rdhunt1

Love the chart! Common manifold or not the different positions and respective causes is great info to have. Thank you!

Jb, Yessir... correct on the dampening action. The small collar right before the hose leading to the carb allows damping of the intake pulse. Played with it a bit, but eventually brought it down to about a needles width of movement and continued tuning from there. Prompting my original question was seeing some vac gauges that have colored areas that indicate good, bad, etc. More particularly, one gauge had an area indicated for late ignition timing. Knowing I have my lucas/aldon with a whopping 12 degrees of advance, turned up to about 22 degrees base for an all in around 34 and wondering how much of an effect it had on my readings.

Does anyone have any manifold vacuum data for a 1700 supersprint crossflow on 40's? Maybe this isn't even relative since choke size and cam choice will likely put these all over the map. BUT... With the ever-decreasing temps up here in wisconsin, I decided to try some larger idle jets. After installing i went about resetting idle mixture and checking balance on the carbs for good measure. I got pretty darned close with my old unisyn and using my timing light as an engine bay tach. Feeling like being overly anal I went and borrowed the four gauges you see here. This first pic is at 1000rpm with balance by the unisyn, and tuning idle mixture by rpm. So then i set about playing with the gauges installed. And although there is some distortion due to the angle the picture was taken, I ended up with pretty identical. After all this i wondered if these numbers 30cm or 300mmhg were considered correct, logical, or typical for a crossflow. Vacuum was taken from the small plug right next to the idle mixture and progression hole cap. Anybody have input? Thanks Ryan

Oh, and camping with a 7! Spent the weekend at Blackhawk Farms Raceway during their annual AHRMA event. Used to race with AHRMA and just wanted to go and hang out. 7's camp just fine! Brought a cover for the 7 to keep it warm and dry during the overnight.

The one I would try to copy....

Not much else has gone on with the 7. Still trying to have the aluminum professionally polished. in the meantime I brought a 1951 pontiac chieftain back to life for a long time friend. In storage for 27 years and she now enjoys him (ponchovilla) as a substitute daily down in st Louis! i am currently waking up a 74 alfa gtv2000 for another good friend. Yanked from about 19 years in storage. It is up and running on its original Spica injection and has just become a really good driver as cold and snow are coming to wisconsin.

Been driving... A lot! Love my 7! All around wisconsin, towed down to Tennessee, Illinois... as long as I don't have to spend hours screaming along the interstate I'm in. I have been keeping my eyes open for a random type 9 to fall in my lap but it just hasn't happened yet. I did absolutely find the cause of oil that was getting flung around the tunnel and drooling into my floorboards. The cap installed on the trans yoke was loose enough that oil behind it would would fling out. Suprising, but true. High temp metal epoxy has 100% fixed that issue.

Spent money. Then made a little billet o-ringed cap. Was going to knurl the outside edge but my knurling bit is too big and hits the chuck.

Just some more reassembly pics...

Head is supposed to be returned tomorrow! Engine and trans look, and are, worlds better for having come out of the car. Excited to get it back running. I do still have the lucas/aldon distributor with the pertronix points replacement that is running mechanical advance. Sounds like 34° max advance is pretty common. Recommendations?

Definitely not a dry sump. Only reason for the ARP even in this low torque application is the strength of the original bolts. My differential carrier bearing bolts did stretch and would not pull to the correct torque. If those oe bolts could do that, so could my rod bolts. Entirely possible that new OE diff bolts would have been fine ( just like the rod bolts) but, well...I just wanted ARP's. Reassembly is going well. Trans and engine will reunite tomorrow. Still waiting on the head from the machine shop.

Rosteri- that's beautiful! Very well done! I think I have successfully remagnetized the oe speedo. Similar to magnetized a screwdriver, I used very strong magnets to remagnetize the rotor. Thankfully i believe the oe would magnetize to saturation, so i am not sure it can be overdone. Previously it read about 35 mph when it should have been 76. At the same rpm ( fed via cable from my lathe) it now reads about 75 mph. I will get it in the car and validate with a gps before rolling the bezel back on. While I tried very hard to get the needle back in the identical position it may be a mph off.

Exactly! At 16k miles the bores are excellent. Crosshatch still very visible as I would expect. Pulled a piston to check wear and any ringland issues but they still look new. Thought about aftermarket pistons just because but didn't. Lots of parts from burtons. They have gotten them to my door here in Wisconsin in about 5 days each order. Extremely fast service. Stripped the oil pan last night as it will be going ford blue as well. New main seals installed, and i like seeing that they both have been upgraded to dual lip seals. Cometic front and rear gaskets appear to be very nice rubber over aluminum. I did make a new bellhousing to tailshaft gasket. The burton part is just like oem and is like a thin brown paper bag. While I know this is common ( my 67 Enfield has some) I am going for reliably leak free. The oem gasket is .006" and my thinnest good quality material is .018". I can't find any instance where the additional .012" will be an issue. The tolerances of the whole trans just aren't that tight! ARP bolts on the rods...just cuz i can, and when I did the diff years back I found the carrier bolts were stretching and wouldn't torque properly. ARP studs also replacing the head bolts.

Also believe I have fixed the speedo by remagnetizing the rotor. It has always read low. About half. Rolled the bezel off, disassembled, and spun in the lathe at a known rpm. Definitely not correct. Appearantly the rotors are magnetized to saturation so I tried to get them remagnetized with some good quality magnets. It's seems to have worked perfectly!! I think I am within 1 mph of what it 'should' be and that could be needle placement...i tried to get it back to the identical spot. I am waiting to test in the car against gps before reinstalling the bezel.

So here we are a week later!! Really glad I pulled and disassembled the trans. The amount of play in the input bearing was excessive! The races look fine but side to side play is bordering on extreme. The output shaft bearing is garbage! The inner race is badly galled all the way around. Likely been this way since I got it. Can't wait to hear the difference in sound! New u joints since I am in this far, as well as all seals and gaskets. 'Old Ford blue' for the engine. 'Cast iron' for the trans housing. Huge improvement!!

New guides arrived, head at the machine shop. Since the head was going to be stripped and painted.....

After a few crappy years I am back at the 7 and loving every second. It started with what I thought was a valve tick that was too loud. Clearances fine cold. Fine hot. Knowing full well I wouldn't be satisfied till I knew what it was, the head came off. #3 valve guide had way to much clearance. Roughly .073" at the head of the valve as shown in the pic. Everything else... about .003".

Reading MANY posts about remagnetizing the armature. Sounds simple enough, I just hate removing the needle if I don't have to. But, the speedo is currently of no use the way it is!

It is has always been low for the few years I have owned the car. It sure looks to be the original speedo to the car and the speedo vs odo discrepancy makes me think it is a magnetic issue. Reading through my assembly manual us see where it should be a labeled as w=1.0 for mph, and should have the 24 tooth driven gear in the Trans. I will have to see if I can chi inform the with the teams in the car. I did see the ratio modification boxes you mention. I may have to learn more about them. I did find a dedicated speedo shop in Milwaukee that I may ring as well. My speedo is labeled caerbo instruments Ltd on the speedo can. I have been reading many topics of failed caerbont speedos, but most are the electronic where mine is not. Keep the hints tips, tricks coming! Thanks, Ryan

Does anyone know how? Having disassembled, cleaned and recal'd smiths motorcycle speedos I was not concerned with removing the bezel from my caterham speedo to see if any adjustment was possible. I do not see the 'gap adjustment' screw like I was expecting. The speedo is labeled sn5234-16 with a small 2696 sticker on the back. The issue I have is the speedo is reading very low. For instance, Phone gps says 60 mph, odometer seems to be correct turning a mile every minute, but speedo only says 30ish mph. As a second test out of the car, i drove the speedo with a foredom (variable speed electric porting tool) and held it at 60 mph and timed the odometer mile. It was still much less than one minute. Has anyone experienced this, fixed it, or had it fixed by a reputable shop? Open to any and all reasonable suggestions. Thanks, Ryan Car is a 1996 supersprint, four speed, 3.9:1 rear. Speedo is 160 mph.

Thanks for the additional pics! I was looking at the back of the 7 yesterday thinking that any such rack should also hook over the into the trunk or get some top support from somewhere. The roll bar and/or its attachment points were the logical answer, proved by your use of them. Love the thought behind yours, and when not needed, completely removable.

I put an order in to Burtons yesterday for their Ajusa FB731 along with other bits while waiting for Pegasus to get back to me. The Ajusa is stated as having an 84mm bore and is roughly half the cost of the Pegasus part. Granted, I do like knowing that I can run up the road and get the Motorcraft piece if needed. Burtons DHL express says all parts will be here by friday. Not bad for overseas!

Compression check: #1 - 205 psi #2 - 205 psi #3 - 180 psi #4 - 205 psi Wonder what's up with #3. Checked valve clearances and they are ok. Sprayed wd40 in the plug hole and tried again. 195 psi. Hmmm... rings? at 16K? On one Cylinder? Quick email to Pegasus. Their 164-03 Motorcraft gasket has an ID of 83.74mm. They have updated their website to note this for those of us with 1700's! Also to note: their Fel-Pro Perma-Torque 164-03PT has a bore of 83.34mm.

Next came Brooklands. Poor pic, but I think they look great!