Oyaji

V6?? You meant "I-6", right? ;)

http://comancheclub.com/topic/41036-retired-stormtrooper/?p=414630 :)

Any acreage is good, more is better, and a good fence better still. Put up a gate and a sign, too, and you can shoot trespassers (in some states, anyway, I am told) if you are so inclined. :D

I am impressed. A half mile driveway implies your home is in the middle of your property, which would be a mile across. Since a square mile (1 mile X 1 mile) is 640 acres, I sure would hate to have to mow your yard! Maybe you have cattle for that? :)

O hell yeah! Looking forward to seeing both the stills and the video you have captured. I've always been curious as to what the Pacific NW have to offer for a surfari. Though I have been to 11 countries and sailed and surfed the Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, North and South Pacific, and the Indian Ocean, I never have gone north up the west coast above San Francisco. I always thought the water is too freaking cold up there!

You growing your whiskers out now?

How about WJ LCAs? (I know - it's bent a little...) http://jeep-xj.info/HowtoWJcontrolarms.htm

That there is some good advice. The only thing that might be better would be getting injectors that have been matched for flow, though considering modern quality control even that might be debatable. (Does anyone know the permissible flow spec deviation, that is, ± what % of flow is acceptable, for new injectors? If you do, chime in, please.) Flow-matching services on Ebay claim as good as ±0.5% for their offerings, which are old injectors cleaned, grouped for the amount they flow in a test fixture, painted, packaged, and shipped. One of our members here (who hails from Attala, AL iirc, but I forgot his name) recently had a problem with one of those services - maybe he will offer some advice on which outfit to avoid.

Actually, there IS a way to know that: by analyzing the exhaust gas from each cylinder individually. By analyzing the exhaust gas you can determine not only constituent gases in the burn, but also by inference determine the fuel efficiency and power too... and do it with incredible accuracy (within a tenth of a percent). [Note that this level of accuracy requires laboratory-grade equipment (Clayton steady-state eddy-current dynamometer and Horiba exhaust gas analyzer for starters, these days probably $2+million per test cell).] However, for the private enthusiast I reckon a setup with an oxygen sensor for each cylinder would return good results at an affordable price, if you absolutely just had to calculate the power for each cylinder. But practically speaking, I reckon just reading the plugs and using a single oxygen sensor is good enough: in the case of carbs you can know the amount of air to each cylinder is matched, in the case of fuel injection you can know the fuel to each cylinder is matched, and for either fuel system the plug color will give you a good idea about the quality of the burn of of the intake charge. ... Here's the big thing: the hard part about making power isn't getting fuel into a naturally-aspirated engine, it's getting the air in... and that is where an individual runner intake manifold is going to shine. The next limiting factor will be what the head will flow... and with just 2 pushrod-actuated valves per cylinder, that is going to be a real problem that makes forced induction increasingly attractive as you approach the breathing limit of the engine.

Webers go back, 'way back, into automotive history. There is a "cool factor" there that just cannot be quantified... and if you want that, well, there just ain't no substitute. They are also extremely tunable... provided you have (or have access to) a complete set of factory jets. A complete jet set costs more than the set of carbs (or at least they used to). To do a good job of tuning these carbs, you'll also need a mercury tube manometer (I made my own 4-tube manometer - it was extremely hard sourcing the mercury back 20 years ago, doubtless much harder post-9/11), a bajillion spark plugs or a bead blaster to clean them between trial runs (so you can read the deposits on the plugs for cues as to mixture settings), and an exhaust gas analyzer or surrogate thereof (a budget-conscious alternative is a fuel-air meter that uses an oxygen sensor for data source). You'll also need a guide or a book, a light touch with basic hand tools, ability to follow "recipe"-like directions, and patience. It's doable. Properly tuned, Webers offer good driveability over the entire RPM range. It's just that that "properly tuned" part is seldom achieved to its full potential (probably because of cost), and thus 1-barrel-per-cylinder individual-intake-runner setups get a bad rap. If you want to step into this century instead, digital engine management offers greater potential, particularly for economy. Whereas a superlative carburettor setup can unleash the full power potential of an engine, it burns more gasoline to achieve it with poorer driveability than what you can get with fuel injection. However, the learning curve is even steeper for learning all aspects of digital engine management so that you can do custom programming than it is for a 6-barrel individual runner setup such as you contemplate! :) I guess that if you are the type who enjoys the learning experience at least as much as the final product, the journey as much as arriving at the destination, then you'll get enjoyment either way you go. As an aside, you might take note that I will one day pull the primary venturis (chokes) from my Webers, block off all passages besides the throttle-plate throats, machine injector mounting bosses in my individual intake runners, and adapt a home-made fuel injection system to my engine. It will be cheaper to use the Webers for throttle bodies than to buy or make alternatives. Having enjoyed them in their current state, it will one day be time to move on to the higher performance afforded by digital engine management... and if I get nostalgic, I can always roll back to their original function.

Especially when they came directly from the chief engineer of R&D at Porsche GmbH. :)

Yes. Back when most makers were proud to get 75% volumetric efficiency from their offerings, Porsche was able to hit 105% using "pressure wave supercharging" by utilizing tuned intake stacks. :)

Considering your screen name, it figures that you would be impressed! I like 'em too... so much that when I get around to it, I'll make some 2-foot velocity stacks to boost mid-range power on my flat-4...

My entire post was direct and to the points raised by the OP.

If you had marginal antifreeze for the extra-cold temperature that day, your radiator could have frozen while driving, blocking coolant flow and causing the engine to overheat. Regarding the starter problem, if tapping on it nets no results, turn the engine a bit by hand and try the starter again - sometimes the starter gear is off just enough to not want to engage the flywheel, and a lilltle movement is all that's needed to get it to engage properly. If still no-go, check the connections all the way down the current path to the starter, both positive and ground (including the starter mounting). Once you have the starter able to turn the engine, if it still won't start, it's time to troubleshoot - and don't skip a compression check. You might have gotten it really hot...

I suggest starting here: $16.95 HP Books HP774: Book, "Weber Carburetors", 176 Pages, Paperback, Each - HP Books' Weber Carburetors explains the basics of carburetion design and theory of operation. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/hpb-hp774?seid=srese1&gclid=CNa1hf6n8LsCFSUOOgoda28A_g Read it to get a good idea about Webers, what they can do, and what you will need to know and buy to do your own tuning. If it sounds like too much for you, then at least you can make an informed decision about passing on them. If you decide to go for it, you'll find a wealth of info to help you among its pages. Either way, it's money well-spent before you dump a pile of money into what is ultimately a very expensive setup. Among all carbs, you can't do better. Compared to custom fuel injection, you'll never do as well. While checking out alternatives, look at MegaSquirt fuel injection. If you are comfortable with digital electronics and custom intake work, I'd say they offer the ultimate: http://www.msextra.com/ . . . . .

Dead on target to the original post, and the best advice.

Just an addendum to the above: when you run your engine with thinned oil (regardless of what you have added that thins it), you get less lubrication protection from it... thus it's a very good idea to run the engine only under light load and limited speed (RPMs) for limited duration (25-50 miles). Afterwards, the drained oil looks like either Hershey's Chocolate syrup or black roofing tar, depending on the nature of the deposits removed. The fella who taught me the trick (shop owner and former boss back in my youth) said using ATF would not only remove deposits by virtue of the lower viscosity and different additives, but would also liven up old seals to some degree. From the engines I have torn down after having used ATF to clean it before overhauling it, this would seem to be true. Engines so treated have been amazingly clean upon disassembly, with all sludge gone from under the valve cover. Even the piston ring grooves are clean! Rod bearings seem none the worse, still showing babbit... but note that since I never measured them before and after, all I can vouch for is that the bearings did not wear down to copper from the experience. I have used the method I described (adding 1 quart of ATF 50 miles before oil changes) uncounted (probably over 200) times over the last 30 years, and at least 3 times in the same engine with no apparent ill effects. It definitely slowed down oil seal leaks somewhat, presumably by softening the constituent rubber for a while.

I'm sure it bugs everyone here. When he says "anti-lock brakes", betcha he means this:

Sure works great - but looks expensive. How about this for a cheaper solution?

They both perform the same function - maintaining center for your pilot shaft - but bushings and bearings are different in what they are made of, their constituent parts, and how well they tolerate wear. A bushing is just one round solid piece with a hole in the middle, made of a softer material (like brass or bronze) than the rotating part that moves inside it, but for limited motion it does just fine. Over time it wears out. A bearing has races for balls or rollers inside, is made of hardened steel, and lasts about a bajillion times longer than a bushing. For a pilot shaft a bushing can be ok, since the clutch spends most of its time engaged (that is, locked to the crankshaft and turning with it, so there is no relative motion between the two and thus no wear in the engaged condition)... but if you have a tendency to sit for extended periods with your clutch disengaged (like at a traffic signal just keeping the pedal to the floor instead of shifting to neutral and letting the pedal up), that is a lot of rotation that adds a lot of wear for a bushing to handle. A pilot bearing is vastly superior in terms of longevity.

Is there no pilot bearing available? Only just a bushing? Has no one tried to source a sealed bearing of correct dimensions anywhere else, like from Motion Industries or elsewhere?

Damn, am I jealous! Glad you got it, and I'm looking forward to hearing about your experience with it when you get it swapped in. :)

Another tip for eliminating water from your airstream: use a water trap. Simple traps work by allowing water vapor a chamber in which to condense. Over-the-counter traps only work so-so (because they are small) and they are not particularly cheap, but they are better than no trap at all. You can make a trap superior to all but refrigeration and dessicant types by plumbing in a large condensation chamber. I've seen an old Freon canister with fittings added used for years, but I just used 2 wide-mouth plastic Coke bottles ganged together in tandem downstream from the regulator. Two quarter-inch fittings fit in the caps and provided sufficient flow. Lest you think that they are insufficiently strong to hold the pressure, let me point out that the 60 PSI max in the delivery line for painting duty is far less than the pressure the bottles hold when they are full of Coke - the pressure of the CO2 dissolved in the Coke is at maximum 177 PSI at maximum expected temperature (like inside a car trunk on a hot day), IIRC. By the way, I have tested plastic Coke bottles to 150 PSI (my compressor's maximum pressure) and could not get them to burst even when I whacked them with a two-by-four! :D They'll hold 60 PSI just fine.

Well... tank size doesn't really mean much, since it is just a reservoir of reserve capacity. What matters is the volume delivery of the compressor and its duty cycle. You could paint as for as long as you like with no tank at all, as long as the compressor is rated to run continuously (100% duty), delivers enough air to keep up with the spray gun, and you had a pressure relief to bleed off excess air (like when you release the trigger). The tank is just there to offer extra capacity so the compressor can rest and cool down after it has surpassed demand and filled the reservoir to the cutoff pressure. Check the CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) volume demand of your spray gun and compare it to the output (at desired spray pressure - probably 40 to 60 PSI) of your compressor. If the compressor delivers more than the gun demands, then all you need to worry about is the compressor duty cycle. If the duty cycle is, for example, 50%, that means it needs to rest the same amount of time that it spends running. You could get by with a less-than-100% duty cycle compressor if you spray a quart of paint, then go have a smoke or do something else while letting the compressor cool down, then resume painting.