I finally got approval for my son (14) to take the Mav down the track tonight. He can't race another car and I have to ride with him - which is exactly what I was hoping for. Guess we'll see if he can beat his old man's runs from last week I switched to the lighter vacuum secondary spring (yellow) on our Holley 670 Street Avenger. Was going to pick up new jets on the way home. The carb came stock with 68's/72's. I found a posting (here or somewhere online) where some guy running a 331 Ford stroker (same as us) in a Mustang had much better results switching to 72's/80's. Thoughts...???
Have fun! As far as the jets, I would recommend cleaning the plugs before your run. Make a pass, cool off and then pull #1 and #8. Read 'em and base your jets off of your findings. This might be a little bit more into than you want, but that's what we do.
We had fun - the car is heck for consistent. My first pass off the trailer was an 8.3/83 again. But I did improve my light to 0.015 !!! But is trouble brewing...??? The car got hot after a few runs - okay, that's understandable - but wouldn't cool back down below 200....hmmmmm. We put it on the trailer and headed home. Today, I checked the coolant - about 2/3 a gallon low....hmmmm. No drips or puddles anywhere around...hmmm. Checked the oil...oil level is good and oil is crystal clear - looks like it just went in. However, there was a milky white sludge clinging to the dip stick...hmmmm. Cleaned off dip stick...looked in dipstick tube...saw a little more milky sludge...cleaned it off too...hmmmm. Dip stick back in, back out, more mikly white sludge. Not a lot, but it's there, almost like there may be a thin layer of it sitting on top of the oil...hmmm. Again, oil is crystal clear - not chocolate mikly and not foamy. But I'm not so happy about this sludge stuff. Hoping, praying, fingers crossed that I don't have a blown head gasket...or worse...hmmmmm...
could just be condensation,I knew a guy that bought a pinto years ago from someone who only drove it to store about 2 blocks away, never drove it father for several months, I just knew it had water in oil but a good 10 mile trip on highway and problem was gone for good ,losing water doesn't sound too good though, fingers crossed for you!
With the engine being stubborn about cooling, I would check the thermostat for sticking too. 200 degrees isn't really all that bad. The last "hot" passes I made the car hit near 250. I had to run cool water over the radiator with the fans and engine running to get the temp to drop. Also the reason for low coolant level could be passed off just due to beating on the car. In my experience, the loosing coolant is usually due to running hard. My last car ran coolant out after every pass. Also check to see what your trans temp is. A hot trans can dramatically affect engine temp too. Good luck.
