Back from the dead....bringing her back to life....
 

Hey all,

ive been on this board for 10 years....yikes...and im now finally getting to start playin with my 85' gsl again...

The car has a dellorto carb, IMSA kit (air dam, targa strip and wrap around spoiler.)....but sadly, due to kids and life in general, hasn't run in probably 7 years......

When it last ran, it had carb tuning issues, so it got parked.....

anyhoo, this thread is just to keep track of my progress and to ask questions, as im not a mechanic by trade......lol....

ill get some pictures of it (then and now) up soon.....small one in my avatar

Any ideas where to start?...take out plugs and fill with oil..let it soak? ...before turning over by hand...


Thanks Paul

Hey Paul, best of luck on getting your engine running. Pulling the plugs and letting her soak in oil is a good start. If you can I would pull the exhaust manifold along with the intake manifold to try and cover as many apex seals you can get to.

good call......with the dellorto on there, all that ratsnest of wiring is long gone already..so its easy enough to get to.....

blast from the past
 

for those interested....i found a website i did in '05 or so...all about my car...

check it out:

Untitled Document

time for fuel injection??

sacre bleu!!:)... and get rid of the rare Dellorto carb?....no....lol

So got her pulled out, bled the brakes, bled clutch, new battery...and here she is....

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I had a Dell for about 20+ years. Finally built a hogged out nikki and its more fun and faster
than the Dell. The Dell really has a cool sound to it but the nikki screams and has better grunt
down low and gets more predictable gas mileage. Keeping the Dell for another build tho.

Good to see you get it out and running again. I know that feeling. Mine sat on stands for about
4 years due to rear axel bearings failing and life. It was so nice to get it finally fixed back up and
running again. Enjoy it now and keep it happy.

Looking god man!! Can't wait to see more pics of the progress!!

Speaking of a Dell, I had one in the white REPU and tested it back to back against a stock 20mm Hitachi carb. It was a smaller Hitachi than the stock 74 spec 22mm hitachi the trucks came with, but I only had access to the weaker 20mm version.

The result was the dell had more tip in and midrange making it feel like a more responsive carb than the tiny stock hitachi. I'd say both carbs were about equal at high RPM.

I've also driven the truck with a stock 20mm Nikki. A couple of them, actually. They were about the same at low RPM as the hitachi but always seemed to have better high end once you opened the secondaries.

Fast forward to now. These days I know how to hog out and boost prep Nikkis to the point where, I've been told by a guy who got one from me, that it drives as nice as modern EFI and doesn't bog at all when you open the secondaries, even at 2k! It doesn't really take off until 3k*, but it will not bog, which I was happy to hear. :)

*the no bog at 2k thing and the 3k power thing has been my finding as well. Still better than other Nikki offerings that bog at any RPM less than about 4k. :D

The other nice thing about his findings were that it was a 100% boost tuned Nikki being used on his NA setup that hasn't required a retune yet. This lets me know that if I install a boost prepped hogged out Nikki in the white truck, that it shouldn't require a retune either. Well, that is to say it should be a good 80% tuned right out of the box but it will probably need at least some fine tuning as every engine is different. But maybe just a hundredth or two larger or smaller on the primary jets. That's it.

Then I will finally be able to at long last determine which carb is better in this truck. The old Dell from a while back, or one of these newly modified Nikkis I've been dumping hour after hour perfecting over the past year and a half or so.

To make it relevant I'll say these two things. Today I just found the right top for it amoung the two or three still available around here that had a set of OEM needles and seats swapped in to replace some garbage aftermarket ones that a misguided previous owner had swapped in, which lead to instant flooding as they all do. And 2) if you are planning on keeping the Dell, that's cool, but we've made some major strides in understanding how to get far more out of Nikkis than anyone ever thought possible before, and the carb does it in a very refined way bordering on modern EFI. You might consider looking into them whether you are staying NA or thinking about turbos.

These days, I wouldn't even touch a Dell. I do have a weber 45DCOE that I thought about trying in the truck, but recent Nikki awesomeness has totally changed my plans. Probably gonna sell off all the weber stuff. It was boost prepped with all the bells and whistles Robert recommended but I've had excellent results with the Nikki so that's what I'm going with. Plus the blow through Nikki concept turned out more powerful in the end. :)

So progress has been made..... But I'm still not running...... So some suggestions or advice would be great.....

So far I've....

Bled brakes and carb,
Removed old gas and replaced with new
Found and fixed a broken wire that was causing my leading coil to not fire at all
Replaced starter (as it was missing a few teeth)
Verified fuel pump is working and pushing fuel

So now it fired up.... Yaaay....sort of....
It will only fire if I put gas down the dellorto carbs throat, and it only stays running for a few seconds or as I'm guessing until the fuel I put in the carb runs out.....

I did verify that fuel is getting to the carb......
Anyone out there with dellorto or even carb experience recommend a next step?

Thanks

Paul

So after all the above issues with the dellorto, I finally pulled it off the car.... And ugh.... What a mess....

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Orange silicone everywhere.... I had sent the xarb away for rebuilding years ago.... And That's what they did.....

Ugh..... So rebuilt the carb... Cleaned every jet, replaced every seal etc....

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Put it back on, drilled out the idle jets....
And now she runs beautifully.., even in -10 c:)

I got to drive it around the acreage for the first time in 10 years

Now to replace the thermostat, renewed the brakes, clean it, fix the windows, etc... Oh and reattach the front air dam..... But I'm closer now than ever....

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It lives.....
And I drove it today for the first time in 10 years
Down a rural road for a few km and back

Admittedly without brakes and using the ebrake / downshifting to slow down...

But ohh I've forgotten how much fun it is.... And the sound:)

All done
 

so here she is all cleaned up and running beautifully.....
(still need to do some small minor things, like replaceing door seals and repainting some emblems.....(oh and cleaning off the rear window)

but everyone wants pics etc. so here we go.....

and a video walk around....dellorto carb, racing beat header.......custom exhaust