Project RA24 Celica

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mtheis
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by mtheis »

It passed inspection today. Hooray!
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

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mtheis wrote:It passed inspection today. Hooray!
My Uncle passed inspection one time...well, really, he turned around and drove back the other way. They send a car after him to bring him back. All that didn't pass was his parking brake - out of adjustment. I wonder if cars often got stuck in the inspection lane when the drivers applied the parking brake for the first time in 10 years.

we don't have inspections here anymore, not random and not as a requirement for licensing. People say that they don't work - cars that need lots of repairs get passed after owners bribe the inspectors. Sure, I suppose that happens, but there are some cars I see with failed suspensions, bald tyres, shredded wipers, burning oil, etc. that shouldn't be on the road and their owners just mail in their checks and get renewed registrations.
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by mtheis »

I filled the tank today and calculated my fuel mileage. After adjusting miles driven for the axle ratio (3.42/3.73)*(miles), I came up with 7.1 mpg. How is that possible? I must have something really out of tune or it's from all of the idling in the driveway while I worked on the engine over the past month.

Thoughts? :?

EDIT: It's actually 7.6 mpg. Still way too much consumption.
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by 1974Alfa5spd »

Rope-Pusher wrote:Sure, I suppose that happens, but there are some cars I see with failed suspensions, bald tyres, shredded wipers, burning oil, etc. that shouldn't be on the road and their owners just mail in their checks and get renewed registrations.
Some of the shitboxes I see on the road here in CA make me wonder why we don't have inspections. Today driving back with 5,000lbs on my tail I came across an old Camry with a blue cloud literally following it. And a Chevy box van that did about 7 rebounds before it stopped bouncing. And how about the "customized" Honda doing a ricer hop because the 17 year old PFY torched the springs to lower it?
Hell, I have literally seen an 80s Ford Ranger with a railroad tie as its front bumper. Why the hell DON'T we have inspections in this state?
mtheis wrote:I filled the tank today and calculated my fuel mileage. After adjusting miles driven for the axle ratio (3.42/3.73)*(miles), I came up with 7.1 mpg. How is that possible? I must have something really out of tune or it's from all of the idling in the driveway while I worked on the engine over the past month.

Thoughts? :?
Either way too much idling, or the jets are way too big. That's how the 2000lb Alfa manages to get 13MPG.
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by mtheis »

I drove around with the air/fuel meter and it read 14.6 at idle and 11.2 when cruising at low rpm. WOT was about 10.8 all the way to 5000 rpm. I wonder if the main jets are overlapping and coming on too early. Alfa, your Alfa has DCOEs, right? They're pretty much identical to my DHLAs. According to the manual, my jet sizes shouldn't be too rich. They actually came as a kit back when they were fitted to the old 20R 20 years ago. Now they're fitted to the same cylinder head (now port matched) with a slightly larger (by 200cc) block. What about smaller air correctors?
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by 1974Alfa5spd »

Unfortunately, I've since lost my know-how about carburetors. This might be able to explain it better, since it is true that the Weber DCOEs and Dellorto DHLA are virtually identical. This doesn't say anything specific about DCOEs, but it should give you a good idea about where to go. Also, unless you're going for balls-out performance, what you should want to aim for is slightly lean at idle, stoich or even slightly lean at cruise, and rich at WOT. 10.8 sounds way too rich even for WOT. I know for Webers you can get huge tuning boxes available with every jet size known to man*. They're not inexpensive, about $50-75 last I checked, but they offer a lot of flexibility in tuning. And they include idle, main, and both air corrector jets.

EDIT: Link wont link in text... http://www.datsun2000.com/tech/weber_tu ... dology.htm

*Also not all in one kit, they're last I checked they were offered in I want to say in a range of 4-5 jet sizes.
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by Jastreb »

1974Alfa5spd wrote: Some of the shitboxes I see on the road here in CA make me wonder why we don't have inspections.
Word... But we do have CARB - aren't they wonderful?

@ mtheis,
Did you replace the fuel pump? Worried about E10 at all, since its such an old car?
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

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Rope-Pusher wrote:[
we don't have inspections here anymore, not random and not as a requirement for licensing. People say that they don't work - cars that need lots of repairs get passed after owners bribe the inspectors. Sure, I suppose that happens, but there are some cars I see with failed suspensions, bald tyres, shredded wipers, burning oil, etc. that shouldn't be on the road and their owners just mail in their checks and get renewed registrations.
A lot of people here in New York don't know this, but when it comes to vehicle inspections (which must be performed annually), cars that can't pass inspection don't necessarily need to be fixed before they are granted a new inspection sticker. The idea is to prevent the owner from undue hardship if the required repairs are too expensive. I don't remember the exact thresholds, but I'll give you an example---lets say Joe Blow gets his car inspected and it fails for multiple reasons. If he spends, say, $500 on repairs and the car still can't pass inspection, they'll still give him a new inspection sticker, allowing him to drive the car for one year, until the next inspection period. At that point, he'll have to spend money again in an attempt to get the car to pass the next inspection. This can go on and on and on. The only time a car will not be granted a new inspection sticker is if the reason for failure are considered "safety" issues, which usually means bad tires or bad brakes. If that's the case, the owner is required to repair the vehicle without any monetary limit.
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by mtheis »

Jastreb wrote:@ mtheis,
Did you replace the fuel pump? Worried about E10 at all, since its such an old car?
The pump is brand new. It's pretty tolerant of different fuels. I can even run leaded gas if I want. :twisted:
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by bk7794 »

Shadow wrote:
Rope-Pusher wrote:[
we don't have inspections here anymore, not random and not as a requirement for licensing. People say that they don't work - cars that need lots of repairs get passed after owners bribe the inspectors. Sure, I suppose that happens, but there are some cars I see with failed suspensions, bald tyres, shredded wipers, burning oil, etc. that shouldn't be on the road and their owners just mail in their checks and get renewed registrations.
A lot of people here in New York don't know this, but when it comes to vehicle inspections (which must be performed annually), cars that can't pass inspection don't necessarily need to be fixed before they are granted a new inspection sticker. The idea is to prevent the owner from undue hardship if the required repairs are too expensive. I don't remember the exact thresholds, but I'll give you an example---lets say Joe Blow gets his car inspected and it fails for multiple reasons. If he spends, say, $500 on repairs and the car still can't pass inspection, they'll still give him a new inspection sticker, allowing him to drive the car for one year, until the next inspection period. At that point, he'll have to spend money again in an attempt to get the car to pass the next inspection. This can go on and on and on. The only time a car will not be granted a new inspection sticker is if the reason for failure are considered "safety" issues, which usually means bad tires or bad brakes. If that's the case, the owner is required to repair the vehicle without any monetary limit.
Same here, though CT doesn't have vehicle inspections. We just have emissions testing. But if it fails and to fix it costs over I think 800 buck you'll be excused for another 2 years or something.

Though I'll be honest, with my 91 civic with a rough 310k miles still passed emissions with flying colors.
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by 1974Alfa5spd »

bk7794 wrote:Same here, though CT doesn't have vehicle inspections. We just have emissions testing. But if it fails and to fix it costs over I think 800 buck you'll be excused for another 2 years or something.
That would've been nice for our old Merc wagon. I want to say it failed about 4 or 5 emissions tests, and then only after a brand new EGR valve, catalytic converter, and exhaust system, it just barely squeaked by. Un/fortunately, the name of the game in CA is "F*ck you, fix it." Sometimes it gets expensive, but it really does help the air around here. Until recently (past 30 years or so), you couldn't see LA through all the smog.
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

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This weekend's use of the weedwacker and lawnmower prolly created more pollution than what my vehicle did all week long - and both are running fine for what they are - a 2-stroke and a valve-in-block 4-stroke.
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by theholycow »

Rope-Pusher wrote:This weekend's use of the weedwacker and lawnmower prolly created more pollution than what my vehicle did all week long - and both are running fine for what they are - a 2-stroke and a valve-in-block 4-stroke.
This. A malfunctioning car with failed emissions devices is still polluting a tiny fraction of how much pollution comes from the small equipment used in reaping a crop that you throw away.

Not just tailpipe emissions, either. I'm really started to get fed up with noise pollution. It's even worse in the suburbs, but out in the country where I live it's bad enough, every day some crap is running somewhere and the noise carries. I try to mow my lawn when I hear someone else mowing theirs so we can get it over with at the same time. At work we have this huge field that nobody uses, and they're outside my window mowing it almost every damned day. You'd think at least those big commercial mowers could be less loud. Some of it is the blades but even on mowers with the blades disengaged there's a crapload of noise.
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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by mtheis »

Had a little bit of fun with it over the weekend:

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Re: Project RA24 Celica

Post by mtheis »

Well, I hooked up my wideband air/fuel gauge today in an attempt to out-mpg a Ford Excursion. Here's what I found: at 2000 rpm, it's about 12.5:1 with the mixture screws as lean as I can get them (1.75 turns) all the way until 2.5 turns out. At around 3 turns out, the mixture drops off into the high 11s and I might as well drive with a mid-air refueling vehicle following me. My mistake the last time I did this was setting the fuel mixture at idle speed. The result was a rich condition at anything above idle. This time I leaned it out just enough so it doesn't drink fuel and then raised the idle speed until the carbs quit popping.

It still backfires out the exhaust which tells me that the mixture is richer than it should be. I'll drive it for a while to see what kind of mileage it gets. If it gets what it did before the overhaul (15 mpg), then I'll call it good. Anything lower and I'll look into some new air correctors or possibly some smaller jets.
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