Just wanted to update you guys on the new engine/tranny. Had fun this weekend. Got stranded twice. Had to have it towed home from one of the local Chic-Fil-A restaurants after the throttle cable was burned stuck by the exhaust header. Bad routing on my part. The cable was resting against the rear header. As I pulled away from the drive through I noticed that I had no accelerator!
So I managed to piddle along in first gear at idle to an open parking spot. Thank God for Triple A!
Went to the local AutoZone and picked up a new cable, installed it, routing it in a more intelligent manner and the accelerator works great. Throttle response is outstanding. The previous cable was a "Lokar" cable. One of their stainless braided cables. I never was able to get good response from it. The cable stretched and was not very flexible at all. And it cost 30 bucks! The new cable is a cheapie, 19.99 vinyl cable that works great. Very flexible and plenty of room inside the cable housing for the cable to slide freely.
Here's what's happening with the engine.
I turned down the idle mixture screws and increased the plug gap to .050. The plugs were sooty black after only about 150 miles. Fuel distribution is obviously not equal as the plugs got much more sooty from the rear forward. This is probably due to the design of the Offy intake, which slopes downward towards the front and upwards towards the rear.
But throttle response with the 500 cfm Edelbrock 1403 carb is outstanding. There are not flat spots and no noticeable bogging. Not even momentary. It's almost as if this combination of engine-intake-carb is factory preset. So at this point I think it's safe to say that a 292, bored .060 with a mild cam and headers is very comfortable with an Edelbrock 500 cfm 4 barrel carb. I haven't changed the float settings, nor the jets or metering rods. I have been contemplating leaning the primaries out one step (to eliminate the plug soot), but am a little concerned about being too lean. What are the symptoms of running too lean?
I put about 60 miles on the new engine yesterday afternoon. Acceleration is now impressive. I had no problems accelerating to interstate speeds, and actually had to back off the throttle a couple of times in third gear to avoid pushing the cars in front of me off the interstate. If anyone tells you that a mildly built 292 won't move a half ton pickup quickly they're lying to you. Trust me.
With the OD cruising at 70 is effortless. With the torque of the 292, getting to 70 is just as effortless. Anything over 70 though and I get an annoying vibration. It's almost certain to be the harmonic balancer. It's on "crooked" - but the odd thing is there is no vibration whatsoever in any gear (except overdrive) at any other speed.
I'm getting ready to change the oil for the second time. So far I've only run Penzoil 5w30 and would now like to go with the oil that I'll run from now on. I'm thinking of sticking with the Penzoil and bumping the weight up to 10w30. What do you guys think/recommend?
-ftyler
