u/8cuban

So I'm having a couple of issues with my 1965 289 V8. For context the engine has an Edelbrock 600 4 bbl carb, cross plane intake manifold, twin exhaust with aftermarket headers, and soft cam. I've just replaced the head gasket.

First problem - she's just stubborn about starting and she'll often immediately die unless I goose the throttle quickly. It takes a lot of turning over before she'll catch even when she's just been running and is still at operating temp. It doesn't matter what starting technique I use - pumping the gas pedal once, twice, not at all, gas pedal half depressed when cranking, not depressed at all. None of that seems to make a difference.

Second problem- When I goose the throttle to keep her running after starting, that often inadvertently kicks down the auto choke and she'll surge/hunt the idle for a couple minutes until she starts warming up. She's always done that a bit but, the new problem is that recently it's gotten a lot worse, to the point that she will barely idle and is on the verge of quitting at the bottom of the surges.

My questions:

1. Since she's always been stubborn about starting and staying running, what can I do to solve that problem?

2. Could the new extreme surging be related to the new head gasket, like she's getting less air then before so the idle mixture is different?

Any ideas, anyone?

Mechanic may have overfilled the C4 transmission on my '65, which is causing it to leak out of the pan gasket. Is just pulling the drain plug the best way to take some out to get it down to the right level?

I was also thinking that, since you have to check it while it's hot and running, that it may be easier to just drain it completely and fill with the correct amount rather than try to drain some out and tinkering with it.

What’s your philosophy toward upgrading or modding cars? Do you try to retain some of the original character of the car or do you max upgrades for fun out to max out the capabilities?

I try to treat the categories somewhat realistically. For instance, for a road car competing in a clubman race I’ll add upgrades a hobbyist owner might reasonably to do a road car such as adding sport brakes, tires, and suspension, maybe a two-way LSD, exhaust and air intake or a turbo but that’s about it.

How much do you mod or upgrade cars after you buy them? Do they come stock with reasonable approximation of the actual performance of the real thing? If so, wouldn’t modding them a lot turn them into something entirely different and less realistic? Do you end up making your cars pretty similar with mods so there’s less discernible difference in the performance?

All of this is presuming you want to preserve some of the character that makes each car unique.

What product have people used to prevent scratches on a black tank from jacket zippers? I haven't found the right kind of thing on RevZilla and the Triumph accessories website is useless.