Darwin's New Distributor

[T5MalibuWagon]

http://wichita.craigslist.org/car/691691025.html just saw this would make a pretty good donation
for that 5 speed

bet you could part it out and make some money on that one.

 

[T5MalibuWagon]

Lakewood makes the 15032 Bellhousing that will allow me to attach the Mustang T-5 (which is more available than the Camaro V8 T-5) to a small block Chevy (or Chevy 90 degree V6).

The other trick is that I will need a custom welded stick to move the shift stick fwd and allow me to keep an unmodified bench with the aft location of the Mustang's internal shifter. I've already sketched out a rough idea that should work.

why not use a box out of an s-10 if you arnt going to be bangin gears or racing. If its about mpg, $$, and shifter placement than thats your box.

If you do go with a camaro t5 heres how I did my shifter to work with the bench. You cant slid the seat all the way fward but far enogh that most people wouldnt have a problem

 

[Darwinskeeper]

Firebird box, saving money...more work...hmmm... :-k

I actually once considered buying an S-10 box from Doober but quickly talked myself out of it. The problem is that I might want to take Darwin out to the strip some day and I do occasionally burn a little rubber and it would be nice to have a driveline that had prayer of handling the (relatively mild) abuse that my V6 might be able to to dish out.

 

[80ECLT]

Well, a T5 will take more abuse than a Saginaw. Eventually I'm going to put a T5 from a 2.8 S-10 into mine to replace the Saginaw. it should hold up to the 250 hp she puts out, at least no worse than the sag...

 

[Darwinskeeper]

The news from my weekend roadtesting was not as good as I would have liked. I filled up three times during the trip and got the following results.

Driving To KC 170mi 9.80gal 17.35mpg

Driving Around KC 61mi 3.10gal 19.68mpg

Driving from KC 165mi 8.93 gal 18.48mpg

](*,)

Driving to and from were at least 98% highway driving at around 70mph. The middle portion included stop and go driving and driving on urban "highways" at 65mph.

By comparrison, my last road trip to KC (which was after the cam swap but before the DUI was added) had 17.66mpg coming to KC and 19.71mpg returning from KC. Thus it doesn't seem like switching from a Proform HEI to a Performance Distributors DUI has really helped the cause.

At the moment I have two possible explanations for Darwin's continued disappointing mileage. :-k When I swapped from the Proform to the DUI I changed the plug gap to .050 (as recommended by Performance Distributors). It may be that this is too wide, causing misfire. The strange thing is that the engine seems to be running smoother, particularly at idle, and I always assumed that misfire caused a rough running engine. The other possibility is that the carb needs to be retuned and rejetted to work with the new (milder) cam and the carb problems are so great that they mask any improvements coming from the DUI.

The thing that puzzles me is the variation between successive tanks, particularly that the middle tank, which had the most around town style driving had the best mpg. Wierd!!!

 

[T5MalibuWagon]

time for a wideband O2 :-"

 

[Darwinskeeper]

Aye, for me carb retuning will include checking the idle adjustments and (at the very least) checking the main jets with a wide band O2 sensor.

 

[80ECLT]

Have you priced a wideband O2 steup?? #-o

 

[T5MalibuWagon]

Have you priced a wideband O2 steup?? #-o

Have you seen the price of gas :shock:

 

[80ECLT]

Have you priced a wideband O2 steup?? #-o

Have you seen the price of gas :shock:

Yup! Thats why I built a V6. dancin_banana.gif