Is there a proper order to tuning a edelbrock 1405?

I tried to dismantle a old spark plug to make a positive stop... I can't get the porcelin and core out to place a bolt in there... just wasted a hour on that... drill, or a hammer and chissle didn't work. but I think my timing marks are pretty close to being right on. I was turning the crank by hand with my finger in the spark plug hole and when I hit tdc on the timing marks it wasn't building any more pressure...

It would be nice if I could find datalogging software for the laptop and a way to connect a wide band o2 sensor from a salvage yard to said laptop, that way I could do my own analysis

people keep telling me I'm to young to be feeling old but man I'm feeling old, there are some medical reasons that'll just suck the life right out of ya...

 

Just below where the porcelain meets the metal hex there is a crimp that you have to grind or cut off. Then the porcelain can be driven out from the electrode end of the plug. Then you cut or grind the side electrode off and then you can tap for a bolt or ready rod.

 

k thanks, also the sea foam thing are you talking about putting a can in the tank or the type thats in a spray can which I can't find anymore.

 

I have never seen sea foam in a spray can,

what I always do is put half the can in the fuel system.

Get the car running and up to operating temps

Bump idle speed up a couple houndered RPM

remove a vaccuum line and "slurp" up the other half of can, meaning half vaccum leak half sucking in the sea foam. Do this trying to keep the engine running and not stall it out slow emough not to stall but fast enough your throwing all of it out the exhaust.

as soon as all sea foam sucked up, turn ignition off.

Let car sit for about 45 minutes

start back up and enjoy smoke show. I have always been told the worse it smokes the more it cleans, doesn't make sense to me but the stuff does clean out well. Same theory as atf and kerosen mixed together the old school guys use to use.


I will also put a half bottle in engine oil before an oil change, meaning I put in half a can of sea foam in engine oil filler cap, and other half in fuel tank. Let ther car ONLY IDLE to warm up to operating temps, then change oil. Replace with fresh oil and filter, let idle again for a while so fresh oil in all the bearings and enjoy. Keep in mind and do this at your own risk that your washing all the oil out of the bearing cavaties in my opinion while doing this.

I had a friend put sea foam in on his way home from the auto store ( 10 miles from home) on the way to change his oil, when he got home something seemed to be knocking, changed oil all sounded well again, 2 days latter rod knock from hell. 4 rod bearings out of 6 destroyed. Was it driving with the sea foam, or just dumb luck ? Who knows, I don't take the chance.

 

Should I wait for my next fill-up or can I just put that half a can in the tank with the octain boost? I don't think mixing additives will be a problem but I usually try to stick with one additive per tank... just curious. thank you.

 

I would wait, rules out any problems caused by or cured by.

 

Fun with Sea Foam, poured some down the fast idle air tube on the GF's Nissan Z car. Filled the whole block up with smoke when she went to use it, LOL, boy was she pi$$ed!

 

Yeah I had 4 nieghbors come out of there house wondering what was on fire one saturday afternoon sea foaiming a friends corolla. Always at night in rural neighborhoods from that day forth LOL

 

I think I might have found my detonation issue... the other day I disconnected my vacuum advance and drove to work, no detonation... it was a pain to get it going from a stop though... so my question is if the vacuum advance goes bad can it over advance or get stuck advancing? or am I just looking in the wrong direction? btw it usually happens at around 2000rpms when I'm cruising at 70mph in 5th gear and I give it a little more, is that still in the "normal" vacuum advance area? thank you

 

Do you have the vacuum advance hose going to the correct port on the carb? there are two ports on the front of the carb, one on each side of the idle mixture screws. One is said in the instructions of the carb to be used with the vacuum advance, and the other is regular manifold vacuum. the difference I believe it the port that is dedicated for the vacuum advance INCREASES in vacuum as the butterflies open. the other port drwas vacuum from below the throttle plate so it DECREASES in vacuum as the butterflies open. I'd check this and the double check your initial timing. Then with vaccum hose off dist. double check that you are getting mechanical advance from the dist. then hook up hose and see how much total advance you get. I think a good base number would be 12 degrees base and around 30 degrees total advance and go from there to fine tune. you can adjust the mechanical advance amount by using different spring on the advance weights or tweaking the springs to make then stiff/looser as needed,

 

Just looked at your pics. It looks like your hose is on the correct port, the port on the drivers side of the idle mixture screws. If it is still in that port then I'd check your timing out like I said previously.

 

right now my base vacuum is 6degrees, I did have it on the left port which is ported vacuum the right port is manifold vacuum, according to the instructions one is for emissioned controled vehicles the other is for non-emissioned controled vehicles. on a older thread I was told to use the ported one before that I was using the total one. apparently one is based solely on manifold vacuum (total) and the other is metered in the carb (ported). I thought total would decrease vacuum as the butterflys open and as for the ported I haven't found out what exactly the behavior is with it (exactly how it functions). but by using either one I had detonation when using vacuum advance...

 

Have you had the distributor apart, does the breaker plate move freely? Have seen many times on old distributors where the plate gets stuck from dried up grease, missing/broken plastic sliders etc. Even saw once where the wire to the points had gotten brittle and didn't flex enough to allow the plate to move freely.

 

Well The way I figure it is you can use either port but they will advance adifferent amount based on RPM. Manifold Vacuum decreses under hard accelation because the butterflies open with decreases the vacuum pressure because it is easier to draw air through the carb. when the butterflies are more closed, like during cruising speeds, vacuum pressure is increased because the engine is still trying to draw the same amount of air but through a smaller butterfly opening. I have heard arguements both ways but Edelbrock reccomends using the drivers side port for our vehicles.

http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive_new/misc/tech_center/install/1000/1402.pdf

They call that port "Manifold Vacuum" but from what I understand is that port draws its vacuum from above the butterflies, thats how the amount of advance is increased as the rpms increase when the butterflies are opening. the other port "Timed Vacuum Port" is for emmisions eqipped vehicles where ported vacuum switches and other switches are used to control timing advance. I could be totally over thinking this but it makes sense to me.

Either way your base timing is too low for a performance engine. It is good at that base for emmisions testing purposes but not for power output. I'd bump up base timing and check total timing to make sure its around 30 degrees at 2500-3000 rpm. Then i'd move onto carb adjustments like too much or too little accelerator pump. It sounds like you may be too lean on the pump. if you accelerate slowly does it still POP or just under harder acceleration? the farther out you go on the accelerator pump arm the more squirt you get just to make sure you are going the right direction. Youmay have too soft of springs on the metering rods and not allowing it to step up to the smaller part of the rod but Ive never had to change out the springs on mine when i had it on my 302, I played with the springs a little when running the 347 and didnt seem to notice a difference but a wide band gauge mayhave told me otherwise.

 

You will notice any of those problems if you try to check for total vacuum as I said before. What distributor and ignition system are you using?