Bad news good news. The OE harness is definitely 8 gauge wire from the alternator and not 10 gauge. From the alternator, to the battery and to the OE fuse box. The good news is, running a new 8 gauge wire from the alternator directly to the auxiliary fuse panel and picked up two tenths of a volt as read by the MegaSquirt, so hopefully gives a more solid path of current flow to everything. This upcoming weekend I'll check voltages at various locations. I ran another fuel pump test, and now am thinking the ignition coils may be the source of the larger voltage draw. I ran with the secondary pump on going down the highway at a mere 2,300rpm and had the usual 13.8 volts. So perhaps its the 8 ignition coils drawing it down? More testing is needed.
Thanks My friend,I'm doing well. So if i decide to get new harness for alternator,I should get 8 ?! My cluster lights are very weak...and if i leave my headlight for few minutes the voltages decreases...I guess I should get a new battery!
8 Gauge is good. Since the change over, the voltage to the megasquirt has never been higher. Which means the power feeds to the fuel pumps, injectors and ignition coils are getting more juice too. Earlier this week the thermostat on the car seemed to have checked out. It's been as low as 14F out heading to work and the coolant temps have been all over the map, but generally running 10-15F cooler than normal. Funny things happen when the coolant temps drop rapidly at WOT and the "warm up" rev limiter kicks in when you're a 1,000rpm over the limit. Ooops. Changed it out for a new 180F t-stat yesterday. Seems good now, but I have not really driven it any distance. And this popped up in January's issue of Car Craft, from the Anti-Tour trip earlier this year (that the wheel bearing failed on! p )
:TU: It should of been the Firebird, but the dang fuel pump quit on me going out there so I swapped in the Skylark. Today, I'm just out doing random things in the shop today and decided to make a new cam sensor for the Skylark. Currently it's the big HEI distributor that sits like a castle at the front of the engine with no coil or wires going to it. Figured a smaller points distributor would be less intrusive. Last time I was in CA I grabbed a points distributor off a Buick 350 from the junkyard, but it was already mostly disassembled, but I figured beggars can't be choosers. Unfortunately it appeared to be missing a plate the points bolt too? I'm not sure, I grabbed a set of points off one of the OHC L6 distributors and drilled a couple of holes in the plate that was already there and made them fit with some adjustment. Then the intention was to ground off all the lobes except one, but I got a little grinder happy as I was rolling the shaft around the grinder and accidentally hit the lobe I was intending to save. So then I just took more off the rest of the lobes so there was just a high spot. Then stuck it in the drill press and polished it down with some 120 grit and red scotchbrite to somewhat polish it back up. When I got it back together it works as intended, the points contacts open once per rotation. Currently the points don't even touch the lobe except for the high point. Will see how this works out in the long run. I also put a strap across the mechanical advance posts. I roll pinned the HEI one and figured I'd try this out. Roll pins are easier =P I need to go get some small clips to retain the plate on and drill the shaft for a larger HEI distributor gear roll pin since that is what I have for the harden roller cam 455 distributor gear, then it'll be done.
There is a pic of Randall's car in the new issue - Jan 2015 I got in the mail the other day. With a story on the Anti - Tour that Car Craft does every year.
Just been driving it to work each morning, even the single digit temp mornings. The new thermostat has a perfect calibration it seems. Sticks essentially right at 180F with the occasional wonder of +/- 2F. The old one was 185F +/-, and it slightly annoys me when I read 178 or 179 on the gauge p The power steering belt was loose, so Tuesday I went to tighten it up and found that the two bolts holding the pump to the bracket as well as the rear nut were all loose. I haven't messed with the front two bolts since I stuck the first 455 in back in 2007, but they decided now to come loose. Just tightened them up, but it was odd. Also found the grommet for the speedo cable through the firewall had come loose, and it appears its past its service life as far as staying in place. That explained the cold blast of air at my feet in the mornings. I just stuffed a blue shop towel in the hole for the time being until I can source another grommet. Its due for tires again**, so looking at getting some white lettered BFG's for it this time. **The 1" coil spring spacers put my alignment off enough to eat the outside of the front tires, and the rears just seem to get accelerated wear for some reason :3gears::laugh:
Took this picture today to show someone the low atmospheric pressure up here, then the thread got jacked by the looks of the cluster, lol.
Hijack squared! Looks great. Also, I hope you programmed it to read MPH off the KPH scale, so you can go to 130...
Thanks! Nope! Zero to 80mph real fast! haha. I've wanted to get a Go-pro video of it during a run. I've had GPS's tell me I've reached the high side of 125mph, the speedo is pointed to R :grin: With the 3.89 gears and such, the speedo reads 3-5mph fast. I'm approaching plans to go full digital and eliminate the OE gauges on the left side as well. When I swap the distributor to the points distributor I plan on doing some minor rewiring and finally hooking up the TKO-600's electric speed sensor as well as make a test run at hooking up the fuel tank sending unit to the MegaSquirt and run a digital fuel gauge. I can run both the speedo (add the mph read out in the tachometer) and digital fuel gauge (as a gauge or digital percentage read out) to the right side, for a while to see that it works properly before ordering a second screen and going all out cutting the cluster further.
Hmm, I see my old photo's have broken links again. I've finally started a photobucket account, so hopefully this stops happening and maybe one snowy day I'll get all the photo's moved over and fix the links... But the answer is the HEI distributor is doing nothing but acting as a cam sensor and oil pump drive now. So to go to a smaller foot print is the goal. It would also free up the VR input the cam sensor currently uses to be able to be used for the vehicle speed sensor in the TKO-600. [video=youtube_share;iGSrYLsvxPM]http://youtu.be/iGSrYLsvxPM[/video]
Yes, that HEI distributor cap is a monster, annoying to work around, and right up against the upper radiator hose. I have an HEI that the PO put on the donor engine. I also have the old points distributor, so I'll be going that direction with some sort of Hall effect unit. Since I have an AC unit now (not installed yet), I'll probably end up with an alternator and R4 compressor setup like yours. I'd need brackets and so forth. Do you have some more pics of the setup? Do you know if the pulley offsets are any different?
ok, now I understand. if anyone is interested I have all the compressor mounts off the 76 v6 & 68 350 and the points dist. off the 350. I plan on elect. ign. and no a/c on the 76 skylark. oh yeh, and the compressors.
The accessory brackets on my engine are the OE ones off the original 231 V6 engine. There is a slight alignment issue, like a 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch, but fortunately it can be corrected because the alternator and A/C compressor can be shimmed (add washers..) outward some to line them up. Some old pictures here. The chicken or the horse. The chicken is the conventional 455 bracket, the horse is the 231 V6 one. The V6 one REQUIRES the compressor to hold the alternator in place. There is a different bracket for the non-A/C V6's. On the engine. Looking at the picture, I forgot about the other issue is due to the taller deck height is the alternator adjustment bracket doesn't fit quite right, but can still be made to work. You can see in my photos I have it flipped around. Been that way since 2009 or so.
I have. And if this points one doesn't do the job, I'll cave and spend the $$$ to buy one. Put new tires on the car this weekend.
I finally signed up for Photobucket, and I see it can automatically take my Facebook albums. So I am hoping at some point to go back through the thread and fix all the photo links (again...) and hopefully they last at that point.
Article re-hash on Hot Rod's website/Facebook! June 2009 Car Craft article. http://www.hotrod.com/cars/project-...ial_aumohotrodsshub_default_20141209_36957267 It looks better now :grin:
