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Goes un-noticed. Today while I was rushing to get a lot of stuff finished before winter I got a call and text from the guy who bought the 400 SBC from me asking if I could come over and look at his friends cars as he was having trouble. Now the guy I sold my engine to is one great dude and has gotten screwed over as I helped him with his BBC Chevelle a few years ago. I said I would come over, got there waited for a bit and then he shows up with a '79 T/A and his buddy had a '70 Olds Cutlass convert (mint) that runs like crap. Whoever is tuning theses guys cars should be shot. So I adjust the carb right and then he askes me to check the timing, "sure not a problem" I told him. The engine had 28° initial timing, WHAT??? and another 30° in the distributor, WOW. So I set that back to 4° BTDC and the car ran like a swiss watch and the guy was very happy.
He then asks if I would go over to his house to look at his newly acquired (MINT) '87 Monty Carlo SS with a 383 built SBC that is a total mess. Again when I got there I was floored by how nice this car was and there was a newly installed 383 with a 750 Brawler on it that he hated. He starts it up and it run like a top fueler then dies out, Humm....I diaged the car and found one big vacuum leak, fixed that but it ran like it still had another. I asked who put the carb on and he told me the guy did not know what the heck he was doing, ok. As I assessed the problem I noticed both fuel bowls were full to the top of the sight glass dripping fuel over and I had to get that fixed first, then I moved on to what I found was the main problem, the carb sitting off the gasket as they did not see that hitting the big GM vacuum fitting in back of the intake. I got that all squared away re-set everything on the Brawler and told him to fire it up. The car stared right up, I re-set the floats and idle mixture screws inc. the idle setting. I said "still want to send this Brawler carb back?" He just laughed and shook his head. He asked what he owed me and I said "whatever you think is fair". He hands me his old Slayer 750, an Eddy 650 Thunder carb and $50 for gas. I said it's too much but he insisted, said he will never use them. I love fixing cars that are this mis-tuned and seeing the look on a guys face when his car runs like a top makes my day. Now the guy wants me to re-build 2 other SBC's for him. I'm gonna need a bigger garage.
He then asks if I would go over to his house to look at his newly acquired (MINT) '87 Monty Carlo SS with a 383 built SBC that is a total mess. Again when I got there I was floored by how nice this car was and there was a newly installed 383 with a 750 Brawler on it that he hated. He starts it up and it run like a top fueler then dies out, Humm....I diaged the car and found one big vacuum leak, fixed that but it ran like it still had another. I asked who put the carb on and he told me the guy did not know what the heck he was doing, ok. As I assessed the problem I noticed both fuel bowls were full to the top of the sight glass dripping fuel over and I had to get that fixed first, then I moved on to what I found was the main problem, the carb sitting off the gasket as they did not see that hitting the big GM vacuum fitting in back of the intake. I got that all squared away re-set everything on the Brawler and told him to fire it up. The car stared right up, I re-set the floats and idle mixture screws inc. the idle setting. I said "still want to send this Brawler carb back?" He just laughed and shook his head. He asked what he owed me and I said "whatever you think is fair". He hands me his old Slayer 750, an Eddy 650 Thunder carb and $50 for gas. I said it's too much but he insisted, said he will never use them. I love fixing cars that are this mis-tuned and seeing the look on a guys face when his car runs like a top makes my day. Now the guy wants me to re-build 2 other SBC's for him. I'm gonna need a bigger garage.
JK....Maybe LOL, I gotta get mine over to the builder for a tune since I can't seem to Tunafish on this new motor
