OK, so trip number two to LA is now history and for what it's worth I wanted to share some small bits with y'all.
As a recap last year's trip was marred with mechanical mishaps which led to a lot of out-of-pocket costs and inconvenience, unnesscessarily long waits for repairs by the builder and some well-documented name-calling & chest-pounding on this forum.
This year's adventure got underway without a hitch. Dale, Jim, Terry, Henry and myself hit the highway Thursday A.M. and I dare say the average speed was probably in excess of 70MPH early on.
Temps were in the high 60's and the skies were clear. We took some freeways and some secondary backroads. As the day pressed on the pace picked up.
While I could launch into a big Charles Corault (sp?)I'm only going to address my engine's performance. The average oil temp was 220. I wasn't running my auxilary oil cooler as it didn't seem neccessary. Late in the afternoon I switched it on to see what would happen. The temp appeared to drop about 10 degrees.
The head temps never waivered, 340 all the way.
My oil pressure was a reassuring 60 lbs most of the week. On the way home the oil filler cap sheared itself apart and I saw a drop in oil pressure, to about 30 lbs. I pulled off and played the duct-tape game and did a roadside fix. This is an interesting anomoly as it is the second cap to bite the dust; the original one was stripped and wouldn't stay on and then there was a little brass 90 degree elbow that sheared itself off but never separated itself from the engine, just sort of flapped, occasionally flexing the pressure up or down...
The 48 IDA carbs & linkage are still a bit vexing. In the inaugural run it came to light they were both defective, one set screw stripped beyond usefulness and bedeviling accelerator pumps faulty, creating a binding affect that trashed the remaining linkage.
This year, there was a pedal 'resistance' that created kind of a 'kink' in that when I decided to punch it, the pedal would sort not go down at first, then snap free of itself and be fine. Odd.
They still need fine-tuning...one little soldier just can't stay in step with his buddies.
With the variety of roadways, driving opportunities and such, the 2615 got between 19 and 23 MPG. I was running 91 octane with a bottle per tank of over-the-counter octane booster.
I remain enthralled with the Type4 power plant and it also remains no secret I do not recommend its builder.
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