Over the course of several weekends I reassembled the motor with all parts listed. I then used centari to paint the engine. I used a yellow that is a close match to the color which the exterior will eventually be. Yes I will paint my car yellow. Here is my logic, when you think of italian cars you think of these colors, black, yellow, white, and red. Of these colors black is eliminated bacause it hard to maintain. Red is too common and most variations of this paint have oxidation tendancies. That leaves white and yellow. White is a nice color but I don't think it has any richness. At least not like yellow. Ahh ... the eternal debate.
Anyhow I installed the new clutch mated the ZF and dropped the motor in. It really is straight forward. I have worked on many american cars, this was my first italian. The hardest part about installing the motor is getting all of the cooling hoses hooked up. There isn't much space and the hoses are tight. It took me a good two hours to get the lines in place.
First attempt at firing the engine resulted in a backfire. After careful thought I realized that I had the firing order incorrect. The reason is I am not used to working on ford engines where the cylinder numbering is up and down rather then back and forth. GM folks will know what I am talking about. By the way I purchased some very nice plug wires from Champion. They are 8mm wires for truck use with headers. The have METAL yes METAL protectors over the plug boot. They are about $80 but they are the best wire set I know of.
With that problem resolved I was able to get the engine fired up properly. Much to my suprise there was a lot of exhaust noise. I don't mean tailpipe noise. I used the stock ehaust gaskets that came in the kit. They were the wrong gaskets. The header gaskets where not sealing at all. I immediately placed an order with Jegs for the MrGasket UltraSeal Premium part #5932. This was the advice from the list. These gaskets took care of the problem.
I was back on the road again! Except the engine was running WAY too rich and the idle was unsteady and inconsistent. After running the engine at speed and the coming to a stop the engine would die. DOH! Time to get out the Holley book and play with the carb. More to come ...
So everything peachie then? Well sort of. The car didn't make any power unless you got the engine up to 4500 rpm. There was extreme amounts of blow by past the rings. The bottom end was tired, and I am trying to get the thing to turn high rpms. It is probably just matter of time when the bottom end grenades. As long as it can last until May when I have to pull it out again and the restoration can begin.
I did have some difficulties during this time, which resulted in two towings of the car. I had just left a restuarant for dinner and was driving a friend around in the car. He loved the car by the way. We were racing around on Hwy 1 near Soquel. I dropped the friend off and met up with my wife and we started heading up the hill back home. I pulled to the light and stopped, the car died. I then restarted the car and proceeded to continue. As I started up the hill the car's accelerator stopped responding. Hmmm, out of gas? No ... the car dies. Try to restart and the engine fires then dies. Definitely a fuel problem. But I have a brand new Holley fuel pump.
So I have the car towed to the garage. I pull off the inlet line to the fuel pump from the gastank and find that I could not blow into it or suck into it! Oh great the fuel line is blocked! What! It's a remanufactured tank from Hall, how could there be shit in it. I used the compresser to blow air back through the line which frees the blockage. I then put the lines back on the pump and run the car.
Ok I don't know what's in the tank but I better get something to fix it cause I an NOT pulling that freaking tank and motor again! So I go down the the auto store and get some of the ether gas additive that eats stuff out of your fuel system. Ok everything cool now. Should I go for a ride? Hmmm ... I pull out onto the freeway, ( the only proper way to test a pantera ) and the car immediately stumbles. DOH! Luckily there was a tow truck on the side of the road fixing a flat for somebody. I pull right behind him and get a tow back to the shop.
So Nick, ( my brother in law mechanic ) mentions that we should drain the tank and take a look inside to see if we could notice any material. Hmmm, ok that's better the pulling the engine again. So over the course of the next week the guys at my shop steal all of my premium/ether gas from the tank. The next weekend I shoved a rag into the tank and mopped up the remaining gas. After adjusting the light and laying myself ontop of the engine to crane my neck, I see the problem. Bloated pieces of silicon sealer were laying in the bottom of the tank!
What silicon sealer bloated with gas? How in the hell ... I didn't ... Hall didn't ... DOH! Well it turned out that I bought a 90 degree filler neck from Hall to put onto the tank to make filling easier. When I did so I used just a little bit of sealer on the filler neck gasket. This sealer squeezed out from underneath the filler neck and into the tank where it promptly swelled to three times it's size, so it could black my fuel line.
We eventually used a compressed air driven pump that is used to spray solvent on things to suck up the bits of silicon. I would have used a vaccum but sparks and gas fumes ... well it would have been interesting to watch the vaccum to explode but nobody would hold the flashlight for me :)
Ok, that fixed we are done!
It's true that Holley carbs only run well at full throttle. Due to the way too aggressive cam and the single plane intake my engine sounded like a Nascar engine. It was scary. It would go to 7000 rpm in a hurry. I but it would go higher but the fragile lower end would not be able to take it for long.
After careful diagnosis it looked like power valve was constantly open on the carb. We checked vaccum and found that for this cam we had only 3.5 Hg. What! Normal cars have 6-12 Hg. Ok so I was on crack when I made the camshaft selection. Oh man I don't want to replace the camshaft right now. So we tried to get it to run properly. We replaced the 7.5 Hg power valve with a 2.5 Hg, the lowest you can get for a Holley and the car didn't run so rich at idle anymore.
We had another problem. The idle mixture screws didn't seem to work properly when adjusted. I don't remember who told us but we were told to bump up the secondary set idle screw which will open up the secondaries at idle! This will allow the primary idle circuits to be turned down alowing a smooth consistent idle ... what do you know this shit really works!
At this point we have a good running car at idle and at speed. We still had to play around with the main metering jets to get a proper mixture at speed. We settled on #65 primary jet and #71 secondary jet. I could be a little lean but it's close.
Yeah we are done ... button her up ... lets go for a ride.
