tuned and looking for an afmeter.

[bk53]

Thanks to Bubba, Richard in fla, Ol' Ron, and Ross, I finally got my 276 tuned.
I have 20 max mechanical advance, about 8 vacuum advance. I gave her a good workout and diod not have any pinging.
I had some issues with the allen wrench I received to set up the vacuum advance. it was half the size of the wrench that came with the 31034 accel unit I bought yesterday in frustration. The wrench fit both vacuum advance units. More cheap chinese crap. Anyway I tuned in an additional 8 degrees and opened her up going across a local bridge. This is a 276 in a 53 f100. ross pistons, a 77 b cam, H&H balanced crank etc. this little ol truck just gets after it. I hope to see the mileage go up now. Oh yeah, this has a Charlie NY Holley 94. A sweet combo. I have a navarro regular with two uncle max 97's waiting to go on after break in.
wow the title should say a/f meter my keyborad has seen better days.
Richard, if you happen to read this, what is your new project? I saw the blue dizzy cap but I don't know what it is. You being the trail blazer, I'm very curious.

Best regards,
Bill

wow title should say looking for a/f meter my keyboard has seen better days

[john in illinois]

Bill you can get a portable unit just to tune up or a meter that is permanently installed. I have a portable one that I can use on different cars. Innovate seems to be the best company.

Here are both units

http://www.amazon.com/Innovate-Motor...meter+innovate


http://www.amazon.com/Innovate-Motor...r%2Ffuel+meter

It is amazing to see how a carb set up performs as you drive.
Note the portable can be temporarily installed to check under driving conditions.

John

[JWL]

I do not agree that Innovate is one of the best companies. There are tons of complaints about their systems not working. Just do an Internet search. At the same time I am sure there are many happy customers with their products and I am not interested in establishing a debate

I don't know the best but I do have experience with several brands. For moderate cost, general usage, AEM, or Autometer, or NTK, or Motec, or FAST, to name a few. A newer name that seems to have all the right features at very low cost is Zeitronix.

The A/F meter can only give indications as to which direction you might want to go in your tuning experiments. It cannot be said that tuning for a specific number on a gauge will provide best performance. In the first place there can be big differences in the readings from one unit to another. Too, some engines have adequate turbulence to cruise at 16 or 17 to 1. Others falter and surge at 15. The benchmark maximum power ratio of 12.5 has been hailed but I have found 13 to 13.3 to produce maximum torque in our Flatheads. In the end I would say the A/F meter is only a tool to be used in an effort to discover what your engine likes. For these reasons a choice which gives repeatable readings is more important than dead-nuts numbers accuracy. There are some very expensive, industrial units for consideration if precision numbers accuracy is important to you.

[bk53]

Thanks Guys, I've started to dig into these. It helps to hear from experienced users about this kind of thing and will probably save me a small fortune not buying the wrong stuff.

regards,

Bill

[Ol' Ron]

The most difficult part about tuning your engine is:
Making a change when you think it's running great. BUt, you won't know that unless you make a change. We did this with Richards engine. It was running great, but we leaned it out even more, just to see what would happen. We were supprised when it worked. the mileage went up and the AF is over 16:1 during cruise and drops to low 13's at WOT. Not every engine will act the same, but the Key here is a tight piston to head clearance.

[bk53]

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wow. Me and Dave the machinist went back and fourth but in the end, without milling the heads we had a minimum of 50 thou without the gaskets, in every jug. I seem to recall you mentioning 40 thousandths as a minimum. Trying to keep straight here which books I've read in the last 2 years We didn't do any specific clearance work. The A/F ratios are on me for this truck meaning I'm on my own as far as local support. So knowing what is attainable is comforting and if I can't get those numbers, something close. We didn't do any port work on this and its a street motor in a pickup. My best guess for mileage is about 13-14 today after adding vac advance yesterday, so I'm hoping for some improvement. Still need to do a measured test. Today was a 50 mile ride in the country for the better half. Very pleasant I might add. This truck has more motor than suspension on the local farm to market roads

[Lawrie]

I agree with Ron, when you think its going great , I put a 97 carb and home made manifold on my A.got it to run what I thought was great just by the seat of the pants.
Put and AF meter on ,leaned it out and it went better still, Its a far better way to set up the fuel ,I drove a test corse around the block about 20 times,writing down the readings at all throttle positions,made changes one at a time .
I ended up very happy.
Lawrie