My friend Walt and I took the Maverick down to R&J Custom Exhaust in Apex, NC (Southwest of Raleigh) today to get the exhaust done. I took the $20 2 1/2" X-pipe I got in Carlisle and a pair of 3-chamber Magnaflow stainless mufflers for them to use. We arrived for the appt at 10:30 AM but they didn't do much till after lunch. From about 1 till about 5:30PM there were 1-3 guys working on it. Did a beautiful job. Ran 2 1/2" from the Doug Thorley shorties to the mufflers and 2 1/4" tail pipes to the bumper. All mandrel bends. I had put a pretty good dent in the driver side collector to get full travel for the pitman arm. They tossed my handywork (good!), trimmed the bellhousing and spacer plate, and made a little S-curve to move the pipe over to make room for the pitman arm. Very nice work. (Gotta get rid of that overspray on the fuel tank!) Also perfectlly formed and positioned turndowns tucked up under the rear valence. The boss wasn't satisfied with the passenger side turn down so he re-did that tail pipe from the muffler back. Glad he wasn't satisfied and I didn't have to argue. It sounds good but louder inside the car than I expected. Quiet under light throttle but roars pretty good with more throttle. Maybe it'll quiet down some when the carpet is installed and the windows are up. Gotta get that AC going I'm NOT going to put a steeper gear in the rear end unless I also do an OD transmission. Don't have a tach installed but it seemed to be revving pretty high at 70 MPH. Would be pretty monotonous on an all day drive to Florida or Michigan, both of which I want to do. Engine hasn't been tuned and it needs it. Hesitates in transition from light to more throttle. I'll try adding a little timing but won't mess with the Holley. Just need to get it to the dyno and let them set up the carb, advance curve, etc. We didn't expect that job to take all day but its done and I'm real happy with the result.
Very nice work...You picked a good place to get it done Jim!!! It will get quieter with an interrior in the car for sure.
Looks and sounds great. It will change a bit when the pipes and mufflers get some carbon in them as well. I think you'll be even happier once the interior is back in and it gets some miles on it.
Sounds great. Wish you had added more idle to the videos. That looks like a great custom exhaust shop. Not sure there are any shops like that around Charlotte anymore. Used to be A1 in Belmont but not sure they are still open. Glad you did not just slap some Flow masters on there. Looks like they did a real professional job. Nice car clint
Just leave the over spray on the tank will give all of us something to talk about . Did you see the over spray on his tank !!!!!
Its horrible isnt it. Should be ashamed. The reason I poke fun at it is cause my painter drove me crazy till I painted my tank. I just dusted it with a light black undercoat.
Overpray!! Yep, gotta fix the overspray. 'Course, its not THAT obvious when its on the ground. Also need to put some black on the white areas of the radiator support that show thru the nice, newly painted black grill. But, there are a few more pressing issues. Throttle response is real bad coming off idle. Gotta get it tuned before I can enjoy driving it. Have the initial timing at about 9 degrees. Mechanical advance gets it to about 20. Didn't try it with the vacuum re-connected. There's a click-click-click when I press hard on the brake pedal. One click per tire revolution. Seems to be coming from the RR. I was thinking maybe the drum was cracked. Pulled the drum and everything looks OK. Not sure what to do next. I'm pretty sure its from the RR but I suppose I could be wrong about that. Drove it to a church meeting this evening and on the way home, on a DARK, unlit, 2-lane road the LIGHTS WENT OUT!!! No place to get off the road. Don't know if a guy behind me was ticked off because I was driving slowly with no lights or he was trying to help by tail gating me but either way I was glad he was there. After a minute, before I could find a place to get off, they came back on and stayed on till after I was home. Any chance this was a one time event?? I'll drive it in the daylight with the lights on and see if it happens again. Trans is shifting so soon under light throttle its almost like an old dynaflow (that's for you old guys) with no shifts. Seems fine with lots of throttle. I'll try adjusting for more throttle pressure and see if that helps. Any other thoughts? Good thing I have some time to get ready for Silver Springs.
my guess on the headlight issue is the dimmer switch in the floor. I had a 73 Ford Pickup that did that. Would be driving along and out goes the lights. click the dimmer a couple times and they would come back on.
Since it came back on by itself I think the circuit breaker in the switch tripped. Sounds like a good idea to change the switch. Don't want that happening again. Thanks for suggestions. I changed the distributor vacuum from ported to manifold and re-adjusted the carb and it helped a lot. Will now take throttle when its runnig free but not so well under load. I have a pcv valve to the Holley port for it on one valve cover and a screened cap on the other. PCV valve rattles constantly. Is that normal? I thinking it might be drawing too much air with the other cap open. Maybe I should put a PCV valve to manifold vacuum on the other valve cover. Comments?
