Every great journey begins with the turn of an ignition key

Drove from my house to my buddy Brian's in three hours.  With so much interstate road I was able to get a feel for my car.  It has been a while since I drove her any great distance - most trips are only a few miles.  With the carbs tuned by Brian last week, new O-rings on the idle jets and the FUEL PUMP PIVOT PIN peened back in where it belongs (thank goodness it fell onto the engine case and didn't bounce off somewhere down the road) she was running well.

The O2 (lambda) gauge was reading 12.5 basically the whole way so she's not running lean, that's good!  Oil pressure was 20-30psi (good).  Coming off the freeway to a stop and no red oil light.  Hooking my oil pre-cooler back up was a good idea.  The front end is twitchy, likes to over-steer.  Brian said the toe-in and camber is not correct for a lowered nose with wider tires.  Acceleration is fine, even up the steep grades.

When my fuel gauge hit the 1/2 mark my trip odometer showed 140miles.  Some quick math, 140 * 2 = 280 ÷ 10gallon gas tank = 28mpg.  However, that's not entirely correct since my tires are about one inch shorter than stock because they are a lower profile but at least the number was above 20mpg.  Everything is looking good for my journey.


For Brian, things have started a little iffy.  At 11pm Saturday night we had to swap parking spots.  During that Brian noticed he suddenly didn't have tail lights.  Then after playing with his push-button switch he lost his left headlight!  Long electrical story short, I was able to do some wiring magic and got it fixed.  The headlight issue was due to some corrosion on the fuse so I had him spin them in place to get some metal-to-metal contact back.  Ideally, a wire brush or steel wool to buff the fuse bases and clips would've been best but Brian had neither.  We were finally in bed after 1am.

Note:  I started this entry Saturday night but due to Brian's electrical issue I didn't finish it until Sunday morning.