'70 AMX C/S or D/S

[Jeff Lee]

Finally, my AMX see's sunlight after 7 years! Gawd, I didn't think it was that long, guess time fly's when you have four little ones growin' up and no money! Gave the go ahead to start up the project around February 2012. Finally made it to the front of the line at the shop.

I blew off the layer of dust, washed it and even waxed it. Not a scratch on it while it sat in the barn all these years. Yes, I bonded with my AMX today...

As I had sold the Stock rear suspension (I had bought a 4-link and was going to build a serious SS chassis), I had to buy from Calvert again as I made the financial decision to go back to Stock. Funny how that kind of horse tradin' looses one a lot of money!

This Tuesday is last day on dyno then get the engine back in the car by Wednesday.

Here's the crew, left to right, Bud Yancer, Clint Yancer and me:



And here she is all prettied up!

[Paul Hellenberg]

Jeff

Congrats on finally getting close. I know all about the trading and changing ideas and the associated cost, been there, done that way too many times.

[Wade Mahaffey]

I like it....it deserves to see the race track again....it's natural habitat! LOL Need more pictures of the cool stuff!

Wade Mahaffey

[JP]

Feed us with more pics and details.
:-)

[Jeff Lee]

Here's what a "proper" stocker cam designed by Spiro Jennings sounds like through the dyno mufflers at around 2,000 RPM. This was just a break-in the cam session; one of three. Oh, cam was broke in with race springs @ 460#'s - 470#'s and Gibbs break-in oil mixed 50/50 w/ Rotella diesel oil. We've got 3 cam break-in runs of about 5 minutes each, 3 light load acceleration runs to break in the rings and I think maybe 8-10 full pull dyno runs. No wear whatsoever on the cam or lifters. Cam and lifters are coated at the shop with a compound he developed along with Tech Line.
I'm not going to post dyno #'s, sorry! But I think it will run pretty good.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSLS1fZciv8"]NHRA 1970 AMC 390 Stock Eliminator D/S - YouTube[/ame]

And here is the first or second pull. This is an old Stuska dyno. It has seen plenty of Pro Stock, Pro Stock Truck and many a Comp engine over the years, It is not state of the art but it gets the job done and the engine runs down the track just as predicted. Noteworthy to those not familiar is that the engine is manually accelerated to the predetermined RPM (still has rev limiter) and THEN brake is applied and TQ is measured on the way down in RPM. Power was no were near the 8,000 RPM we hit here, just wanted to see where it was.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TImhi1IBeQ0"]Jeff Lee - October 05, 2013 NHRA Stock Eliminator Dyno 1970 AMC 390 - YouTube[/ame]

[Rod Greene]

Hi Jeff, You make me want to work on my old heap. Did you notice the carb flange nut moving in the vid? When are you gonna hit the track? I may have to ride my Harley over to watch.

[Jeff Lee]

Rod, you and I have been out for about the same amount of time (2006 Las Vegas Nat's was my last race and that was in SS/H), right? Well, we've both given these other guys 7+ years to catch up! I'd consider you a worthy adversary, so yea, put that 340 Six Pack Challenger back on kill and that's go heads up. It would be a blast! Call me up @ 602-418-9797 and I'll tell you what road to take on that Harley.

[Jeff Lee]

Originally Posted by Rod Greene

Hi Jeff, You make me want to work on my old heap. Did you notice the carb flange nut moving in the vid? When are you gonna hit the track? I may have to ride my Harley over to watch.

Yes, I did notice that. Hope we torqued the rod bolts down better than the carb nut!

[impstocker]

Jeff, I wasn't aware you were not racing the AMX, glad your getting back into it. I remember you helped me when i ran the Jerico and Mcleod clutch in '04 in my 68 Impala i/S car, I am building a 65 Impala now but will start with an TH350- I don't have the jerico anymore- I started a thread in the race car builds section too-

Will Lamprecht
Div 1 - 65 Impala I/SA

[Jeff Lee]

Geez Will...hope the turbo trans wasn't my doing!

Final pull on the dyno today. Made 13 pulls and the last was about the same as the first. I've never made so many pulls before but from #1 it was down as much as 30 HP here and there with no mechanical issues to contribute towards the loss.

One of the things that has bugged Bud Yancer from the first time he took the QFT carb apart was that the emulsion jets were installed from the factory with blue lock-Tite. That made it difficult to take the jets out. In the back f his mind was the concern that Lock-Tite may be were it wasn't supposed to ne internally.
So we had this constant issue. The fuel pounds per hour was always around 130-140. The flow meter was suspect. But it seemed to check out on multiple tests. The new Windows based dyno program was suspect. On the computer, we never got a real good handle on the fuel issues. The O2 was not recording to the computer. So we had to watch the display. So we adjusted fuel & timing doing it the old fashioned way of reading plugs for timing & jetting.
Then, late today there was an issue, sounded like a valve or something let loose. Pulled valve covers off and all it was was an intake adjuster that had loosened up. Guess who lashed the valves last? Oops! Checked valve lift to make sure there was no damage and ran it again.
This time we pulled 260#'s of fuel. Finally, whatever the heck the problem was found a way to fix itself. Now we could properly adjust fuel & timing and in the end, we were -1HP & -1 TQ off of pull #1. Even found some power in retarding the timing in one cylinder. Made one last pull and it was still the same numbers. That's it, done.
Now to get it in the car...