression ratio is 7.4:1 on the turbo engines. Suuuuuper low.

[DRIVEN]

I was up there Thursday. Did you guys get snow like they promised?

[HRH]

Oh yeah, about 2-3 inches. It's already melted off. I bet it's gone by tomorrow or the next day. Definitely cold for a couple days though. It's been pretty nice, but 20 yesterday and 36 today, wind chill was nasty two nights ago.

[DRIVEN]

Too cold to work with the garage door open.

[HRH]

Yeah, I used up about the last of my wood in the woodshed on Saturday keeping it warm. That plus the propane heater got it 50-60 degrees in the shop, which was plenty warm enough.

[wayno]

It's been too cold for me to work outside/in the garage the last several days, very strong east wind the last couple days, it's supposed to warm up again this week.
I have no idea what your talking about most the time when your dealing with the electronics's so I don't have a lot to say, but I am reading it all.

[HRH]

That's ok Wayno, I don't have any idea about the electronics either. That's why it's taking me so long to get this right, lol.

[HRH]

Fuck fuck fuck, mother mother fuck, mother mother fuck, mother fuck, mother fuck, noids noids noids!

Well today was a lot of work to be annoyed. So after screwing around with suspension this morning and finding I couldn't do what I needed to do with the parts I had, I pulled the car out with the truck. The goal was get it running awesome! I kept trying to tune the car, and it just wasn't happening. And it seemed to be missing. Didn't seem to be a spark issue, but lopey idle except no cam. Not to mention it's still too rich or too lean. After a bunch of fiddling, I finally called the Datsun guru to get some clarity.

He suggested pulling the injector feeds while running, and/or checking for spark leaks, etc. So even though I just replaced all 6 injectors, I thought, good point, go back to basics. Checked spark, replaced the wires with a spare set I had. No change. Next, started taking off injector plugs. Wouldn't you know it, #2 and #4 had no change when disconnected!! I got annoyed and figured I'd gotten two bad injectors. Swapped connectors, no difference. Batch fire, so they all do the same thing. But after taking a break, I decided to test the injectors. They both clicked when voltage was applied, and I could watch the fuel pressure gauge drop. So I started it back up after confirming spark and listened with a stethoscope. All were clicking accordingly.

Unfortunately it was still missing, I figured I'd better check the compression to confirm no mechanical issue. Compression was 170,166,162,165,166,170, so no issues there. When the plugs were pulled however, #2 looked brand new with no carbon whatsoever, so clearly not firing. Or no fuel at all. #4 was super black, indicating too much fuel.

After many thoughts, the only thing left is an injector pattern test. I have an extra fuel pump, think I'm going to make a little test bench so I can yank the rail off and have it far away from the car then open them full and see what they're spraying like. Either I got two brand new injectors that are crap, or there's a blockage in the fuel rail, though I would be surprised. Something has to be causing an issue though.

Anyway, it's been a maddening day. The only good thing is I have a reason for why I can't tune the car, so I'm not just crappy at it. I may fiddle with it tomorrow or Sunday. I'll let you guys know what I find.

Oh, and the injectors were Intermotor FJ23s, new, not rebuilt.

[DRIVEN]

Can you just swap 1&2 and 4&5 injectors and verify that the miss stays with the cylinder or follows the injectors? Don't forget you can also use an infared temp gun on the exhaust runners too.


Also, Champions? I thought those were just for Dodge 318s.

[HRH]

Well, I COULD, but remember this is the annoying injector rail and injectors that come with little sections of rubber tubes. They're not particularly fun to deal with. But yes, once I get the whole thing off, I can swap injectors. I'd just rather not do that and reassemble only to find issues. What I'd really like to do, oooo, actually, I just thought of something. If I get a big clear rubbermade plastic container, I bet I can stick the entire rail in there and fire up the car for testing without worrying about catching things on fire! I'll still have to move it off to the side a bit. Wondering if I'll be able to see it well enough in a plastic container. I'd like to just spray it using the existing fuel pump in the car.

Yeah, it's had Champions, Autolites, and NGK in it. I actually have autolite 63s in it right now except one that was screwed, so it has a champion in that hole. I ran out of time to go get a few sets of NGK for testing.

And yes, thanks, I forgot about infrared and I have one. Only downside is I can't spot the runners due to the turbo manifold and clearance to the fenderwell. Too tight. Closest I could is spotting the water jacket on the plug side, but that's not that accurate.

[DRIVEN]

Dude, your cars are hard to work on.

[HRH]

Lol, yes, yes they are! I figured a way though. I made the fuel rail more easily removable when I did the injectors via a cut in the front hold-down and another section with two nuts that bridges it. So now, all I have to do is undo one nut and a bolt on the other side, and the whole injector rail can swing up from the intake and be moved. I figure I'll get some 5/16 hard line and just run an extension to the rail so I can have it 6 feet or whatever away and then just tap it into the existing system. Then I can actuate the fuel pump and manually operate the injectors for spray pattern.

The other thought I just had in the shower is if the intake valve is clogged partially or the lifter isn't working, that could also be an issue. It wouldn't backfire if it was closing, it would just go out the exhaust. I think that's less likely, but if I find the injectors all spray well, I'll need something else to look for. In which case I can check while the rail is off using the boroscope. It should fit down the injector hole. Pretty sure I checked all this when I had the engine apart and from the compression numbers I'd say it's good. It still seems odd to me to have two shitty brand new injectors. Time will tell, probably get to that Sunday or something. Or next week.

[DRIVEN]

https://www.ebay.com/i/264460082950?chn ... gLBZ_D_BwE

[HRH]

I could hear them all clicking at the same rate with the stethoscope. I'm beginning to wonder about a blocked fuel line though I can't see how that would have happened. I might get around to playing with itlater today. We shall see.

[HRH]

Ok, so I figured out yet again, what's wrong, but not what's wrong!

Got the rail off today, had a pigtail I made earlier with the top chopped off so it fits any square bosch injector plug. Ran that to alligator clips so I could open the injector fully. Swiveled the rail over and cut the top of a washer fluid bottle and fired up the fuel pump so the rail was pressurized, then connected the jumper and bingo, shot fuel into the washer fluid bottle. All injectors had nice healthy streams, and the fuel pressure was still holding at 32 psi from the previous day when I drove it into the garage.

So we have now confirmed:

1. Plugs are good, all firing.
2. Wires are good, same resistance between the old and new set, all working
3. Injectors good, fuel rail not plugged as it was run off the engine.

Now that we've eliminated spark and fuel, there's only one item left. Mechanical air. So even though the compression tested good, my Datsun guru and I suspect a sticking or bad lifter in the exhaust valve, which will richen up the cylinder like crazy because it can't push all the spent fuel out and will still show a good compression reading due to the slow engine turnover. The #2 that looked clean may have just been a bad plug. Either way, the valve cover is coming off. I have had a clacking lifter that pressurizes after warm, but apparently it still isn't operating. Or I have something else wrong in the valve department. Perhaps something is just out of adjustment. And come to think of it, I'm not sure if I have checked the valve clearances since it's been that long. Hell, I don't even know if the cam has a flat spot or something. I took pictures back in '16 but I can't see shit from what I took.

My plan was to just yank the valvetrain out of Wynona's old motor and stick it in the turbo head. But I have the 83 head, which has hydraulic lifters. I've been digging around and it appears it isn't that simple. Anyway, pretty sure that's it, as that's the only thing left.

But this FINALLY explains why I can't tune the damn thing! Just have to figure out if it's lifters/camshaft/mis-adjustment or what now.

Boom shak-a-lak! A little bit of searching found this. Timeserts. About 3/4 down the page. https://forums.hybridz.org/topic/50067- ... hat-to-do/

[DRIVEN]

Flat cam

[HRH]

Don't you jinx me!!