Hmmm, I have confidence you'll get it in whack.
You do realize that multiple carb setups aren't designed for street use, right?

 

Why didn't you let me know sooner!

 

Lots of rain today, but all my parts from Holley, Summit, and Ebay came in yesterday. Spent the day removing the #66 jets, and jetting the carbs down to #58. Pulled the plugs to check them, and fired it up. Let it warm up and readjusted the idle and idle air mix. Replaced a questionable secondary diaphragm on the pass. side carb. Had Holley send me a new one as it looked "rippled" and I didn't think it would function properly.
Hopefully it will settle down and the sun will come out so I can take it for a spin and see how it works.

 

Drove the Austin all around today, and it didn't load up at all. I let it cool and checked the plugs, and they looked good with a nice tan color. Not sure that they might not actually need to go a couple sizes larger to a #60 though if I do much cruising at freeway speeds, or run the drags with open headers. They might be a tad light, so I'll check the plugs in a hundred miles and see. I also ordered a set of MSD 8.8mm plug wires so I can swap out the 500 ohm Accel wires. The MSD are a spiral copper impregnated core that is 40 ohm, so a huge drop in resistance that should get a better spark to the plug. They were actually much cheaper at Autozone than Jegs or Summit by $40, plus Autozone had a deal going where if you bought $100 worth of items they would ship to your store for free and give you a $25 Autozone credit! So I tossed in some spark plugs for the Falcon to bump over the $100 and get the $25 credit.

 

Had some setbacks with the new engine, and decided to let it sit while I finished up the wife's new kitchen. Had a short 2 week break while I am waiting on granite counter tops, so went back to the Austin to try and figure out why it seemed to be losing compression at idle.
I started today by pulling the valve covers and checking lift with a dial indicator. All checked out fine, so I fired the engine and watched it while it idled. First thing I noticed was no big oil mess all over the headers, but even very little oil coming up the push rods! I started backing off rocker adjustment, and the first rocker took nearly 2 full turns before it began clicking! I repeated this for the other 15, and as each got looser, the oil began to flow. Once I had them all loose enough to rattle, and then tightened to stop, I added the preload. Seemed to fix the loss of compression, as the valves weren't closing at low rpm's.
I shut the engine off and let it sit for 10 minutes, and the lifters seem to drain down, and the lash gets quite loose. But once it's fired they pump right up, and preload is fine. I've never seen any lifters react with such a drastic difference between idling and engine off. Sent an email off to Crower to inquire as to whether this is typical of their Cam Saver lifters, or normal. So maybe I'll get an answer and I can be assured this is "normal" for their product.

 

It will be interesting to see what they say. Hope this get the Austin back on the road .

 

Thanks Bill! I've been so disappointed since the rebuild that I had to stay away from the Austin, just to not think about it constantly! I'm 100% sure this was the source of many of the issues I had with the cross ram/carb tuning, and lower vacuum signal I got. I'll take it for a spin later today to see how it runs out, but I can tell from the higher vacuum readings, and better sound that it's already sounding correct.
Wish you had been here last Wednesday for opening day of the cruise at PIR! They set a new attendance record of over 2,000 cars Wed. evening! It was so packed that they had cars waiting at the gate until someone left, so they could come in and fill an empty parking spot!

 

Yes, I want to got to PIR with you again this year.

 

I'd enjoy that Bill, and enjoy another visit too! How's the Camaro running? And how's that '54 Chevy going?

 

Took the Austin to the Wed. night cruise at PIR. Had probably 600-700 cars, which seemed small compared to opening night's cruise last week that had over 2,000 cars! First trip out on the freeway with the new engine, and it was so smooth running along at 2500-3000 rpm. The 355 feels like it pulls as well as the 327, but still haven't really run it out far enough to see what it will do. Cruising at 2500 rpm and hitting the throttle feels very responsive, and more torque than the old 327 was. Only have about 100 miles on it, so still need to get 400-500 more miles before it will really be broken in.