I guess that I never noticed before. The Cutlass has been sitting for awile and the battery was low. I have the cheepo stainless headers on her right now. After charging the battery, I was just doing my check under the hood at idle around 1k rpm with the garage lights not on and noticed the headers were dull red (hot). Is this normal for stainless? Everything was equal on both sides. Just turned my timing back from 37 degrees total to 35. Edelbrock heads. Just never noticed before. Thanks

 

I know they get hot but didn't know they were that hot. Gee, cruising at night you'd give a free light show?

 

I believe that is an indication that your engine is running too lean.

 

I have the cheepo stainless headers on her right now.

Is there really such a thing?

 

Right now I am running a quadrajet 800 cfm that was custom built for my application and specs. Going on 3 years with this one. It's been great so far. I am not sure of the rods etc as I am not a carb man! Thanks for any help.

 

Yup. Ebay Chinese or whatever. I thought these would do until I can get a good set.

 

Come on Allen. I have been on this board for quite awile.

 

ziff:

I think Allan was just throwing a little humor out there. I know he didn't intend to be a smart azz or anything like that. Allan is one of the nicest guys on here and he knows a lot.

 

That's not necessarily true. If you had a rich mixture with late timing the fuel would still be burning in the pipes, hence the glow.

 

X2. Not that Mark needs backed up by me, he knows way more than I do. I just know on our motorcycle and 4 wheeler racing engines we have the same thing. On cam breakin we had the stainless head pipes glowing to almost transparent. If the carb was way to rich it would burp a flame out the muffler when turned off.

 

Yeah, I know that. I was just burnt out from work this week and was just in one of those moods. Sorry.

 

I had just backed the timing down awile back as it was starting hard when hot. No pinging however. Would last years 93 octane gas with stable in it have anything to do with it? I still have a half tank from last fall. Just haven't had time to drive her much this year.

 

Quite possibly. Drain it and put in some fresh stuff.

 

I agree with the possibility of old gas being a problem. I noticed this also after a winter storage. Even with Sta-bil in the tank the engine ran hotter than normal till I got new gas into the tank. Then it ran not only cooler, but smoother. Sorry for the previous comment. Honestly I've not seen what you described before at idle. I'm sure you'll have the problem fixed in short order. Changing the timing by 2° shouldn't create that big an issue with heat.

 

Not a problem Allen.


Well, after some digging and checking things out, (other than old gas), I found that my vacume advance is not working. I have it hooked up to full manifold vacume. Unplugged it and no difference in idle. Timing light also shows no difference plugged in or unplugged with ends capped. So at idle she's retarded as set up. Found a lot of posts about glowing headers on team chebelle.
So, to ask a new question, how do I troubleshoot my vacume advance problem? Line is new and checked for leaks today. Blowing or sucking on the line to the dizzy made no difference. It's wide open.

 

Just ordered a new vacuum canister from Summit after testing further. It's shot. Should be an easy fix. I will let you know how it turns out.

 

I was relating that back to my flying days, had to be careful to not lean out the engine too much as it would drive up the cylinder head temp. More gas = cooler running temp.

 

That's a good start to the fix. One other thing you might want to check. IDK if your setup is original, but also check the air cleaner temperature sensor lines. 2 years ago I went nuts trying to find the source of a vacuum leak - all the lines were new and properly connected. The culprit was a faulty air cleaner thermal vacuum switch that was leaking all the time. This may not be the case for you, but worth an inspection.

 

No, it's not original. 455, 800 cfm quadrajet, Edelbrock heads, Lunati Voodoo 60803, full roller rockers, performer intake, etc. Pretty simple set up as far as vacuum lines go. 1 for distributor, 1 for brakes, and 1 for auto trans. Thanks