From Friday night to Monday night I drove just shy of 1,200 miles. I didn't track the mpg's while driving around town in California, but out on the highway there and back it was averaging 20mpg. Seemed to consume/lose about a quart of oil every 250-300 miles which to me is a ton of oil. Basically I checked it when ever I stopped at a gas station and topped it off. All in all, I knew the used engine would likely have some issues, rather it was oil consumption, low oil pressure, or low compression on a cylinder or two, and it appears it only has an oil consumption issue at present so I cannot complain too much as the EFI and other modifications I made to it portion worked like a champ.
About an hour into my drive out of town, 60 or so miles, my external oil line let loose and sprayed the engine bay with around 1.5 quarts of oil by the time I noticed the oil pressure fluxuations and shut the engine off. FYI, that is a bunch of oil in the engine bay =P So the pink oil line I had couldn't stand up to the heat, and what is worse is I figured as much, bought a replacement 1/8 EFI fuel line hose that would have no issue with it and forgot to both install it or bring it with me d'oh! Since I was only an hour out of town I called a friend for a big favor of swinging by my house, grabbing the hose I bought and bringing it to me. I was up and running within five minutes of his arrival. I had five quarts of oil with me since I was unsure of it's oil consumption rate at sustained highway speeds. Turns out it's quite a bit so far. Cruising between 2,800-3,100rpm seems to suck oil out of the thing. I drove a tad slower home, but it didn't make much difference. I think this engine would do well with gears that would put the cruising speed right at 2,600rpm. I haven't calculated what ratio that would be yet. My oil air separator(pipe) isn't working nearly as well as I'd like it too either, so more work will have to be done there. I'm getting quite a bit of oil out the breather even when the reservoir isn't even close to being full. And getting around 20mpg, which isn't terrible considering the 4.56 gears and rpm's turning. a friend of mine says the cruising speed is equivalent to driving with 3.25 gears and no overdrive.
Here are a few trip pictures.
On the road.
On the side of the road.
Back on the road, and actually this was in California.
It didn't run hot, it climbed all the 6% grades in overdrive at 70mph with out issue, and made the trip with out fuss after the oil line repair. Funny thing about climbing hills. I programmed the electric water pump to be on when ever the engine is under a higher load, basically calibrated it so that if the torque converter disengages the water pump should probably be on. The logic is if I go WOT it'll pump cool water into the head regardless of the engine temperature to keep detonation at bay (which has turned out to be a non-issue so far), which will be helpful when I have a turbo engine in the car. The funny thing is, when I was pulling the first real mountain, about 10 miles of 5%-6% grade outside of Primm, NV, I noticed the engine temps dropped to 140ºF and kind of sat there until I crested the mountain then it started to climb back up to normal 185-195ºF range that I have programmed in. It took me several miles before I remembered the pump stays on under load, lol. The only time I think the radiator fan kicked on was while I was in a Carl's Jr. drive through for a while, and so far has been more than adequate at keeping the engine temperature in control.
Sunday was the big car day, went to two car shows and helped a fellow cammer set an engine and transmission in his '67 Firebird. The first car show I went too, the car had a constant crowd around it. When ever I'd go look at other cars my friend's would call my cell phone and say "Dude, get back here, these guys have lots of questions!" haha. Then and helped out setting in an engine and trans then made it to the tail end of a Buick get together in the same area. I'll post a couple more pictures later, but by the time I remembered to take some pictures of my Firebird there were only two other guys there. Got the same reaction though from the folks there.
A common sight around the car (I'm the guy in the hooded jacket with his back to the camera). People were equally interested in the engine setup as the shifter setup. Definitely made a conversationalist piece if nothing else.
