Re: The 2010 FrankenMerc Project
Battery came up quick.. Gotta love the old Interstate's.
I first made sure my spark gap tester was setup for 1/4" gap and that all the cables were tight and secure.
I hit the remote starter and the tach said 439 RPM. That's ample to do the checks that need to be done.
First I did a compression test. All cylinders were at 115 even. With a plateau finish on the cylinders this number will likely not improve after break-in and it's fine for now. I'll decide if I want to cut the heads and bring the compression up to 125 later.
Next I opened up the gap on my gap tester to 7/16 and cranked it over. I had a nice bright blue spark on all six so I closed it back down to 1/4" for the remainder of the test. There's no sense in stressing the coils like happens at 7/16 but it is a necessary test and tells you everything you need to know about your ignition systems health. When I was cranking I was producing 13.6 volts on my timing light so the charging system is healthy. No need to break out the DVA on this engine!
The next step was to rig up a Bungee cord to hold the throttle wide open and setup max advance timing. This is where the get the term WOT Timing that you see so much. I have two cylinders (3,4) that are 1 degree advanced over the rest so my WOT Timing will be 24 BTDC (numbers on the left side of "0") degrees.
Now I take the bungee off and hold the throttle against the idle stop. The intial timing can be set anywhere between 0 and 9 ATDC (numbers on the right side of "0") degrees, I set it at 4 and then leave the nut loose. The engines idle is controlled by the intial timing setting and not by anything in the fuel system. This might be hard to understand if you're use to working on your car but this is the way these motors work.
4 degrees might be a little too much and the idle will probably be around 1000 RPM but it will probably need that to get running and burn all the excess oil out. After the first 1/2 hour I'll adjust it down to 800.
Battery came up quick.. Gotta love the old Interstate's.
I first made sure my spark gap tester was setup for 1/4" gap and that all the cables were tight and secure.
I hit the remote starter and the tach said 439 RPM. That's ample to do the checks that need to be done.
First I did a compression test. All cylinders were at 115 even. With a plateau finish on the cylinders this number will likely not improve after break-in and it's fine for now. I'll decide if I want to cut the heads and bring the compression up to 125 later.
Next I opened up the gap on my gap tester to 7/16 and cranked it over. I had a nice bright blue spark on all six so I closed it back down to 1/4" for the remainder of the test. There's no sense in stressing the coils like happens at 7/16 but it is a necessary test and tells you everything you need to know about your ignition systems health. When I was cranking I was producing 13.6 volts on my timing light so the charging system is healthy. No need to break out the DVA on this engine!
The next step was to rig up a Bungee cord to hold the throttle wide open and setup max advance timing. This is where the get the term WOT Timing that you see so much. I have two cylinders (3,4) that are 1 degree advanced over the rest so my WOT Timing will be 24 BTDC (numbers on the left side of "0") degrees.
Now I take the bungee off and hold the throttle against the idle stop. The intial timing can be set anywhere between 0 and 9 ATDC (numbers on the right side of "0") degrees, I set it at 4 and then leave the nut loose. The engines idle is controlled by the intial timing setting and not by anything in the fuel system. This might be hard to understand if you're use to working on your car but this is the way these motors work.
4 degrees might be a little too much and the idle will probably be around 1000 RPM but it will probably need that to get running and burn all the excess oil out. After the first 1/2 hour I'll adjust it down to 800.
