She won't let me drive!

[pokey64]

We just returned from a trip to the Big Island. Had a really great time. The vacation was long overdue.

Since I'm not as far as I should be on Beth's car, we rented a "constellation prize".

We saw it in the parking lot of a rental company as we drove by and her eyes just lit up. This car is damn near the same color as her 69. We had a reservation with a different company already for an Impala (or similar). Luckily the two companies operate together and we were able to have them pull it from the other lot. It was a bit of a price jump but definitely a lot more fun than an Impala to cruise around the island. I probably only got to drive it about 5 out the 800 miles we put on it but cashing in the new brownie points was worth every penny.



The island is full of twisty roads that were a blast with this car. We'd never buy a new one because we just love the classics way more but it was definitely the right car for this trip.







There was 8 miles of gravel from construction when we drove up Saddle Road from Hilo to head across the island. The fog/rain gave Beth white knuckles for bit.



Here's a pic of the car at the Southern-most tip of the US.


Self-hijack over.
I did finish up the brake lines and fab up muffler hangers before we left. Bleeding the brakes and doing a tune up are all that’s in the way of driving it again. Though we still have Vintage Air, Rick’s tank, EFI (whenever it arrives) and a long list of other odds and ends to call it “complete for now.”

[GregWeld]

Good for you two! Doing stuff like that is what makes a nice trip a MEMORABLE trip!

[pokey64]

Been working on Beth's car here and there the last couple months. Finally took her out for its maiden voyage of the year last night. Went and bedded in the new brakes and then cruised around town for a while. Between the G-link and new 3.73 gears it feels like a new car. Our previous 4 link just did not work at the ride height we were running and the old gears were 2.73s. The exhaust is quite loud inside the car. It currently dumps right behind the passenger seat floor boards. I have to put sound deadener in the trunk yet. I am also going to work on tail pipes out the rear after I get the Rick's tank installed that's been sitting here a while.

Here's some videos from last night. Audio/video quality is kind of crappy… I'll get some better video once we have everything broke in.







I've also got the vintage air 90% installed. I just need to wrap up the wiring, charge the system, and attach the vent hoses. I'm waiting to hook up the heater hoses until I swap out to the EFI manifold. We did receive our EFI setup. I need to finish planning the fuel system and then decide if I'm taking on the swap this season or just enjoying the car and do it this winter.


These are sooo pretty.

[waynieZ]

Conrats geting it back on the road. Tuff decision to swap it now or wait its geting to be a nice time of the year to cruise.

[pokey64]

Thanks Wayne! The weather has been beautiful this last week. The previous 3-4 weeks before were horribly hot and humid. I even bought an AC unit for the shed. All of the things I've done to the car are firsts for me. The learning curve plus long work weeks makes for slow progress on some of these installs. Now is a good time to be driving.

[Rybar]

Congrats Ed, real nice mods on the suspension, engine/bay and now with the EFI

[GregWeld]

Nice! I'm happy for you!

[pokey64]

Thanks Ratman!

Holley's TB says 1000cfm. Yes, this system uses an O2 sensor.

[pokey64]

It was a long week of ups a lot of downs and some ups again. Sometimes these cars just kick you square in the nuts! Chased a ton of gremlins. Most of them came from a couple wiring issues (my mistake) and a usb driver/old ECU firmware issue (bought the Holley setup 2 years ago). Worked till midnight a couple nights and took some extra time off work. On Thursday I started over and worked thru the instructions several times and found the wiring issues. Friday morning we could get it to fire but it wouldn’t stay running. The timing was bouncing around and couldn’t be adjusted. In the afternoon we called Holley’s tech line and that’s when we figured out the firmware/software weren’t jiving. I hadn’t thought that was an issue since the computer and ECU were talking. After updating everything we prevailed and got the car running. It started off pretty rough but began to smooth out after we got the timing synced to the software. It is pretty cool to watch the system learn and self-adjust.

Unfortunately the issues kept us from making a local cruise night. On the plus side working through the issues has given me a thorough understanding of all of the new system components. Another positive thing from this week is that my dad came over last Sunday afternoon and Monday evening to lend a hand. We run a business together but haven’t spent that kind of personal time together in years. Really hope to keep that going.

Still have a list of things to button up before the first drive. She’s getting close but time for a short breather.

[GregWeld]

Awesome Ed....


The time spent with "others" doing these projects -- to me -- is the very best part of the whole deal.