Tom63050

What about the rubber o-ring on the metal pipe that fits into the water pump? Those leak too. A new one is cheap. I use a little grease to help the pipe slide into the water pump fitting.

I don't worry abut the ring at all, or ever replace them. Instead I put some high-temp grease on the plug threads. Never have a leak. Same on the rubber gasket on the oil filter.

Oh, got it. A good alternative to shutting the motor off, unless the objective is to coast as far as possible. But for coming up to a stoplight, engine braking coasting would be better. But still, I'd shut off the motor at the stoplight to save gas, using the 10-second rule: if you think you're going to be at the light more than 10 seconds, shut off the motor. Some of the lights I encounter are in the 2-minute range.

Agreed on your last 3 items being most important. The other stuff can't hurt and might help. Some more points: 1. Roof rack cross bars are off my car too. 2. Almost all my coasting with motor off is on exit ramps or other situations with little traffic, so there is minimal possibility of collisions. Braking seems relatively unaffected. 3. My water-pump fan was non-centrifugal if I remember right. 4. Someone commented that there is no fuel going into the system if your foot is off the gas. If that were true the motor would die. If it's idling, obviously it's using gas.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you only turn the key one click left to cut out the ignition. If you turn it any more you will lock the steering wheel. Power steering loss is no problem as long as you are moving, and have normal strength. I barely notice it not being there. I also haven't found loss of power brakes to be a problem either. Shutting off the ignition is done only in city driving, so speeds are lower. As for legality--normally I'm big on being law-abiding, but as long as you're careful there should be no problems. Plus, saving gas is patriotic, good for the environment, and gives the middle digit to Hugo Chavez and his buddies in the Middle East. And we can all put the money saved to better use.

Ways to get better mileage: 1. air up your tires to 32 PSI or higher. The extra tire wear is more than offset by the gas savings, if you do as many of these steps as possible. 2. a good tune-up, of course--including plug wires 3. advance your ignition, and use higher-octane gas if necessary (10 cents more = about 3 percent these days) 4. use a 40,000-volt coil and gap your plugs wider, for a bigger spark; do a search for the writeup on what coils are reliable 5. remove water pump fan, don't use A/C--both are drags on the motor. Windows up if possible, when on the highway. Below 40 MPH air drag is not a big factor, so for sure windows down when it's hot and you're not on the highway. 6. Most important is how you drive. 55 - 60 on the highway; moderate acceleration & low RPMs; coast down hills (with the motor off on long hills); motor off at stop lights, or better yet when approaching them; avoid braking if you will need to speed up again (longer following distances in traffic). 7. I also have larger diameter tires--Kumho 795 A/S 185/80x13, which are 8% taller than 175/70x13s, on aluminum wheels, which are lighter so require less gas to get them rolling from stop. Taller diameter means lower RPM at highway speeds. With "normal" driving my Loyale 4WD wagon gets 28-29 MPG, with tires at 28 PSI. I have all the mods listed above, and with airing up the tires and driving as in paragraph 6, I got it up to 34.6--on a 4WD vehicle! This is a 20% improvement--turning $3.00/gal gas into $2.40/gal gas, and costs nothing to do. Next I will remove the rear halfshafts and report any improvement, since they create friction in the rear diff and also rotate the front-to-rear driveshaft. It may not be worth the trouble, but I gotta know.

Yeah, forget about making money from these old cars. Rather, focus on what you would like to have for yourself for a long-term car. Unless you just want a project to learn from, and break even on.

The part I didn't mention is that my rear cat is almost new, so I knew that wasn't the problem.

The y-pipe definitely holds a catalytic converter. I myself thought the second pipe was a resonator, but it turns out that that is a cat too!

I bounced my 1986 MR2 off a guardrail in the rain once. Didnt do me a lot of good either. Got it home. Drilled a hole in the subframe that held on the headlights and stuff. Stuck an eyebolt thru it, with washers so it wouldn't rip out. Attached a big rope to eyebolt. Other end of rope to telephone pole. Backed up a few times. Not show quality, but a lot cheaper than a body shop. Where there's a will to be cheap, there's a way to be cheap.

I cut the pipe directly behind the y-section. The cat is inside the y, after the pipes merge. I then took a wood hole-saw bit and drill bit extension to reach into the y, and hollowed out the cat. Then started the motor with the pipe still cut, not joined back together, to blow out the cat material. Then used a connector piece about 6" long and two u-bolt pipe clamps to join it together. Reason I did this is because my mileage had dropped to 20; used to be 28 or so. At 170K miles the cat was getting pretty plugged up. Now my mileage is about 30 (haven't run thru a full tank of gas yet to be sure, but 30 is about right). Edit: The 6" connecting pipe is 1.75" internal diameter, with clamps to match. You can use a battery-powered drill; the cat doesn't give any resistance that would require a high-torque drill.

Here are some Weber jetting settings for you to compare with: .............................Primary........Secondary Main (fuel)...............140.............140 Idle.............................60..............55 Air correction...........165.............160 In the back of my Weber book it says that high-altitude jetting changes are as follows: 0 - 5000 feet, no change 5000 - 6700 feet, drop main jets by five (e.g. 140 becomes 135) 6700 - 10,000 feet drop main jets by five more (135 becomes 130) No changes mentioned to air correction jets or idle jets.

Accel coils are a known issue, as are some MSDs. I've had a bad Accel, a bad MSD, and a bad Pertronix. The problem is that some of these coils are made in Taiwan and Mexico and there are quality issues. Some are still made in the states, certain MSDs I think. I bought a coil from Jegs ( www.jegs.com ) 1-800-345-4545, part # 555-40105, made in the USA. Works great. (From the info below, I suspect it's a red MSD Blaster III coil made in Andover, but without the MSD label.) But I keep the OEM coil in the trunk along with tools to change it out, just in case. I hate Murphy's law. Below is a writeup from another post ("Another Accel Super Coil dead"). MSD/Accel round coil info As most here know, I am in the ignition system business. That said, there is information I'd like to post on coils. I used to recommend MSD Blaster II and III coils for my HEI conversions. They used to work well. These coils used to be manufactured at Andover Industries, Andover, Indiana, and were of superior quality. In early 2000, production of RED MSD Blaster II and III coils, p/n's 8202, 8203 and 8223, was moved from Andover to a company in Mexico, Pro-Bobbin. When this happened, I started to experience HEI module failures for no apparent reason. Others did as well, and MSD box failures when the RED Blasters were used. It was so untraceable that the problem would only be found by changing the coil. The cause was the insulation materials between the wire windings was deteroratinf and falling away from the coils, causing a layer shorting of the coils, and change of resistance/load on the module/box and failure of same. The 8200 chrome Blaster II coils remained at Andover, and had only the regular failure rates one would expect from a mass produced coil, functioned correctly. Sometime last year, production of the 8223 RED Blaster III coils with the HEI terminal,was returned to Andover. When I finally figured it all out, I switched my recommendations on coils to Accel round Super-Stock, made at Andover. Good quality coils, problems stopped, up until about a month ago. IN the last month, numerous Accel coils, 8140 and 8140C, were coming up either new defective or had operating issues like missing, erratic idle, no performance. This was traced to a move in production in the Accel coils. Accel was sold earlier this year, off the Dana Corporation, and the Accel coil production was moved form Andover to Taiwan. It was these Taiwan Accel coils that were having the issues. I have vended 19 Taiwan Accel coils in the last month, had 16 of them defective/develope problems with under 2 hours run time on them. No more Accel recommendations for me anymore. To identify different Accel round Super Stock coils: Andover Accels have segmented crimping at the top of the case to retain the top, with raised sections around the top. Taiwan Accels have a clean full crimp around the whole circumfrence of the top of the case. AVOID THE ACCEL TAIWAN COILS. Coils and their origins: MSD, 8200, and now, 8223 Blaster II, III series, Andover, good quality 8202, 8203 Blaster II series, Pro-bobbin, Mexico, avoid Accel 8140/8140C, 8145/8145C, Taiwan, avoid A good black coil with the same specs as the good Andover Accel is the NAPA IC12, same specs. AVOID the lesser cost NAPA IC12SB, Mexico made, low quality Crane PS20, PS40, Andover, quality PerTronix, NO, Taiwan, reboxed with USA logo, avoid Mallory round coils, no info Jacobs coils, overpriced Taiwan, avoid Hope this info stops someone from getting a problem coil.

Just a thought. If your low-compression cylinders are both on the same side, maybe the motor slipped a couple of teeth on that side's timing belt. Might be why it was in the JY to begin with--people not knowing it's a non-interference motor, thinking it's trashed.

My experience says do it every 10K--or just before a long trip. Buy two filters & carry one in the car as a spare, along with the necessary tools to change it out on the road. Doing this has saved me some major hassle several times.

Here's how I figure out mileage on larger than stock tire sizes. Find a piece of highway with mile markers on it. For convenience I start at a multiple of 10. Note the mileage on your odometer, including tenths (or set a tripmeter if you have one). Drive ten miles worth of mile markers, then note the mileage on your odo or tripmeter. The difference will tell you how far off the meter is, like 9.2 miles instead of exactly 10.0, an 8 percent difference. Figure your speedo is off this much too.

That's a good point. Maybe I just got lucky then. I would not be surprised to hear that people had bumper failures when a hitch was bolted to it. My Loyale spent 15 years of its life in northern Virginia, where they salt the roads when it snows, I had to buy a new wagon tailgate latch from Moosens when I first got it because it broke from being rusted through. But I was still able to pull a maxed-out load for approx 4000 miles.

Just get one from the dealer to be sure. 190 degrees. A 180 won't give you good enough heat in the passenger compartment in the winter (so I hear).

Suggest you go buy the correct OEM plugs, i.e. NGK. Can't go wrong there. Like Snowman said, not cool to have this setup.

True; but if you were using A/C anyway, it would be no extra energy loss. And when you need the A/C is also when the engine needs cooler air more.

Right. If the car is moving, airflow will keep exhaust-pipe air down under the car; so the air under the airbox shuld be relatively cool. Here's a thought I just now had--for cars with A/C, how about some creative way of ducting to the airbox for really cool air? Hole in passenger-side firewall, for instance, running ducting thru it to airbox.

My Dalan hitch mounts to the frame & bumper, and it carried a 2000-lb load. The problem is not the amount of total weight, but the tongue weight being too high. If you balance your load for a moderate tongue weight, say 50-100 lbs, no problems.

Duh, right, thanks. Made the correction.

I understand Daeron's argument that the throttle body and heads are a main restriction. But I have to square this with my and Baccaruda's seat-of-the-pants experience, and probably other folks as well. I look at it this way: if you try to breathe while sucking thru a straw, you can't get much air. If you're sucking thru two straws (i.e. doubling the air intake by opening up the airbox), you can obviously breathe better. You can flow test the heads and throttle body off the car, but that won't take into account how much suction the pistons are capable of on the intake stroke. Since people are noticing more power at higher revs, this leads me to believe that the pistons can pull in more air, thru the TB and heads, than the stock airbox will allow. Once that's taken care of, then we can look at improvements to head and TB flow. Air intakes are restricted on purpose for noise reduction, and maybe gas mileage; there's no other good reason to do so. You'll notice that all those cold-air intake kits come with huge air filters. Because it's not just about air temp, it's also about volume.

If it's a carbed car, change the fuel filter AND CARRY A SPARE!!! This has saved my butt on carbed cars more times than I want to think about. Ten minutes down time vs. God knows how long to get it taken care of. In my experience, carbed fuel filters last about 10K. Toss a can of fuel system/combustion chamber cleaner in the gas tank, on general principles. Water loss could well be the o-ring on the metal pipe that goes into the water pump, from the driver-side radiator hose. Get a new o-ring, lube it with oil/grease, put it on. (I've heard you can lube it with coolant, but that didn't work for me.) Since you've drained the coolant to replace the o-ring, get a new thermostat from the dealer along with the gasket. Might as well put on new coolant hoses while you're at it. Second the idea of new timing belts, along with all tensioners, if you don't know their age. And carry spare belts, at least for peace of mind. Basic rule of living: prevention always beats cure. That is multiplied on a long trip. Be sure to take a well-stocked tool kit.