NorthWet

I don't know about the JB Weld on anything that hot... I wouldn't think to try it myself, but what do I know? Pretty sure that the studs don't go into any passage at all, just blind holes. (Haven't turned my spare upside down to check, though.) Bolts are almost lowest point on engine, so might be a magnet for any drips. Is there sign of oil in the exhaust port? Any streaking from oil traveling to the stud? If your car has one of the ECU controlled carbs then it will have an O2 sensor. Lots of originally California/wwest coast cars have carb and O2 sensor.

We try to do the same around here with the "always raining" myth. (Although Florida gets more inches and more days with rain.) Hasn't worked for us, but then we are an easy drive away for the yuppies. Can't see the Lexus crowd heading up the highway to you. I hear Antartica is even worse... rubber is as hard as concrete and steel gets brittle from the cold. Festive seasonal activities!!!

As I PM'd you, ignition, air filter and probably O2 sensor. Might not hurt to run a high-quality injection cleaner (eg Techron) through, also. If you are getting sooty pipe, unless your engine is running rough from misfire the computer probably thinks the mixture is fine and is getting bogus info from O2 sensor. My thoughts...

Solution: Give everything to me and I'll make the gaskets. Problem solved!!! OK, I assume that you have talked to NAPA/whoever to see about intake gasket set for the proper year XT?

Yeah, they are a used-JDM importer. I have bought from them and they seem pretty straight. (Still haven't finished installing any of their products yet... my laziness, not their problem.)

PRICE! I don't personally know, but I have heard several recommendations for performance increase to replace 4WD disty with a 2WD unit. Reason sited was better advance curves.

I am somewhat confused why you think pickup coil. You said that you are getting a strong spark from coil to ditributer cap, correct? I assume that is using the stock pickup coil and ignition module rather than bypassing both with wires that you are grounding manual. If you are getting strong spark, then primary ignition components are probably good (exception would be intermittent/erratic operation). If strong spark to dist-cap, and weak/no spark to plug wires or plugs, sounds like problem in cap/rotor/wires/plugs. If you need a disty, I have some '82s that I could loan you. (Might need them replaced eventually.) I will be out and about today and could drop one off. Pat

To extend All_talk's comments with my personal (not necessarily accurate!) understanding: The ballast resistor is there to limit current flow through the coil (possibly introduced when going from 6V to 12V, though I haven't had any 6V experience). Without the resistor, the coil would overheat quickly if you "parked" somewhere with the ignition on and your points closed. (Oops! my age is showing.) It could also overheat during normal running, given standard dwell angles. It also limited the current through those points, which would tend to burn and pit (tungsten pitting!!! ) if exposed to the full current from a coil in an unballasted 12V system. Please note that most starting circuits bypass the ballast so that coil sees the full 12V (or whatever is there while the starter is cranking). So, you might get away with running an "external ballast required" coil without a ballast, but probably not for long. And it *might* cause damage to your ignition module by exposing it to a much higher flyback voltage from the coil.

The functionality and value of water injection has been debated for a long time. There was a recent USMB thread about alcohol injection that also discussed water injection. My thought is that if you are curious, try it and let us know how it worked. I would be critical of anyone who claimed amazing advantages and then offered to sell you a water injection system, since they have a vested interest in your buying his product. But his website seems to be showing how to do it yourself. My only word of caution is that you make sure that your connection to the intake system does not get exposed to full intake manifold vacuum, as this could be very detrimental to your engine.

Dremel??? with abrasive bit, maybe diamond-coated?

His signature indicates "carb". Since it is Winter Solstice in our hemisphere, we are not thinking *HOT* here. Since your info lists "coast" I assume you are not getting hot "interior"-type heat. Are you talking low or mid 30'sC?

U-Haul and most every other rental outfit around here are making it VERY difficult to rent dollies. Their insurance carriers are really putting the screws to them to not do it. If you are talking towing one type of car (XT6), and if it is relatively easy to pull the front bumper, I still like my idea. (Of course! )

You may have heard that from one of my posts. My info is second hand, having heard it from All_talk. I believe that place is called "Heads Up". My advice is ask All_talk about them.

I've had really bad luck with Stant t-stats over the last 10-15 years. Some have quit working right (open too early or stay kind of open all of the time) after 2-3 months, some after a week. Pull them out and they look OK, test OK in hot water, but don't work in car. Was that Chevy t-stat from the dealer? Might make a difference over CSK/Autozone/NAPA stuff. My vote is for t-stat. Doesn't need to violate Carnot... the engine itself has a lot of ability to shed heat. Several engines are more oil-cooled than water-cooled, and most of them just disipate through oil-pan.

Listen to turbone and grossgary... look for those exhaust port cracks. If they are not apparent, look into having the valve-area cracks repaired.

Rental tow bars typically attach to the bumpers, and the non-XT's with which I am familiar wouldn't handle it. The thought that I had had was to make a tow bar that mounts in place of the standard bumper, in my case meaning a slide-in mount that is held in place with two bolts on each side. But that is something tough to make on the spur of the moment. Mini 'jack: GG, PM'ing some info re: radiators. End 'jack

Or Training Wheels!!!

Sooooo... Which of you would make the drive to hand the car over? Or do you plan on meeting half way? Then the car would REALLY have a "condensation problem"!!!

I am pretty sure that Moshem is running a carbureted, normally aspirated engine... possibly even an EA71 based on a recent thread. Moshem, we are unable to understand what you are asking due to a minor translation problem. (Your English is generally quite good. .) Would you please restate your question, possibly with some context that would help us? Is this in regards to the pistons and cylinders? The intake manifold? Or, perhaps, the diaphram on your carburetor that you mentioned recently? And, thanks for the recent post about the "turbo sound"!!!

No "blah blah blah" on this post, oddcomp. All good, if we dig through the oddcompese!

It all depends... In general, individual runners/pipes will give better result then "siamesed" runners/pipes. The length of the runner/primary pipe determines what rpm will be optimized, and the straighter the pipe and the fewer cross-section changes the pipe has, the sharper the effect will be at the target rpm, giving a strong but "peaky" torque band. If you primarily want an increase in torque, then a tri-Y header with small diameter primary pipe usually works best. If you want raw horsepower, you choose a 4-into-1 with larger primaries. The stock EA81/EA82 does little or nothing to optimize exhaust scavenging, and the intake does even less. A little bit of work on both would probably give some good gains. Running un-siamesed ports and individual runners would net even more. What I would like to do is build a pipe that has a separator that extends into the exhaust port, and run individual primary pipes into a tri-Y. Lots of work, and probably require stainless steel for the separator. The other thing is that tuned length really isn't about "ram" effect, but using transient positive and negative pressure waves to enhance valve operation.

Any thought to electrically reversing the Corvair starter? If he doesn't know how to do it, a rebuilder might be able to do it for him. Or does it have a divorced bendix unit on it, so that you could drive it off of something else? Seems to me the starter/ring gear match would be a bigger concern than weight. Oh, I guess there would be a problem with the Bendix, too, wouldn't there? :-\ Maybe take a page out of the older big piston planes and run a starter/generator?

The sealed "maintenance free" batteries are just ordinary batteries with maybe a little extra fluid capacity and grid matrices that are made of calcium instead of antimony (unless they changed this in the last decade or so). The calcium matrices tend to cause less electolysis of the water than does the antimony, but is FAR more fragile; it tends to crumble after discharging, which is why it is often said that each full discharge reduces m/f batteries capacity by 1/2. Traditional batteries tend to have thicker, more sturdy grid plates, and you can replenish the water and check the electrolytes SG, but the tradeoff is that they pack less current producing capacity into the same form factor and require you to check the water once in a while. The "maintenance free" batteries pack more capacity, and fit into the concept of "just weld the hood shut" that the gov would really like to implement. But they are fragile and don't tolerate deep discharge. And then there are the cool "Optima" batteries...

Thermostat?

Yeah, I am socially inept. Its taken me decades to develop coping strategies to understand people. Also, I have no artistic abilities whatsoever... pretty darn good drafter, but can't draw worth a darn.