After several 15 (or so) minute run cycles, I checked the oil to see what it looked like. Uh oh, There was water in the crankcase. To make a long story short, I had bought an El Cheapo no name aluminum intake from Ebay that was so poorly made that one of the water ports barely matched the water port in the head. Just looking at the manifold out of the box, it looked great. But after being installed, the residual gasket marks showed that there was only about 1/16 to maybe 1/8th inch of gasket engagement on that water port. Once engine warmed up enough to build up a lb or two of pressure it started leaking coolant & had no where to go except down into the oil pan. I ordered a Weiand 8122 aluminum intake, which is what I really wanted to begin with. Even though it had Cast in China stamped on the underside, it was obvious that someone had been paying attention to quality control on this unit.
Once I had manifold/water leak resolved (Yes, I did change the oil & filter. Left drain plug out for several days so it could drain as well as possible), I had to deal with the carb loading up. Turns out, I needed a fuel pressure regulator. My electric pump only put out about 6 psi, but I ended up with regulator set at 3.5 psi. That may have to increase a little after truck is on the road, but for now 3.5 psi is working well.
Next problem was the ign timing. While setting the initial timing, the timing marks, as shown by the timing light, was very erratic, jumping plus or minus 7 or 8 degrees or so. Up till now I had just set it at a happy medium, but now it was time to get it right. As I said earlier, I used a Jegs house brand R2R distributor. This unit has a really nice billet housing , but basically a copy of a late '50's /60''s GM distributor, except it has an electronic module in place of the old points & condensor. Uses an old style external 40,000 volt ,remote mount coil. Very compact unit that fits well where space is limited, like next to the firewall on a '66 C10 with a BBC installed. The distributor comes with complete instructions for setting up your preferred advance curve including several sets of springs (to establish how quickly timing will advance) and small L brackets (or clips) to set how far timing can advance. Instructions also tells spec's on how distributor is set upright out of the box. Which In my case was perfect. Or so I thought. The kit that came with unit listed 3 sets of springs. One that matched the out of the box setting (that I preferred to use) and two different colored springs for quicker advance curves. Since the springs that were already installed in dist as delivered matched the springs in the kit that I wanted to use, I assumed I didn't need to change them out. But after dealing with the erratic timing, I guessed that the springs in dist were too weak to control the mechanical advance weights & were allowing them to bounce back & forth at low rpm. I installed the desired springs from the kit & discarded the springs that came in the distributor and all was well. Initial timing settled down & I was able to set it at the desired 10 Degrees before TDC. For the record, timing is set at !0 degrees initial & 34 degrees total @ 3000 rpm. May not be perfect, but definitely close. Engine pulls 15 in vacuum @ 700 rpm but jumps to 21/22 @1200. Should work well for power brake booster, vac. advance on distributor, etc.
Sorry, no photos documenting any of the above. I know a post is worthless without photos
Last edited by RLB; 08/12/2023 4:34 PM. Reason: Typo
