1985 Monte Carlo SS known as Barney

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Congrats, nice way to wrap up the season! Looking forward to seeing changes for next year.

[SSLance]

The off season work on Barney has begun with earnest.





I've ran the stock CCC carb, distributor, and ECM on my car for the whole 7 years that I've had this 383 in the car and it has ran great. It's got many wins in it's class with the SCCA autocross, a Street Modified championship, a third place trophy in it's debut at the SCCA Solo Nationals, and several very successful track day events where it surprised a lot of people over the past couple of years.

During the later part of this season though, at our autox events held on larger more open courses...the car kept getting beat by the newer LS powered cars in my class. I wasn't sure what to do about it until the last event of the season which was held on our local tight technical course where I won over those same cars by over a second. I was getting beat by an upper RPM horsepower deficiency. It was time for a change...

This engine has always built fantastic torque down low, but the ECM would pick up noise from the knock sensor and start pulling timing out up around 4250 RPM which would kill the upper end horsepower.



I researched putting a MPFI setup on this engine but ultimately decided I could swap in a LS1 cheaper than to put EFI on this engine correctly...and I'm not really interested in doing that at least right now. So I started researching ignition boxes and found this super cool MSD unit #6530 for sale locally at a good price, so I picked it up. A friend had a re-man quadajet left over from his car he didn't need anymore and I picked up a new MSD #85551 distributor and started the swap to pull the CCC out and put the MSD ignition box in.

My heater core sprung a leak last fall so it needed to be replaced as well, seemed like a good time to do it all at once.

My goal is to get the complete CCC harness out in one piece, put the ignition box somewhere under the dash and use the CCC grommet to run the MSD harness back to the engine. The distributor has had the mechanical advance locked out and is set back in place with the rotor pointed at the #1 spark plug wire and a basic tune has been loaded into the programmable MSD box.





I sent the carb off to a friend to have him make sure it is 100% ready to run so that when it's bolted on and the ignition box is fired off, my ignition problems should be solved and hopefully I can realize the true potential of this engine.

[Ron Sutton]

Keep up the improvements !



.

[WSSix]

Sounds fun, Lance. Glad you're staying 383. Good luck with the change over.

[SSLance]

I recently went to PRI in Indy to try on Race seats in preparation for major safety upgrades for the interior of Barney. I wanted to run a HANS device on any future track days and this meant I also needed to add harnesses, which meant new seats as well as a place to attach the shoulder harnesses too. After all of the groundwork was laid, seat style picked out, roll bar installation design and quote...I got cold feet and had pretty much decided to not go through with it. It was going to take a rear seat delete modification to make it work properly and still look good and I also couldn't find the exact seats I wanted...

That was until a week ago Friday. This is when I stumbled across a garage sale ad that had a perfect pair of seats in it at a fantastic price.




These seats come with a winning pedigree already, they were in Mark Stielow's 1967 Camaro Mayhem when it won the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge in 2012. Hope I can do them justice in Barney as well.


Saturday I took the GTO front seats and rear seats out of the car and Sunday delivered them to their new owner. Once the new seats get here I'll get them mocked into place...then once I get the car running again it's off to the fab shop for the roll bar and rear seat delete sheet metal to be put into place. Then I'll cover the sheet metal with sound deadener and eventually carpet that matches the maroon carpet up front for hopefully a very nice finished look on my now two seat street car.

It's a big change, but I'm certain I'll be much safer in the car plus I'll be more secure which should help the driving and the added bonus will be the roll bar structure will significantly stiffen up the body which will also help with the car's performance.

The getting the car running again bit entails a new carburetor, distributor, and ignition system. I've pulled the 1985 factory CCC computer system and am working on a new mechanical Quadrajet, MSD programmable ignition box\distributor and a wideband 02 meter install which should help me tune some more power into the upper RPM range to help me beat that Poncho and Camaro in this coming season on the bigger courses.

I also pulled the steering column and sent it out to be completely rebuilt and modified to more match the new features of the car. It'll be locked in park, the linkage arm removed, and the steering wheel lock disabled as well as the very worn tilt mechanism rebuilt and improved upon over the factory version and have a nice satin black paint finish applied before it's sent back.

Right now the car is in hundreds of pieces and I'm in parts jail waiting for everything to come back before I can reinstall. Hopefully everything will come in in the next week or so and once I get back from my trip to FL next week I can resume on the off season upgrade projects.

[MeanMike]

Originally Posted by SSLance

...
I also pulled the steering column and sent it out to be completely rebuilt and modified to more match the new features of the car. It'll be locked in park, the linkage arm removed, and the steering wheel lock disabled as well as the very worn tilt mechanism rebuilt and improved upon over the factory version and have a nice satin black paint finish applied before it's sent back.
...

Who did you find to do this? I wonder if it's possible to tie into the reverse light circuit in the column instead of the solid copper wire harness that runs to the rear.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Sounds like some good plans. Being strapped in tight and not pinching your larger cheeks to stay seated is one less thing for your brain to process and allows more focus on driving. The roll bar will also give you a better sense of safety, again one less thing to worry about, particularity on the road course.

I like the trip to FL part too. I grew up on the south east coast in a suburb of West Palm Beach. I miss the weather this time of year. Enjoy!

[SSLance]

Originally Posted by MeanMike

Who did you find to do this? I wonder if it's possible to tie into the reverse light circuit in the column instead of the solid copper wire harness that runs to the rear.

One of our own supporting vendors here GMTILT

https://lateral-g.net/forums/forumdisplay.php4?f=88

I'd drop him a line and ask, if it can be done I'm sure he can.

I used a reverse light harness from a manual mid 80s GM truck. I got a plug to match the reverse light connector on my T56, then ran the wires from it to this harness and plugged it into the connector that used to plug into my steering column to get my reverse lights to work.

[SSLance]

Originally Posted by Ben@SpeedTech

Sounds like some good plans. Being strapped in tight and not pinching your larger cheeks to stay seated is one less thing for your brain to process and allows more focus on driving. The roll bar will also give you a better sense of safety, again one less thing to worry about, particularity on the road course.

I like the trip to FL part too. I grew up on the south east coast in a suburb of West Palm Beach. I miss the weather this time of year. Enjoy!

Thanks Ben. I'm actually excited about the plan again now after being a bit cool on it for a while. Figuring out a way to finish the back area off nicely and still have the interior look like a street car, not a race car was important to me.

Unfortunately my trip to FL is not a pleasure trip, more of a MIL duty trip...but that's okay. Plus, I can't complain about the weather we've had here in the Midwest so far this winter. 50s and 60s the last 5 days or so and on into the long range forecast as well.

[SSLance]

The Quadrajet Carburetor has a bad reputation...mainly because a lot of people don't know how to make that particular carb work well on their engine (me included). I've driven a car with a well tuned Q-jet for a while now though and can attest to how well they perform once tuned properly. Switching from an electronically controlled Q-jet to a mechanical Q-jet is a big step and I wanted to make sure it was done properly...so I enlisted the help of a friend that is an expert at them.

The first trick with a Q-jet is to get the idle and cruise Air Fuel ratios right, at idle you want the primary throttle blades closed with just the proper amount of air and fuel going through the bypasses and enough adjustability in the idle air screws to fine tune per the engine. Same with cruise AFRs... How much vacuum the engine makes (largely cam relative) combined with cubic inches figure in to this equation.

The carb I acquired for this project is a 1977 small block passenger car carb that had a Holley reman sticker on it. It was in good overall shape but once disassembled we found idle passages epoxied shut and some "unusual" jets and bypass sizing. My friend Bob contacted Cliff Ruggles who is one of the few real Q-jet gurus and between the two of them they developed a plan of action to make this carb work correctly with my engine. Bob is in Pennsylvania but has an engine in his car similar to my build. His is a 427 ci vs my 383 ci but has a similar cam that builds tons of vacuum and tons of low end torque. Once he got the basics on the carb done, he's been running it on his car to fine tune. He got it close enough and it has lots of idle screw adjustability each direction for me to fine tune it once on my engine.

Here is the initial build sheet on the changes he made to the carb...



The carbs spread out on his bench...



All put back together...



I think he's had the carb on and off his engine at least 10 times trying to get it right. Here's how he described the tuning to me via email on Monday...

Got the carb done, installed on my engine Sat. Immediately had a problem with bad nozzle drip at idle. Turned the idle psi down to 3 psi, lowered the float, changed the needle and seat, this eliminated those three as not being the problem, still a dripper. No control of the idle mixture. Car is not driveable.

Took the carb off the engine AGAIN, decided I would open up the idle mixture screw orifices, .088" to .093", and increase idle air bypass from 078" to .086". The carb I run, .mixture .096" and 098" for bypass air. Those changes on your carb now gave me control of the idle using the mixture screws, idle rpm was about 700, vac about 17", no nozzle drip. Time for a drive,

Sun I picked a stretch of highway close by where I could get to 60 and had minimum salt, not a lot of them right now in the great NE. Car drove OK, no secondaries due to my air cleaner housing it the air valve linkage, stopped and tweaked the cruise A/F, back to the shop. Stacked 5 gaskets on top the carb, tweaked the cruise again, if I adjust the idle to my usual 750-800 very slight nozzle drip. Run up the road again, secondaries only in 3rd gear, air valve at 5/8 turn, I run a little over 3/8. Well wouldn't you know it my Innovate decides to get stupid, it has been acting dumb for most of your carb tuning, now it just want's to throw an ERROR 8, O2 sensor. So knowing what I really ended up with after my last trip up the road not sure yet. Back in the shop it idled fine with full control using the mixture screws, as long as I kept idle slower no drip.

I pulled the carb for the 10th time, dropped the float level from Ruggles "1/4" is good" to 5/16" which is still higher than factory spec, probably 12/32". This affects "pullover", should reduce nozzle drip potential. Reset air valve to 1/2 turn. New air horn gasket installed after double checked everything, new carb to manifold gasket, 600 rpm good idle, no drip, idle mixture screws out about 2 1/2 turns. Ran out of time Sun for another run, and got no A/F meter.

Today was a snow/rain/slush storm, now it's low 20's with 40 mph winds, lots of ice tonight. Can't see getting the car out for a few more days.

I think the carb is good to go. I know if I opened up the idle air bypass a little more I could get the results I want for my engine. But I feel a 383 with 10% less "suck" and less cam, but still idling at 17-18" vac should be able to get the throttle plates closed at 700 rpm, no drip and with .086" bypass.

Here's some good reading. Kinda give you an idea of tuning a carb. Ignition timing mentioned, importance to getting the throttle plates closed. http://www.wallaceracing.com/qjetidle.php

I was concerned about the size of the primary rods Ruggle sent me, stock/Holley installed were 52K, he said run 44K. It appears they will be OK. Will make the trip to the shop again tomorrow. Will recalibrate the A/F meter and hope to get good idle readings, maybe a road test. Would like to see this ship very soon.

Then last night he sent me this...

YEA!!!!!!!!!!! Boxing the carbs tomorrow.
Nice day today, almost 40. Went to the shop and first thing swapped the O2 out for one of the used ones I had, recalibrated, Innovate back to normal. Gauge giving good steady readings.

Before starting to tune again I called Ruggles, another 1/2 hr chat about qjets, racing and managed to get his thoughts on where I should be at on hole sizes, I think we're good to go.

Started the engine, warmed it up, a steady 14.0 at idle, 700 rpm, no drip. Two trips up the road to check response, cruise, WOT. A/F gauge now working correctly, set cruise at 15.2, lot of + and - adjustment left on the ATP to play with. Very responsive, but no secondaries in 1st and 2nd, 3rd gear they opened and blew the tires off at 60. This is just a matter of adjusting the air valve windup lighter to get 1st and 2nd. You'll need to tune that on your engine.

This is just a little look into the science of a Q-jet Carb. They are VERY engine dependant for idle and cruise characteristics and if you don't get them right, they just won't be happy on the street. Once right though, they'll give you great street characteristics, 18-20 MPG in my car, and a full 800 CFM of flow with the proper Air Fuel ratios for those full throttle blasts on the track. I'm happy and fortunate to a have such a capable friend willing to help with this project and I can't wait to get it back running again with this new setup.


My steering column will get here tomorrow so on Saturday I can reinstall it in the car and begin fabbing up the seat mounts to get the new Recaro seats in the correct position. Then when the carb gets here next week I'll finish up wiring the MSD, bolt the carb on and see if she makes heat once again. Then it's off to the fab shop for the roll bar install.