Sorry I didn't see this thread in time to be any help. What I would list as important would be the following: -studs for the mains and heads. Threads do tend to pull out of the block at the upper torque specs and the heads tend to get loose. -close clearances for all bearings to maintain oil pressure, including rocker shafts and lifters -double groove front cam bearing for better oiling of the off side. -about .080" lifter preload to control lifter tap -all recommended oiling mods including drilling the pickup journal to 5/8", using the V6 pick-up, porting the pump and booster plate, radiusing the corners, and setting the pump end clearance as tight as possible. Any of these things you can still do will only help. Jim
So I got the engine put together and started. Was hard to get it to start, but we're able to get it fired by advancing the distributor. Broke the cam in that part seemed to go great. I can not get the engine to idle below 2000 rpm? I can get it to lower a bit by retarding the distributor but it is still very high. Any ideas?
I went around with carb cleaner spraying for leaks. Sprayed by the throttle linkage and the engine idle went higher. So I take it this is a vacuum leak? The carb Is a Edelbrock 500 is it fixable?
I took the carb off took it apart. Cleaned the shafts adjusted the floats, they were a Lil off. Put the carb back on with a new gasket. Started it up and got it to idle normal. Sprayed around for any leaks and didnt find any. Still wants to die or become sluggish if I'm heavy on the gas at take off. Could that be that I need to get a stall? Is the a stall I can get for a dual path tranny?
I'd look into the idle mixture, accelerator pump and timing some more. Play around with those and see if it makes a difference first. You might be getting too much of a splash, or not enough off idle. I had that issue and it was a poor idle mixture, tuned it to factory specs (not max vacuum) and it was great - setting the dwell and timing throughout every small change got it going correctly. 500 cfm is pretty big for the 215??
500 cfm is what was recommended. There motor isn't stock. The guy I talked to at is isky said I would be fine up to 600. There cam is a 270h. I have the screws out 2.5 turns. If I take them out to about 3.5 turns idle starts getting higher.
Also thought I would add that I installed a pertronixs conversion in my distributor. Any chance my problem could be here?
Try advancing your timing to see if that helps. Have you power timed it using Larry's thread? If these things don't help it is probably fuel related.
I'm starting to get Discouraged with this buick build. Nothing is going right lol. So I was messing around today and realized that my generator isn't charging... could that lead to my problem with the car dying when I accelerate fast? I have only taken the car out of the garage and down the alley. Have yet to actually drive it. Would I be able to mount my original qjet to the new performer intake? I'm thinking the Edelbrock carb is my main problem. Lol I have no buick guys around me to go to for assistance... everyone I know ow is a Chevy guy. If I have a question, they laugh at me and tell me my problem is that it's buick...
As long as the battery is still close to 12v the dead generator won't cause the problem. Have you checked/adjusted the timing yet? I would do that before anything else. A bog in acceleration is very often caused by timing that isn't advanced enough. If the carb you refer to as the original one was factory original for that engine it won't be a Q-jet as the didn't come out until the late 60s I think.
Sorry meant to say 4jet. Would the 4jet perform better than the edelbrock? I have messed with the timing and looked over the power timing thread. My timing gun quit working on me the other day, so I can't say for sure where it is at atm, been trying. My buddy had set the timing for me when we broke the cam in. He said he set it up the same as 350 buick.
Another thing I thought I would mention is that when it dies if I hit the throttle vapors will come from the carb.
> realized that my generator isn't charging... could that lead to my problem with the car dying when I accelerate fast? Yes. A strong spark will help. You can buy a little spark tester that looks like a see through spark plug with a grounding clamp. Note that Pertronix and similar points replacement devices don't increase the spark strength. Unless you have a capacitive discharge box or HEI, the spark will be relatively weak (you can compare to a modern car using the same spark tester). > Would the 4jet perform better than the edelbrock? No and it would be more difficult to find tuning parts for the 4jet. I have no experience with the Dual Path transmission but I suspect your cam may be too large for the stock stall speed and gearing. You can test this by checking the foot stall and where the engine comes on cam. With a tachometer hooked up, apply the brakes and throttle at the same time while the transmission is in gear. How high does the RPM rise? Next, find an area where you do some acceleration runs. This is usually easier to notice in high gear. If you depress the accelerator slowly enough that it doesn't bog or downshift, you should be able to feel when the engine "comes on cam". Isky says the 270 HL will start pulling around 2000 RPM but that assumes a larger displacement than your 215 so expect it to be above that RPM. Dan Jones
Actually, read the post smar started about edelbrock carbs. Jim Weise pointed out some facts backed by dyno test that they lean out on upper rpm cruise.
> read the post smar started about edelbrock carbs. Jim Weise pointed out some facts backed by dyno test that they lean out on upper rpm cruise. That was a Buick 455 with a 750 CFM Edelbrock AFB. I wouldn't expect the results to be the same for a Buick 215 with a 500 CFM AFB. The previous owner of my Triumph TR8 installed an Edelbrock 1404 500 CFM AFB on the Rover 3.5L (same as a Buick 215. Out of the box (no tuning), it was quite rich. It did lean out at high RPM but it wasn't the carb's fault. I welded O2 bungs just aft of in the header collectors and use a wide band O2 sensor to monitor the air-fuel ratio. It was rich in 1st, 2nd and 3rd but would go lean at the top of 4th gear and in 5th. Turns out the fuel filter I had (one of those metal mesh filters in a glass tube) was too restrictive. Holding it up to the light, I could see through the mesh so it didn't appear clogged but the wideband knew better. By the time I hit fourth, the fuel bowls had drained enough to cause the mixture to go dangerously lean. A larger diameter clear plastic fuel filter (Purolator F21111) fixed that problem. After that, the carb was rich across the board. I kept a log of my tuning steps and posted the results here: http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?6,10242 That was an 8:1 compression engine with a different cam and tri-y headers the rods, jets, springs and accelerator pump setting that I ended up with would likely be different from what Boatail72 needs. I tuned an Edelbrock 750 AFB on a 500 HP 428CJ in Cobra replica that was dangerously lean. The owner had a local dyno shop tune the carb but the operator was a Holley guy and didn't know AFB's very well. Even lean, the car would run the quarter mile in the 11 second range as driven to the track on street tires and drove fine on the street without any obvious bogs or lean surging. The part the dyno operator didn't understand was the power enrichment. Instead of a power valve for enrichment like a Holley, the Carter/Edelbrock AFB's use a rod and jet arrangement. A 2 step tapered rod, controlled by a vacuum-referenced, spring-loaded piston, moves up and down in the jet to provide two different area main metering orifices. This allows the carb to adjust the air-to-fuel ratio for differing loads, as sensed by the vacuum level. When the vehicle is cruising, the rod is on the lean step. Under high load, low vacuum, conditions the rod moves to the rich step. With a Holley, you generally want/need the power valve (enrichment) to be open (adding additional fuel to richen the mixture) whenever the engine is under high load (accelerating hard, pulling a hill, towing a load, etc.). You want the opening point high enough that it doesn't close at WOT at high RPM as the carburetor builds depression. As an example, if the engine can pull 2.5 inches at WOT near maximum RPM, you would want to have about a 4.5 power valve (or maybe higher). On the other hand, if the engine has a cam with a lot of overlap, the power valve opening point needs to be low enough to prevent premature opening at low speeds due to the low vacuum caused by the cam overlap. Note the power valve only determines when the additional fuel is added. How much fuel is added is determined by diameter of the power valve channel restrictors (PVCR's). In an AFB, the step-up springs (color coded to an opening point) serve the same function as the power valve opening point and the difference in the area of the thin end of the rod and the jet determines how much fuel (enrichment) is delivered. You still need to make sure the right spring is chosen to prevent premature opening due to cam overlap at low speed and idle and closing under high vacuum at high RPM WOT. In addition to springs of different stiffness (spring rate), the length of the spring can be altered to change the opening/closing points. Also, there are rods that are/were available from Carter that weren't available from Edelbrock. I sometimes need to come up with combinations of rods and jets that aren't on the Edelbrock tuning charts so mix and match Carter and Edelbrock parts. Before they closed shop in 1985, Carter was located here in town (St. Louis, MO) and had a machine shop that made custom rods for tuning. I've got some of their tuning literature that makes a nice supplement to the Edelbrock AFB owners manual. Dan Jones
Decided I am going to rebuild the carb this week end to see if it will help. It is the only part of my build that wasn't new. I was assured it worked perfect though. I am also going to rebuild the generator while I'm at it. Put a new regulator on yesterday and It didn't help. Then I am also using one of those clear glass filters Dan mentioned soo I will be replacing that also.
