[Amc-list] trip to Santa Fe

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

Well I've been back for most of a week, but pretty much swamped. Moving
in slow motion! Much home drama while I was away, I won't bore you all
with it.


Car (70 Hornet) ran totally great the whole way. It's 900 mi each way
(Los Angeles to Santa Fe), and I drove solid 75mph, on mid-octane gas
(88, 89). I'd spent some time getting the timing right last summer, and
it was totally worth the effort.

I got 19.3 MPG averaged over 2180.1 miles. Not bad for a 258 auto at
75mph.

Parts of the trip were very hot (over 110 at midnight over the Colorado,
near Needles CA), most of it was over 5000 foot altitude. Most of it was
80's and 90's. Santa Fe and Los Alamos are 6000 - 7000 feet; it idled
poorly there, and I was too lazy to turn the screw in one turn and up
the idle stop. But the Weber 32/36 DGEV is the best-behaved carb I've
ever run. I've driven other cars with a Holley, and a Carter AFB, and
neither did well outside their jetted range.

The only serious pinging I got was on the return trip, very high 90's or
100, climbing the Bristol Range in the Mojave. I had to keep it to 60 to
keep it out of detonation. That was it. I probably should have made the
one previous fillup on high-test (so-called).

I'm running a crazy amount of ignition advance after really solidly
going through my distributor, picking the right weights, limits and
springs. To do so I chose mid-range or better gas to minimize that
effect, but I'll soon go back to cheaper gas and see if it needs
retiming. 

Temperature-wise, I've got a new 3-row radiator and electric fans. Since
it ran hot-normal the whole way, I turned the fan thermo-switch up so
that it wouldn't be constantly running; I'd had it turn the fans on at
mid-normal temps, for here in moderate Los Angeles. I'm leaving it at
this new setting (which I'll measure later).


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