Back where I should be...
 

I haven't really posted anything on my Monte recently so I thought maybe an update is in order. Two years ago when racing season ended I got my personal best (in my sig). In February 2007, I installed an new Edelbrock 650 cfm Thunder Series AVS carburetor in place of the old Edelbrock 600 cfm Performer carb. Ever since I installed the 650, my times slowed considerably (by a full second or more) and I couldn't best a 15.5 at all, no matter what kind of tune I did to it. I got fed up after the last bracket race I attended in May this year so I decided to reinstall the 600cfm carb. Saturday night I went out to the track for my club's monthly bracket race and low and behold, my times were back to where they should have been. My first run was a 15.09, my second was a 15.01, my third was a 15.04 and my fourth run was a 14.94. Unfortunately I was unable to best my last run because I ended up blowing my water pump gaskets on the fourth run. I used pepper to stop the leak until I could get home to replace the gaskets. I guess you could call Saturday night a successful failure in that even though I "broke" my car, I successfully discovered why my car's been running slow for the past 2 years.

Sunday and Monday were disaster days though. What should have been a 30 minute fix turned into a snowball effect where this and that and that and this went wrong. I ended up breaking my lower alternator bracket (discovered that at the track), so I went and bought a Spectre brand. Upon trying to remove the upper alternator bracket, I ended up breaking the bolt for the upper alternator bracket in the water pump. I took it as a sign and decided to replace the water pump for preventive measures because it did see its fair share of abuse. Upon removing the old water pump and installing the new one, I couldn't get the heater hose fitting out of the old water pump. It was jammed and not even an air gun could get it out so I had to go get a new heater hose fitting. Upon reinstalling the power steering pump, the bracket was bent and could not slip over the mounting point on the water pump so I had to take a bolt and two nuts and spread the bracket apart far enough to slip it on. After all that ordeal, I finally got it all put back together and started it up only to discover the in-line fuel filter was leaking so I had to tighten that up.

I hope I don't have to do that again any time soon.

Thats interesting how those extra 50 cfms were killing your time.

well, its good to hear you at least got it back together. is it running better now that you had replaced everything?

sounds like one hell of an ordeal f'in snowball effect big time there....i agree with jj odd most times u throw a little larger cfm carb it runs better times...more fuel to feed the fire

Its running like it should. No leaks and no other abnormalities.

sometimes bigger isnt always better. in trying to move down from a 750 double pumper to a 650. ive never really looked at the edelbrock carbs even though i have one laying around that i want to get rid of. did it pick up mph? did it bog off the line? just curious.

Yikes! Thank goodness it seems to have all worked out in the end, but what an ordeal to experience :(.



Cort | 35swm | "Mr Monte Carlo"."Mr Road Trip" | pig valve.pacemaker ...Chitown #2 = 07/25/09
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"It seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal" ... Incubus ... 'Drive'

curious... why did it actually hurt you when you stepped up to the 650 carburetor?

I've had the same problem as you with the bigger carb slowing things down. I had a 650cfm double pumper holley on my 305 and it choked out the engine a lot. I moved down to a 570cfm double pumper holley and it runs way better now and doesn't stall as much.