Resurrecting the Rambler

[GarysZ24]

I like what I'm hearing about your car, and it's just a matter of time until you're out-running my Cavalier. That Stocker engine and tranny rebuild should do it, and I look forward to reading about it. As for my car, I'm looking to try those E3 Diamond Fire spark plugs, to see if the'll finally get me into the 14's, because per last years Winternationals, I just missed it by .015 seconds! I wish Accel was still popular with their Calmaps, because I have one of them in my car, but need to find software to upload it into a computer I can use to change my air/fuel mixture some more, and I'm wanting to find another .3 seconds before I start trying to attend Indy! I refuse to go there from Phoenix, until I know my car will run at least .85 under my 15.60 index, because I won't go all the way out there just to make some qualifying runs and class run(s)....I want to be in the Big Go Show too!!!!

Last year it took a run of -.893 under the index to be the 128th qualifier, and at Pomona my best run in qualifying had me -.580 under my DF/S index of 15.60, so I know what I need to do and I hope the E3 plugs help my cause in getting there...I'll find out in less than 2mths! Good luck with what's next for your car.

What type of converter are you putting in there? Mine's an A1 8" that's designed to stahl at 3600rpm. That, and a 3.73 final drive ratio in my tranny help me get 1.96 60ft. times. I know what you said about the weight of your car, but I'm hoping that the minimum weight for T/SA is less than your car weighs with you in it, so you might find some other things you can remove from it to shrink at least to within 30lbs of the minimum weight. I wish I had more weight to get rid of (sans me that is, lol), but I think I've removed all of the legal weight I can, and I still weigh 60-70lbs over my classes minimum, and I would be a stick with arms and legs if I took that much weight off of me....NOT HAPPENING!!!! LOL

[Pinballer]

Short of acid-dipping or drilling 1000 holes and Swiss-cheesing the front half of the car, which I'm told isn't legal, there isn't a whole lot else left to pare front end weight cheaply off of this ride other than--getting it off me. Neither of those first two options will happen. The "me" option is a possibility if I can get serious enough.

What a lot of people don't think about with my chosen combo is the AMC 6 is a very heavy engine, it weighs about the same as an AMC V8 does, but being real long in design, it also hangs more weight out ahead of the front tires than the 304 V8 would have. There's only so much you can do to offset that without going super expensive. And this is a "dime rocket", remember?
What weight I could get off the front during the build almost all had to get put into the back end to get the car back up to the legal T class weight, so there really wasn't a big net gain of weight savings for all the effort. What gain there was was to equal out the front/rear weight distribution better than it was before, and that was about it.

Gary--with my ride using a low-horsepower long stroke low-end torque motor that will hardly see 5000 rpm, I'm going to start out with a mild converter--around 2700 stall--and then advance up from there just a little bit if needed. On paper, it doesn't seem to need a whole lot. After 3200 stall, the gains are insignificant from what I'm seeing.

[Charlie A]

[rich freitag]

Nice to see a AMC stocker. I run Ford oil filter off a 460,it will fit your 6 cyl motor&holds more oil.

[Pinballer]

Thanks for the tip Rich, but more oil in the filter means more front end weight! (laugh)

[GarysZ24]

Originally Posted by Pinballer

Short of acid-dipping or drilling 1000 holes and Swiss-cheesing the front half of the car, which I'm told isn't legal, there isn't a whole lot else left to pare front end weight cheaply off of this ride other than--getting it off me. Neither of those first two options will happen. The "me" option is a possibility if I can get serious enough.

What a lot of people don't think about with my chosen combo is the AMC 6 is a very heavy engine, it weighs about the same as an AMC V8 does, but being real long in design, it also hangs more weight out ahead of the front tires than the 304 V8 would have. There's only so much you can do to offset that without going super expensive. And this is a "dime rocket", remember?
What weight I could get off the front during the build almost all had to get put into the back end to get the car back up to the legal T class weight, so there really wasn't a big net gain of weight savings for all the effort. What gain there was was to equal out the front/rear weight distribution better than it was before, and that was about it.

Gary--with my ride using a low-horsepower long stroke low-end torque motor that will hardly see 5000 rpm, I'm going to start out with a mild converter--around 2700 stall--and then advance up from there just a little bit if needed. On paper, it doesn't seem to need a whole lot. After 3200 stall, the gains are insignificant from what I'm seeing.

Well I'm glad that you were able to transfer some of the weight from the front to the back, because that'll be better for traction. Good luck with your combo, and I hope to see pics of the whole finished car soon!

[Pinballer]

Car is all put back together, up and running again, will head for the local 1/8th mile test track Friday evening to see how things are now. A short check-out drive up and down the road last Monday suggests that there should be big improvement on ET. Personally, I was just glad to see my mystery rebuilt transmission go through all the gears fine and nothing spraying out from underneath the car when I got done. An awful lot of stuff got changed and hopefully improved.
The auto shop owner where I work on the car at got real interested when the initial firing and break-in of the engine happened down in the end bay. Normally he kind of leaves me to myself down there unless I need him for help with something I can't do alone. After he helped with the idle mixture and timing adjustments, when we shut the motor down from the break-in period, he remarked "that is the most pissed-off sounding 6 cylinder I've ever heard".
Yeah baby.....

Public thanks need to go out to to Lyn Smith for a spare torque converter he had that got things hurried up on my re-do. We'll see how she works Lyn! Thank you.

[GarysZ24]

Sounding like it's going to get up and running really good! I wish you all the best at the 1/8th mile, and hope you get some runs in that blast past that T/SA 1/8th mile index of 9.04, this coming Friday!

[Pinballer]

Both good and bad to report this time. My one and only run at the test session netted me almost a full second off where I used to be on ET, (and this with a big hesitation at the throttle hit), but then I noticed a miss when I got back in the pits. Dead hole.

Back to the garage. (sigh)

[Pinballer]

The dead hole turned out to be a pushrod that somehow got out from under it's rocker arm on cylinder 2. Nothing was immediately found to cause this, I pulled the lifter out for a look too and it was all right, so I'll have to watch for this a little closer in the future.

Everything is buttoned back up and we'll go try again soon. Presently making some changes to the fuel system before I go, the pressure was too high. New regulator on the way to replace my ancient used one as it won't adjust down any more.