1963 Imapla 4-door Sport Sedan (a.k.a. “Hardtop”)
Tired old 327/Powerglide were long gone before I got the car.
Now running an ‘80’s vintage 350 with Vortec heads, gear drive, street/strip cam, drinking from a 750cfm Holley 4610.
Most of the rubber on the car probably came off the assembly line with it down in Van Nuys.
Been reworking the window seals and need to get a body mount kit underneath it.
Crazy thing happened the other day — it snapped the sway bar tab off the driver’s side lower control arm, so a front end suspension rebuild is in the offing; control arms and sway bar links.
Prolly clean up the steering gear while I’m into it that far.
Runs well enough but I think it wants a tweak on the tune, so I anticipate some playtime with the initial advance, centrifugal advance, and the accelerator pump cam.
Oh, and it HATES the hot weather.
Fine in the morning, but not good the last 20 minutes coming home.
Once it gets up past 192, if I’m an any kind of slow traffic, it just keeps creeping up and up. It’s hit 230 a few times this summer and I do not like that at all.
So, a revamp of the cooling system is on the books as a Fall/Winter project.
But I want to tackle the tune first; I have a bug in the back of my brain suggesting it may be running a tad too lean; that if I get the mix closer to 12:1 than 14:1 that might be enough to cool it down to where it’d run in a happier thermal range and save me the trouble doing too much to the cooling.
Lol, you’re going to be busy and wind up with a completely new car.