SPEEDOMETER DRIVE

Originally I used a Hall Effect sensor to trigger the speedo head as was suggested by Classic Instruments. I have burned out about 6 of those. Some kind of voltage spike was getting to them, I think. I added a capacitor to try to eliminate those but to no avail.

I have now switched to a reed switch. This is a switch that is triggered by a magnet passing by the switch. The speedo head operates by grounding the sensor wire with pulses of grounding. The reed switch is perfect for this.
I found one that mounted where the old unit was and stuck rare earth magnets to the brake rotor, no glue, one on each spoke. This gave the same pulses as the Hall Effect unit so no new calibration was needed. So far this is working great and will no burn out since there is no voltage going to it.

MORE ON CARB TUNING

Previously I posted about synchronizing my carbs with the home made carb stick. I think now I have found a better way. I followed this write up and things are much improved. I found that at full throttle the right slide was 1/4" low. this would mess up the mixture almost all through the RPM range. I can now get the idle way lower and starting off is smoother. Top end should be improved also.
Click on the image; right click on image and click "view image" then click on the imag again to enlarge it.

FENDER STRUT REMAKE

The fender struts have been a real pain for me. The ends have broken 4 times from vibration causing work hardening of the alum. I tried some SS tubing with flattened ends and they did the same thing.

The fix ( I hope) is 3/16" x 3/4" flat bar. This seems to be much more stable. The flat bar is bolted to a plasma cut plate so the actual strut is about 2"+ shorter than before. Time will tell. Photos are the old and the new.

CARB ISSUES AGAIN

Well, the vent tube idea really didn't do much. I then went to Eurocarb and ordered these "surge washers". They seem to help but still not what it should be. I still have and empty float bowl doing hard cornering.

The idea is that these washer cups sit just at the bottom of the float bowl and prevent fuel from sloshing up the side of the bowl or not let all the fuel do that. Some should stay in the sump nut where the jet is located. This seems to be a common problem from my research but no one had found a fix other than changing to fuel injection.

GEARSHIFT LINKAGE

Originally I set up the shift arm pointing out to the left which made 1st gear pull back on the shift lever. That is not intuitive and I've always regretted not figuring out how to do it the other way. David from France suggested turning the arm the other way. That looked like it wouldn't work as the firewall was in the way as was the rear of the tranny if mounted in that direction.

Well, a little of head scratching, contortion, welding and cursing it now fits and works GREAT. The first pic shows how I did the first time using a clevis at each end of the shift rod. Lots of slop.

I cut off the end of the arm and welded a new piece on that shortened the arm so that it could be mounted facing the other way and still allow mounting the ball joint. Here is the cut off end and the new welded end with ball joint.

Here is a pic of it installed and that was a tough job to reach in there with two wrenches to tighten it all up.

So, was it worth the trouble, absolutely. The shift is now in the right direction, the slop is gone and the feel is way, way better.

FRONT END ALIGNMENT UPDATE

I have been setting 1/8"+ toe out as suggested in the JZR forum. The car drove OK but the steering was a bit twitchy. I tried setting to 1/8" toe in and it made a remarkable difference.  The car is much more stable now and the twitchy steering is gone. Well, how about that?

CARB ISSUES

I've been fighting a problem for the past year and I think I've finally solved it. When cornering hard the fuel would be thrown against the vent side of the carb to the inside of the curve and be forced out the vent. I think also a syphon would start and suck all the gas out of the carb. Coming out of the corner the inside cylinder would be dead and would take 10 to 20 seconds to start firing again.

I researched this to a great extent including contacting Eurocarb.com and the Triking forum. No solution offered did the trick. I tried cutting down of fuel pressure on the Holley pressure regulator but that made it worse. I tried looping the vent hoses high over the carbs and then down. That seemed to help but not solve it. Finally someone suggested bringing the vent tubes up high and into a catch can so no syphon could be started. Well that plus increasing the fuel pressure to 3# solved the problem. Hard cornering without a miss.