WOW, has this thread exploded into sheer pandemonium.
1: The comment I made about a "cheap Quickfuel carb" has to do with the 750cfm "Slayor" carb by Quickfuel carbs are the lesser offering from Quickfuel, and I equate them to the "Edelebrock carb" in their line. Bolt it on and forget about it, 90% of the population won't know the difference. It is not a "Q" series Quickfuel carb, nor is it on the same level as one.
1a: With the blown powervalve on the Slayor carb, the surging while driving was horrible, and actually made me nauseous on the first 20 mile drive I took with the car.
1b: My choice to replace said carb with a Holley 04777C 650DP is based on my personal/actual time in the early 2000's with ERA234, a chassis dyno, and an unlimited supply of carbs over a three day period. That test and tune by the owner of the then new "portable chassis dyno" not only opened his eyes, but mine as well as to what works, and what does not for both track and street driving. Since the car rarely is at wide open throttle in day to day driving, the smaller carb offers a better power band, sharper throttle response, and a smoother transition based on my throttle use. Also, the chassis dyno offered us the ability to not only track HP/Torque at the rear wheels (thus taking into account parasitic drag of the driveline), also air/fuel with a dual wideband set up, but to set the rpms and speed at whatever level we wanted in whatever gear in the close ratio toploader 4spd we wanted.
1c: My comment on the over fuel issue and the wash down of the cylinder walls was based two-fold, the first being the amount of raw fuel sitting on top of the inner plenum of the intake when I removed the "Slayor" carb, and the distinct odor of fuel when we drained the
oil and dropped the pan (more on that later in my response).
2: My comment on the gasket is dead on, the pictures posted in an earlier post on this thread tell the tale. The gasket was torn, not blown out, perhaps not apparently seen when initially installed, but absolutely seen when we removed the intake manifold. So much so that one of the intake bolts was forced through a corner of the intake gasket bolt hole. Common causes for this are innocent enough and I've had it happen before with FE intake gaskets that I have had to adjust with the intake lightly laying on them. You notice it slip and adjust with your fingers, then run the bolts down and torque as needed. In this case, clearly the installer was not as attentive as he could have been, and again, I've learned from past bad experience to double check everything with a flashlight down the bolt holes to make sure that the alignment is perfect before running my bolts into them. After talking with the tech folks at DOVE Manufacturing (who suggested the 202A Mr Gasket set), I choose to use a Felpro "print-o-seal" intake gasket instead of the lesser quality MrGasket item. Personal choice based on personal experience, nothing to argue about.
3: Why drop the pan, simple, the first place to start an "in car" inspection of the engine was to drop the pan and check for bits and pieces of engine parts (IE: nuts, bolts, gasket material, broken ring parts, mouse droppings, etc), in which in our case none were found, not even small metal filings which would have signaled a metal on metal issue, thank goodness. By dropping the pan, we were able to check the bore (yes, we did hand crank the engine over) from the bottom to see if there were any issues. We then moved to the top of the motor, where we ran the color video bore scope down through the spark plug holes and once again rotated the engine by hand so as to inspect the cylinder walls, then added a mirror to the end and checked the valves. Again, helpful so as to see what wear we could.
4: My FE engine guru has been my friend for a long time, has built countless engines for my projects over the years, and has nothing to prove to me one way or the other. He is old school, does not have a web site, nor even a cell phone that I know of. My friend/mechanic who has been assisting me (he now has the car to check over the rest of it while I am traveling) used to work on helicopter engines for the military (still does, only now part time as a volunteer at the local military helicopter museum) and is far more anal than I ever will be when it comes to checking and double checking each and every item, all the way down to the addition of an aluminum 1/8" heatsink under the new carb, just to play it safe.
5: Clunk in the suspension is being investigated by the above referenced friend/mechanic while I am gone. I suspect a suspension bushing has prematurely disintegrated, as I have not only had this issue in the past with ERA234, but ERA2031 as well. Not a big deal really, but still worth mentioning.
In closing, I've always been straight forward and open with what I find and what my experiences have been (good, bad, or truly ugly), that will not change with ERA717. If after I get back the car is using
oil more than it should, then I will pull the motor this winter and dive into things much deeper than I have to date. If the
oil consumption issue has been taken care of with the replacement of the intake gasket and the addition of the PCV system, I'll report that as well once I am back in town.
Bill S.