Damned car... I wanna kill it! but I love it so... but it annoys me so...

The otehr day I put a larger metering plate in my Holley 4160, since I leaned out my primary jets a little a while back and noticed it had a little less power (did get me a tad more mileage).

Put the plate in the other day and it leaked. Dripped down on the butterflys which made it rich, would barely idle and would die if I gave it any throttle. Pulled it out and put another gasket on it, noticing how the plate it wasn't quite flat. Leakedslightly down one bore. I tightened the screws a little (I had only gone finger tight using a small screw bit). That stopped the dripping once the car was turned off and it seemed to run better, though my idle seemed a bit off.

Idle speed was a little low and vacuum was a little low. So I decided today I would lap the metering plate to ge tit flat. So I did that, got it to where it seemed quite flat, and then cleaned it out real good, then put it back on. Can ran nicely, vacuum still semmed a little low though, but the car seemed to run well so I didn't bother with it. Drove out to the music store to get the girl a CD she's been wanting, then drove back home by way of Sunoco to fill up. Filled up with 93 and drove the 1-2 minutes home. Car ran well for that trip.

Then tonight I go to pick up the girl (she's been away for the week). Car drives nicely for about 2-3 minutes then start running very poorly. Idling eratically, backfiring lightly out the exhaust while idling in neutral, misfiring. To get home I had to feather the gas constantly at lower RPM and it wouldn't idle in gear. I drove home in 1st and 2nd gear to keep teh RPM up so it wouldn't stall. If RPM went too high it would fall on its' face and wanna stall, too low and the same (unless I feathered the throttle). When I got home and got out of the car I smelled gas.

Not sure what the deal is with it but I imagine it has something to do with the metering plate. I shoulda just left well enough alone, but oh well. Tomorrow I'm gonna pull my plugs and make sure they aren't fouled, and put the original metering plate back in.

That's just my theory on it, that the metering plate may be leaking again or it fouled the plugs. I do have a fresh set of Autolite 45s I may put it in tomorrow morning since I'll be checking plugs anyway. We'll see.

Either that or I got some really bad gas. That's theoreticall possible because the distance from the gas station to home I may not have even gotten to using any of the new gas. I find that unlikely though, as Sunoco is pretty much the best gas there is.

I'm thinking maybe at Carlisle this year I'll pick up an Autolite 4100 and rebuild it. I like the simplicity of those carbs. No fuel leaks, very reliable, I like heat chokes better than electric chokes, and it ought to give better mileage than the Holley. Tomorrow is another day.

At least I got to see my girlfriend and man oh man was she happy to see me! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img] So That kidna makes me less upset about the car, but it's still a little frustrating nonetheless, so be pulling the carb apart so many times over these couple days. Oh well, I'll get it straightened out in the morning.