The Official Hot Rod Thread - Part 4: Burnouts for Distance

[churchmouse]

Yeah the right way for the North Star is inserts or the rebore and the head studs but IMO way to much effort for a older car. I bought a nice 03 Deviile at a auction that had about 30,000 on it $800 used the vent method and was a winner for me and sold me on the technique so I sought them out to flip.
Easy money!

CP has a tiger by the tail that LS is a hott street car power and at 3200 sweet!

Yeah my Caddy has 66K on it. 17 years old. I know how to check for this. Like I stated it has had all the repairs mentioned.

 

[Bigtanker]

Another redhead? Haven't you learned your lesson?

 

[churchmouse]

Another redhead? Haven't you learned your lesson?

Apparently not.

All this NorthStar talk has me wondering now.

 

[maxwelhse]

Apparently not.

All this NorthStar talk has me wondering now.

Honestly, I've felt bad for mentioning it since about 2 minutes after I did.

It seemed like car guy shooting of bull until I stepped back for a second and realized I just, accidentally, peed on your new ride. Sorry CM.

 

[Brad69]

I like North Star’s smooth and powerful!

Yeah the younger guys never have lived with a hot street car back in the day!

1. Manual choke
2. High stall converter on the street
3. Big clutch on the street
4. Flooded carbs
​5. No A/C, Cruise

 

[femurphy77]

I finally got around to installing the under sink water heater in the shop; it's been sitting on a shelf for almost two years and MAN it's nice to have hot water out there.​

 

[churchmouse]

I like North Star’s smooth and powerful!

Yeah the younger guys never have lived with a hot street car back in the day!

1. Manual choke
2. High stall converter on the street
3. Big clutch on the street
4. Flooded carbs
​5. No A/C, Cruise

Yup.

Remote starters.....

Get in the car. Pump the throttle how ever many times you have discovered it takes for given weather conditions.
Fair day 2 times. Coole days 3 or more and waiting for it to catch and nursing it until the Oil Pressure comes up so you can get the revs up a bit. Keep it running until it builds a bit of heat and you can actually drive it.

Using the choke was always a gamble of washing out a set of plugs. My Hemi was a bear on a cool morning and I dare not choke it from being lazy. Dual AFB's were a real pain until it built up some heat.

The Cams of that period had huge overlap compared to what we have today.
Yeah folks are pretty spoiled these days and rightly so. I can only imagine. Never had a hot street car with an ICU in it. Digital 7's yes, full package......Nope.

 

[Brad69]

How about you think it’s warmed up enough and you pull into traffic then it back fires and quits in the middle of the road.

Trivia for the young dudes Chrysler product’s starters had a very unique whiny sound you could ID a block away and they were extremely cold natured.

 

[femurphy77]

And don't forget plugs AND points once a year! We changed the plugs in the wife's 06 Civic for the first time (and she's the original owner) last fall. I did it more out of guilt than anything as the old ones looked no worse for wear than the brand new ones we put back in their place.

 

[thunderchicken]

How about you think it’s warmed up enough and you pull into traffic then it back fires and quits in the middle of the road.

Trivia for the young dudes Chrysler product’s starters had a very unique whiny sound you could ID a block away and they were extremely cold natured.

Chrysler starters still have a unique sound. Maybe not quite the same whine but they are unique

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Hey I once took a brand new untested engine that had a nasty little cam and drove an hour up to Indy in the middle of winter to meet up with some INGOers. Car had no heat either. It was awesome and horrible at the same time.

 

[maxwelhse]

I keep wondering where the cut off for "young" guys is because I've lived 90% of the experiences the guys are outlining here. I get it that the median INGOer age is 147, but...

 

[Brad69]

If you drove a carbureted car daily along with everyone else I would say about 46, 48 or so would be the cut off?

 

[ChristianPatriot]

If you drove a carbureted car daily along with everyone else I would say about 46, 48 or so would be the cut off?

My first car was a carb’d ‘86 Caprice. Daily drove it for two or three years in high school. I’m only 33.

 

[maxwelhse]

If you drove a carbureted car daily along with everyone else I would say about 46, 48 or so would be the cut off?

My first was a '74 GMC K1500... 4V and breaker points. I'll be 41 next month.

I didn't have an EFI car until the summer of 2000 and I'd been driving for 5 years at that point.

 

[jeffsqartan]

I'm probably about the cut-off for that. Not because I'm afraid of it, but because it wasn't really offered to me. Parents weren't really into cars, only had one buddy that was. I didn't realize all that could be done until I got my Cummins and started building the twin turbo kit for it.
The first vehicle I ever bought was an 88 Chevy 2500, carbed. Didn't learn a whole lot on that truck, to be honest. Sold it to buy the 01 Ram that I built up with the Cummins. Drove a Del Sol as a daily for several years and then moved on to the Mustang. Have considered going carbed, but it's more work to do a carbed corner carver than it is to go EFI, even when starting from scratch.

For instance: I now have two more 351 Windsor engines, a MegaSquirt 2 EFI box with plug-n-play harness for Foxbodies, full 351w Typhoon intake with 36# injectors, and more parts that I'm having a tough time remembering right now. I actually can't get one of the engines out of the bed of my truck right now, so I had to move the one Mustang out and put my truck in the garage lol

Last night, did a little tuning on Crowd Killer. Added a couple degress of timing and adjusted the fueling and spark cuts in relation to ACT (I moved the sensor from a hot area to a cold area, so have to turn the values down to keep them right). Ohmylord does she seem so much happier now. Took it out for a cruise and beat pretty hard. Ran it up in 2nd gear, let off, and it just sat there growling and popping and crackling, sounding all sorts of mean. I may have ticked off someone that was fishing in the area lol. Will try to post a video soon.

 

[Bosshoss]

Apparently not.

All this NorthStar talk has me wondering now.

I know several Northstar owners that had 200k+ on original engine and no problems.
Don't worry about it and keep on top of the cooling system maintenance and you will be fine.
If it overheats there is a fix if you deem it worth fixing.

Much of these problems are internet problems not engine problems.

I had a 2000 BMW touring bike(second model year for that bike) that was known to have problems with rear end failure. The forums(such as they were back then) was abuzz with people having failures. We traveled all over the country 2 up and pulling a trailer.
I was worried so I contacted a friend that was a trike conversion manufacturer on bikes and purchased a takeoff rear end from him. I threw it in the trailer with the tools to swap the rear end out on the side of the road if needed. It was not a very big job.
I traveled all over the country with it in the trailer and never needed it. I sold bike with 60K on it and sold rear end to someone else for what I paid for it.
If I had listened to the internet I would have sold the bike and found something different afraid of a rear end failure.
A member went to their BMW motorcycle dealer and had a relative working there and had him look it up. BMW warranty history showed a approximate failure rate of less than 1%. If you read the forums you would of thought it was like 50 % failure rate.
Yes they fixed them under warranty but BMW motorcycle dealers are few and far between in the Nevada desert or middle of Montana.
Lots of good info on the forums but problems and opinions come out and get blown out of proportion sometimes.

 

[Stubbleducker]

Much of these problems are internet problems not engine problems.

I had a 2000 BMW touring bike(second model year for that bike) that was known to have problems with rear end failure. The forums(such as they were back then) was abuzz with people having failures. We traveled all over the country 2 up and pulling a trailer.
I was worried so I contacted a friend that was a trike conversion manufacturer on bikes and purchased a takeoff rear end from him. I threw it in the trailer with the tools to swap the rear end out on the side of the road if needed. It was not a very big job.
I traveled all over the country with it in the trailer and never needed it. I sold bike with 60K on it and sold rear end to someone else for what I paid for it.
If I had listened to the internet I would have sold the bike and found something different afraid of a rear end failure.
A member went to their BMW motorcycle dealer and had a relative working there and had him look it up. BMW warranty history showed a approximate failure rate of less than 1%. If you read the forums you would of thought it was like 50 % failure rate.
Yes they fixed them under warranty but BMW motorcycle dealers are few and far between in the Nevada desert or middle of Montana.
Lots of good info on the forums but problems and opinions come out and get blown out of proportion sometimes.

I too put ~60k on an LT that, to my dismay, refused to fail a rear end.
If things work as they're supposed to, you're out riding/driving and enjoying it. It's only when they don't that you post your woes to the world on the interweb.

 

[churchmouse]

How about you think it’s warmed up enough and you pull into traffic then it back fires and quits in the middle of the road.

Trivia for the young dudes Chrysler product’s starters had a very unique whiny sound you could ID a block away and they were extremely cold natured.

Gear reduction starters. Burned a few up. Used one to make the external starter for my drag bike.

 

[churchmouse]

I too put ~60k on an LT that, to my dismay, refused to fail a rear end.
If things work as they're supposed to, you're out riding/driving and enjoying it. It's only when they don't that you post your woes to the world on the interweb.

And in this I am absolutely sure that a certain level of abuse caused more than a few to fail.