The Road to Drag Week 2016 - Old School Style

[cjshaker]

Earl, your rear suspension must be a bit different than mine. I have the Calvert suspension, but the shocks they sent were 15 1/2". That only gave me an inch before bottoming out. The QA-1 shocks give me more travel. I also have the 1" lowered springs, so I can't imagine why yours would be so tight.

[Qikbbstang]

Doug noticed you mentioned not running the heater & hoses... On my Gen 1 Lightning I had my heater core crap so I bypassed it in a loop. The SOB started running hot in short order in spite of the coolers and HD cooling.. I needed to restrict the water flow on the heater circuits loop'd hose and she returned to running normal temp..
   Just keep in mind that looping the heater circuit may alter cooling.
            Decades ago I was running a late night run from Miami to Tampa (swamp, mines and sugar cane fields) in SVO Mustang, water temp started soaring into HOT. I rolled all the windows down, set heater on max/vent and made the remainder of the trip with temp normal... Next morning fired up and HOT problem never happened again -- I figured the thermostat stuck?
   

[cjshaker]

BB, as I said before, I never used the heater, which means the heater hose valve was always closed, not allowing water to circulate in the heater core. It should not make a difference. I'll be putting some miles on it to break in the rear gears, so I'll find out if there is any difference before Drag Week, but I don't expect there to be any. Modular engines use a totally different type of cooling system.

[afret]

You'll be fine without the heater.  I've had the heater removed for years with no effect on engine cooling.

Are you going to be able to make some passes at a track before Drag Week?

[cjshaker]

Are you going to be able to make some passes at a track before Drag Week?

I doubt it. I still need to change my headlight switch (the original switch with built in breaker pops when they're on high and I have an NOS one to replace it with), put a new ignition box in, break in the rear gears and then change to synthetic gear fluid and order some extra pushrods. Then I need to get back on the trailer to make it an enclosed unit. Then I need to do a couple things to the truck before hauling it down to Columbus. Basically, Drag Week will amount to a sorting out of my suspension and traction issues. I don't want to hurt the toploader during the week because it's the only big in/out that I have. If I had a Jerico, it wouldn't be an issue. I'm hoping, if I make it to Friday, that I'll be able to let it fly then.

And I had forgotten that I've already driven the car a few times after removing the hoses. I did not notice any difference in cooling.

[427Fastback]

Love the car...Its the details.....My 67(SB) has heater delete in it and its not a issue.The 68 (427 car) is also going heater delete both cars using oem parts.I don't expect a problem with the 427 car and there is no issues with the 67..

Heater delete was available in Mustangs for quite a few years.After 68 its pretty easy to convert them and have it look original..

Good luck at Drag Week...

[cjshaker]

Well today isn't exactly a good update. I'm having problems with the car quitting on me. A quick review of the problem....

Some weeks ago, I was coming home after about a 60-70 mile round trip. 3 miles from home, the car just died. It was dusk so I quickly got the truck and trailer and trailered it home. The next day it started right up and ran fine. Not knowing what the problem was, I drove it several times again (only about 10 miles, max) and never had the problem.

Fast forward to Friday...I went to take the car for a spin to check the shocks and rear. I was just pulling out of the driveway when it quit again. No restart. After some quick checks, it appeared to be the box, which I had suspected all along (it's a 15 year old MSD 6AL). So today I tried to start it and still nothing, so I replaced the old box with a brand new MSD Digital 6AL. It fired right up, so I took it for about a 20 mile drive to break in the gears. No problems...until I got home. It was sitting for about 5 minutes while I checked the hitch and trailer hook-up. Went to start it to back it in the garage when it suddenly quit again. CRAP, now what?!!

Did a quick check by jumpering the pick-up wires and was getting a really weak erratic spark. Most of the time it would not even produce a spark. I thought maybe the coil was at fault, so I replaced it with a brand new MSD Blaster 2, same as the old one. No start. Surely it couldn't be the box again? I threw another NEW MSD Digital 6 box on and it started right up. To double check, I threw the FIRST new box back on...and it started right up.

Now I'm back to square one. Tomorrow I'll recheck the ignition box ground and run it straight to the battery. I currently have it grounded to the bell where the engine ground strap is. I'll also check both engine grounds and run the ignition hot wire straight from the solenoid. I currently have it coming from the fuse block. That will totally isolate the entire ignition wiring from anything else on the car and eliminate it as a possibility. It doesn't seem to be the pick-up at this point, but who knows for sure. I did check fuel, and that's not it.

In the 15 years since I restored the car, I have never had this problem. I need to get this sorted out, pronto. I obviously can't drive it during Drag Week this way.

If anyone has suggestions that I'm overlooking, feel free to SPEAK UP

[mmason]

I had the same problem. I replaced everything, did not help. It ended up being a bad ground.

[turbohunter]

Simple stuff first.
Grounds, loose wires, stupid stuff.

[cjshaker]

Grounds will be the first thing I check today.

On a more positive note, I love the QA-1 shocks. They made a huge difference with the added travel. The car was much more pleasant to drive with no harsh jolts over bumps. Once I get the tuning perfect, I think they will make excellent double duty shocks, for street or strip. And the new gearing was also a BIG improvement. The car takes off much easier and smoother and I don't have to keep the car at 55-60 mph just to keep it happy in 4th. I knew this was something that I should have done years ago!

Earl, here's a shot of the amount of travel that is available with the QA-1 shocks. This is at ride height, after coming back from a cruise, so the suspension is settled here. I still don't understand why you have less room than I have. I believe, like me, you also have the Calvert spring and shock plate, so that isn't it.

[427Fastback]

The MSD box in my 73 390 F-250 did the same thing but it was the boxes fault..Prior to that and just after I assembled the truck it would randomly die like you shut off the key.I chased the problem for a while as it would restart after a bit..I stripped my 71 and put everything into my 73 and the 71 had no such issues.After some thought I realized that the 73 still had the original 4 terminal solenoid on it(I hadn't changed it) and if I am correct the "I" on the solenoid is for ign...I put the one from the 71 on the truck and the problem was resolved....

It is the only time I have had or seen such a failure

[cjshaker]

After messing with the ignition problem all day, I MAY have gained some progress, but I won't know until I get some miles on it.

What I found was, no matter what I tried, I kept getting a very weak erratic spark when jumping the trigger wires. I tried moving the ground to the battery negative cable directly and no change. I thought maybe the extension for the trigger wires may be faulty or have a bad connection since I left the old one in place, so I removed it. I noticed a bit of corrosion on the small prongs in the connector, so I was feeling somewhat confident that that may be causing an issue. So I replaced it with the one that came with the new box....and no change. Still very erratic, if I got a spark at all.

Feeling a bit flustered as to why this was happening, I considered the fact that the trigger wires ran parallel with the coil wires. I wondered if there was some interference going on there, so I ran both the old and new extensions from the box, outside of the car, across the engine compartment and finally to the distributor. Suddenly I had a good strong CONSISTENT spark. So I removed one of the extensions, rerouted the wires through a different hole in the firewall, down the right side of the engine (opposite side of the coil wires) and hooked it up. I still had a good strong consistent spark.

The car fired right up, but I have no way of knowing if that solved the problem yet. I was going to go for another test run, but now rain has popped up, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow night.

I made a short video showing how the spark was acting. While I typically got some erratic spark while jumping the trigger wires, I was getting nothing while I shot this video. But you can see that I was getting great spark whenever I grounded the trigger wire to any part of the chassis or engine. There's nothing in MSD's instructions that says the box must be grounded, and based on my findings after rerouting the wires, it doesn't seem to need it. I have my box mounted under the heater box inside the car, and it has ran that way flawlessly for over 15 years, so I'm still puzzled as to why I'm suddenly having this issue.

I have one working theory; that the old box was not affected by the wires running parallel. But the box went bad after 15 years. Then, with the new DIGITAL box, it MAY have issues with the wires running parallel. It's a long shot, and I'm not even sure that I believe it, but I have no other explanation at this point. Anyone else willing to take a stab at a theory?

The video showing the spark problem...
https://youtu.be/85PLiA8qIr0

How my box is mounted...



Finally, a shot of the installed differential with 4.30 gears.

[ToddK]

I once had similar problems to you with a Digital 6AL box, whereas the regular 6AL worked okay. Moved the pickup and trigger wires apart and it solved the problem. On cars I've since built with the MSD box installed inside the car, I have used the shielded MSD pickup wires to guard against signal interference. I also route the pickup and coil trigger wires away from each other, for the same reason. Not had any issues since doing so.

[Barry_R]

Obviously cannot promise anything, but a good friend of mine is fixated on keeping trigger wires isolated from other electrical leads.  He makes me route them on the opposite side of the throttle body and as far as possible from the injector harness.

Pretty tough guy to argue with.  Some of his "work" is in orbit, other bits are in airlines at 35,000 feet, or plodding around under the ocean....

[cjshaker]

Todd, that gives me some hope that I've moved in the right direction. I'll find out soon enough.

And Barry, if I was trusting my life to something in space, or near space, or under the ocean, I believe everything would be gold plated and double shielded...and ran through special conduits...lol Aerospace engineers are a nit-picky bunch, and for good reason.