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Thank you! Secondaries are working and all fuel filters are new. I have one before the fuel pump, and another before the carb inlet. I also have the fuel screen in the banjo bolts and the screen on the needle valve seats, so I got lots of filtration haha. I am a little worried the factory fuel pump is not keeping up since everyone here claims it was already anemic at stock power levels.
Today I checked the ignition timing and both the leading and the trailing were retarded. They were both retarded about the distance between the leading and trailing notches on the pulley. In other words there is a 20 degree timing difference between the leading and trailing, and that distance is roughly how retarded the leading and trailing timing was (20 deg ATDC leading, 40 deg ATDC trailing). I set the leading to factory spec and left the trailing because the screw head to adjust it is stripped out and didn't want to deal with it tonight (now 0 deg ATDC leading and 40 deg ATDC trailing). The correct leading ignition timing added noticeable power I would say slightly improved the high rpm running out of power and partial throttle issues. I'll adjust the trailing timing to factory spec (20 deg ATDC) soon and see what that changes.
I also currently have no vacuum advance hooked up. I am hoping when I hook that up it improves drivability at partial throttle.
I set the trailing ignition timing to factory spec and saw another small improvement. With the car warmed up the partial throttle performance is a good amount better than before. I'm hoping with some vacuum advance thrown on top of the current timing it drives normally. That said I have an emissions delete and the rats nest is removed, so how is vacuum advance with no rats nest? Maybe I am overthinking it but can't I just run two vacuum hoses to each vacuum advance diaphragm and call it day?
Vacuum advance is hooked up and it raised the idle (as expected) but did not see a significant change to drivability. I did finally get around to replacing the window seals, regulators, and door weather-stripping. Interior still needs lots of work, lots of sun damage over the years.
Also washed the car and the tail light lens fell off. Still have not solved the running out of power at high rpms yet. I did have the idea to pull off the air cleaner and rev'd the engine up and opened the secondaries to check fuel flow through them. I have flow through both, it looks a little uneven, but I don't know if the unevenness is significant enough to cause the power loss.
My tail light lens fell off the other day so I took it apart and cleaned it up a little. I wanted to be very gentle since it was already cracked so I only used warm water to clean the dirt out and then glued it back together with silicone. I left the other taillight alone in fear of breaking it. The glue probably isn't holding on very strong but the car has seen a lot of uv rays so if its not broken I won't fix it. I ordered new inner and outer gaskets from phils rotary on ebay. I'm not sure if I am doing something wrong but I was not very happy with the fitment. It seems like the bottom side of the gasket needs to be longer. I have not noticed any leaks yet at least. Maybe I never noticed this before but the sides of the taillights seem to stick out further than they used to. When it warms up again I'll have to try refitting them.
I also upgraded the fuel pump. I decided on the Mr Gasket 12s. Its rated at 35gph at 4-7 psi and shares a similar form factor to the original pump which was important to me since I wanted to mount it in the factory location. According to my research 4-7psi is too high for the nikki so I also got a Holly 1-4psi pressure regulator. I didn't take any pictures of the regulator because how I mounted it is not my finest work. It is way off to the right side of the car, but I was able to do it without making any new holes which is important to me. The pump is simply mounted to a bent piece of sheet metal which is then bolted to the factory fuel pump carrier. I much prefer this approach to drilling holes on the underside of the car.
I also finally figured out why my car had such shitty gas mileage and misfires at partial throttle. The primary and secondary jets got swapped on rotor 1... Car runs great now lol! So if anyone's car is getting 6-8mpg and misfires unless you are WOT, check your jets.
I have not done much to the car the past few months. Been busy and struggling with water ingress and has led to me driving/working on it less. It has been running well enough that I autocross'd it for the first time late last fall.
I also finally found some silicone plugs large enough to block off all the unused air cleaner pipes for the varies emissions devices.
Right now I have water in the trunk, passenger seat, and passenger foot well. Sunroof drains are clear and have had some damage in the past but do not appear to leak currently. I will want to repair the rust and make some new gaskets for the sunroof hinge though. I should probably pull the heater squirrel cage fan and check the cowl inlet for leaks. I've already made up some new tail light gaskets and fixed those leaks.
10-03-22, 11:48 PM
