John S's Journal

It’s been a frustrating couple of days. After getting the rebuilt HS4’s installed, I’ve struggled to get them dialed in. I figured that putting them on a car that was running well would be a breeze but that was not the case. I went with the standard, two full turns below the bridge as a starting point but I wasn’t as sure about where to set the throttle adjustment screws which led me to multiple attempts and tweaking things to see if I could get it to start. I did manage to get it driving reasonably well on a couple of occasions prior to the weekend. Took Father’s Day off and then resumed on Monday. After endless disappointments, I went back to square one. Checked valve lash and made some minor adjustments. Checked and confirmed spark at the coil. Checked and confirmed spark at number one plug. Static-timed by grounding #1 plug at the block, rotating to 10 degrees BTDC. Still no joy. I had those suction chambers off so many times checking jet depth with a gauge, adjusting at different depths. Followed the S.U. recommendations for tuning and eventually I noticed the blurb about setting the throttle disk screws 3/4 turn from fully closed. Also advanced the timing by a couple of degrees. By that time, I had cleaned the plugs a few times and the last time could see they were wet so they got changed.

Fresh outlook today with fresh plugs, two turns down, and throttle disks adjusted a bit further open after reading old forum posts about 1 1/2 turns from fully closed. First crank of the key, it tried to run so that told me I was close but perhaps too rich so I leaned out the jets a little at a time and also had to open up the throttle a tad. Finally got it running again but unable to test drive because I had gotten my son-in-law to help me remove the hatch so that I could install the new body seal from Martin.
I talked my wife into helping me lift it and position it while I could get the screws and lift springs back in. Hoping to get some test drives in tomorrow to see how it runs. If it starts up that is…

Wednesday
Pulled the choke out fully with a little assist from the engine bay as the choke cable needs some work, and it fired right up! I have more work to do at idle as it isn’t as smooth as it should be so I’m getting close. Haven’t driven it yet so that should be forthcoming soon when I can find the time.