The Tragic Tale of ElSuperPinto

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I luv my Edelbrock
I think I'm going back with Edelbrock. They're still family-owned, I've NEVER had an issue with one of their carburetors (and I've had four of the things on various cars), and hell, I may still have a 650 Thunder AVS in the garage somewhere (which seals the decision).

I looked into the new Brawler line from Holley (very impressive features at the price), the new Street Demon (which is kind of a mutt between a Thermoquad and a Carter/Edelbrock... in a good way), and a few others, and it really came down to the Edelbrock carbs I already know or giving the Street Demon a try.


EDIT: Found my old Edelbrock! The old man swapped it for the Holley that was on the Capri when I wasn't looking!
 
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So... the Mostly Starts Dammit Atomic "EFI" will be on Ebay by this weekend.

I took the ol' Edelbrock to work today and went over it with an old toothbrush and some carburetor cleaner and it cleaned up real nice. Decided I'll throw it straight on the car and find out if I'm gonna need a rebuild kit or not the hard way... after all the other parts get here. That shopping list includes a fuel pump, fuel line to run from pump to carburetor, a few brass fittings, air cleaner stud, possibly a fan controller now that the EFI won't be turning it on and off (I'm considering just setting the current relay up to turn the fan on when the key is on).

In the meantime, I had a mental breakthrough in two departments.

I've figured out exactly how I'm going to convert it over the LED tail-lights (the finished product should be awesome, we'll see), and I've figured out how I'm going to put reverse lights back on it... well... a reverse light:


This reverse light:

Will be installed into this bumper:

Now I've just got to get the EFI sold to fund it!
 
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A suggestion on the fan controller: you could add a toggle as well to give you more control over it. I have one installed in my car inline with the controller now, but I have had it installed to manually turn the fan on as a redundant safety just in case the relay in the controller were to fail. You could do that to get your car going again while waiting on a controller....
 
A suggestion on the fan controller: you could add a toggle as well to give you more control over it. I have one installed in my car inline with the controller now, but I have had it installed to manually turn the fan on as a redundant safety just in case the relay in the controller were to fail. You could do that to get your car going again while waiting on a controller....
With the Derale relay I'm running, I'd just run a wire that's hot with the key on to trigger it after hooking the ground up to the mounting screw (the Atomic EFI triggered the ground side of the relay).

No switch to forget.
 
The reason I mentioned a toggle switch is because, as I understood it from years ago, there were 2 reasons electric fans became prevalent. To reduce engine drag and once you were going a certain speed the fan acted like a block and actually impedes airflow. With an electric fan, and later with the advancement of computer control, electric fans could be turned off when they weren't needed. For example, when the car is already under a preset temperature (we'll say 185) OR if the vehicle was traveling at a predetermined speed (we'll say 45 MPH) the fan would be turned off. The toggle switch would at least give you that control so the fan wouldn't needlessly spin constantly. I'd like to think it wouldn't impede air flow like the old steel belt driven fans as I think air speed would most likely overpower the electric motor, but it wouldn't hurt to have it shut off instead of being pushed while running. Just my 2 cents - and probably not even worth that.... ;)
 
The reason I mentioned a toggle switch is because, as I understood it from years ago, there were 2 reasons electric fans became prevalent. To reduce engine drag and once you were going a certain speed the fan acted like a block and actually impedes airflow. With an electric fan, and later with the advancement of computer control, electric fans could be turned off when they weren't needed. For example, when the car is already under a preset temperature (we'll say 185) OR if the vehicle was traveling at a predetermined speed (we'll say 45 MPH) the fan would be turned off. The toggle switch would at least give you that control so the fan wouldn't needlessly spin constantly. I'd like to think it wouldn't impede air flow like the old steel belt driven fans as I think air speed would most likely overpower the electric motor, but it wouldn't hurt to have it shut off instead of being pushed while running. Just my 2 cents - and probably not even worth that.... ;)
I just know from experience that I'd forget to turn the thing on.
 
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Still no update, and more than likely none this weekend. Car starts and runs, even drives, just idles ridiculously high because MSD.

Haven't made it to the junkyard to source a few IACs, haven't gathered all of the parts for the carburetor reversion (still need a fuel pump and some fittings, and I'm having a hell of a time deciding on which fuel pump to go with), and haven't sourced the give-a-damn to remedy the situation.

I could try to do so this weekend, but I work until 5ish tomorrow at the shop, then I'm hauling ass down to Cotton Bowl Speedway to watch the sprint cars race with one of my buddies from Carmax (Hi Kenneth! Hurry up and join the forum dammit!) then getting up Sunday morning to go ride some trails on mountain bikes with my boss (kind of have to, it's my fault he got into it!)

So... ElSuperBackburner is back!
 
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I had a Holly 600 years ago and it was a great carb but being a daily driver and in the midwest I was always adjusting it. Any environment changes required adjustments. It's best days were cold but not freezing temps. It always ran but rarely ran great without tweaking for conditions. Admittedly I don't know :poo: but it was always troublesome for me.

I swapped the same engine into a daily driven truck for a few years after scraping my old II. I put an Eddy 600 on it. It just worked. Minor adjustments out of the box and that was it. No need to fiddle constantly. Needless to say I have another Eddy today.
 
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So I mentioned that I've figured out just what I'm going to do for a rear bumper on ElSuperPinto once the economy stabilizes (and with it, my paychecks).

I haven't, for the life of me, figured out what to do about the front.

I could leave it stock and add the cow-catcher... but every time I put it on the front of the car I think "maybe" for awhile then end up at "nah", and take it off.

I could do the "drill the absorbers and press them down to pull the bumper in" bit, but then I'm adding interference on my part to what deterioration brought on by time has already done to just make the stock bumper less effective and more dangerous.

I could drill new holes to pull it further back, either trimming the ancient urethane or using a new fiberglass skin.

Or I could do something completely custom.

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I actually have something remarkably similar to this in storage, I bought it at a swap meet in 2003 thinking it was a King Cobra front valance, and then it turned out to not even fit a II. I saw this picture tonight and it reminded me of that old thing sitting on the top shelf in my storage unit... it may get used on a II yet.
 
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That pic is pretty tidy. I like where they went with the bumper thickness and basic shape.
All I would have done is leave the number plate recess out and shorten up the ends on the fender side, maybe brought the corners out just a hair more so they aren't recessed in relation th the headlight bucket as per the drivers side corner in the pic.
Overall though a pretty good slim up of the battering ram our cars are born with,,,
 
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Holy crap! Did some digging, and found some pictures I thought I'd lost forever. The first is my '74 Mustang II (the one that puts "74stang2" in "74stang2togo"). That little postage-stamp sized photo is the 2.3 I built for it, complete with an Autolite 2100 carburetor on a modified intake. The last picture is my 1975 Ford Thunderbird I drove from Waco, Texas to St. Louis, Missouri for World Ford Challenge 6 in 2003. I went looking for a picture of the air dam I'd picked up at the swap meet there (it rode back in the passenger seat of the Thunderbird, along with the plaque I got by default for having the only 70s T-bird in the show field!) and couldn't find it, but managed to find these three pictures!
 
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I really like that front treatment! Like @429MII says, I'd look at removing the recess, but I think I'd like to see it flow with the front end a bit just to step it up a notch. As it is it kinda looks flat, whereas the II grille is forward of the headlight buckets. I think if it had that basic shape it would almost blend and make it look like it was a factory option.
 
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