ACOTE's 68 2000

[ACote]

Wow almost a year since updates. Ok 10 months but still. Behold my latest project Solexes! I bought James' set he had for sale and have been slowly collecting everything and just been driving the car since then. Today I got with Premo and he helped by setting them up and checking every little thing out. So here's the finished product. Blasting and clear on the intake turned out awesome. I'm glad to own a set this clean.

I have everything except for the front water tube, which I'm emailing a few people now to try and find one. I am also looking for 2 piece rockers Used or reground so I can minimize down time of my roadster.

I'm going to get a cam ground and use L-series lash pads. The Carbs are beautiful, still have the stock gaskets on top. And Dang are these carbs way more complicated than SU's. There something to tune for every stage of fuel use. The linkage that came with was realy messed up. It had one carb slightly open no matter how tightly adjusted. After some bending and grinding we got the linkage to line everything up correctly. This is why I took it to a pro, I would've just put them on never noticed.

After I get the last pieces I'll update with the install and tuning.

[jamesw]

Looking good! Glad your carbs came out looking so great and with Dave helping you set them up and getting the linkage right is the way to go.

Maybe someday I will get my carbs back from Dave too

Cheers
James

[Gregs672000]

Forgive if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can use L series pads on U20 retainers unless you have made modifications to allow an L series set to work, which I believe means you must have 8mm valve stems and not stock valves, or vise versa (modified the L series retainers to accept the larger diameter valve stems).

The carbs look beautiful nevertheless! Several venders have reground two piece rockers for sale at a reasonable price.

[Alvin]

sweet, premo will set you up well
post videos when installed in the Solex sound thread!

[Gregs672000]

And Dang are these carbs way more complicated than SU's. There something to tune for every stage of fuel use.

Yep! And every engine is different too, so I will (again as many can attest!) strongly suggest an A/F meter for final tuning. To give an example, while tuning I can get it to work fairly well in most rpms. But the meter will tell me I'm either too lean or over fueling in places, thus either leaving power on the table or (in my engine's case because of the high compression) risking it a bit. It would rev to 6500, but the meter was reading 10.5 to 1... Way to rich, but in normal driving (at one stage of tuning) it was generally fine. Just getting that to 11.5 to 1 allowed it to rev to 7000, and faster. When I ever get the videos posted, if you listen closely to the "warp drive" run you can actually hear the engine gurgle at 10.5 to 1.

The great thing about these cards IS that they are tunable; the bad thing about these carbs is that they are tunable!!! However, once set they should be good, unless you're constantly messing with stuff like stupid me...

[ACote]

Yes I have the L series retainers, a couple people sell them now. I will post vids, probably make a before and after
I agree that the a/f meter helps, I had a bung welded into the collector so I can fine tune my SU's, even more needed on the Solexes. I'll be taking my time on this to make everything look nice. I need to get the header coated somewhere, it's quite an eyesore especially with the new shiny bits.

[ACote]

Got a call from the coaters and the header will be ready tomorrow.
I test fitted the header and intake befor sending it off, and everything cleared, which was a surprise as most 1 5/8 have to be dented to clear solex intakes.

So today I was trying to clean up the engine bay. When simple soaking and scrubbing didn't satisfy me I picked up some blue paint and went to town. (same color from previous rebuild)

But then the passenger side looked bad in comparison.

Then I might as well get the entire bay area black as it had yellow showing from all the chips. And the cowl needed paint too.


Overall a good day for a "while I'm there" bug. I really need to get a garage, but both neighbors where gone when I was painting.
I also found out you can change your heater core out without removing the box. What a PITA.

[Skyman]

I thought the dent in the tubes was to clear the frame so it didn't knock?

[ACote]

I thought the dent in the tubes was to clear the frame so it didn't knock?

I did have it the whole thing bent away from the frame. But other members had trouble with the header interfering with the intake. Dean recommends cutting the material off the intake but most just dent the header instead of the rare intake.

[Skyman]

Ahh. Thanks for the clarification.

[ACote]

Solex's on and working! Monday I picked up the header from Sacramento and couldn't contain myself. I got halfway done then it got dark. Tues I bolted the last bits together and was able to do a baseline tune. The Idle is rough but it drives! Today I'll give it another go with the tuning. Enjoy!

Test Fit

Everything from below

All the shaking in the world wouldn't hit the frame now!

Heatshield is a little close to the steering.


Everything hooked up! I left the smog tubes on the intake temporarily until all the tuning is done with the cam. She fired right up and I Jumped from the growl.

The backing plate was very difficult to install, I think I need to drill the mounting holes slightly for it to slide on better. But good enough now.

[notoptoy]

That is some sweet bling, how about some audio/video of the running result?

[ACote]

Another long break. But I have awesome updates!
I've been super busy with a couple short deployments after one another and I am currently in Florida for a wedding. But the day of my flight I was able squeeze in a day with Premo and we got the cam installed. It needs a tune up but the car feels completely different. It pulls so hard. I can't wait to get it tuned to get rid of the rich bogging. All smiles here.

[ACote]

Also forgot to mention my harmonic balancer was swapped out and all the weird noises have been sorted out. The weird squeeking was an insulator gasket. Only trivial noise now is headrest rattle.

[Gregs672000]

Fun to catch up! The solexs really respond well to the cam, or vice versa. B? C? Custom ground? Excited for you. Dave knows his stuff and I'm sure the result will be great! What chokes are you running (34s or 37s or?). I would be interested to hear how your jetting comes out as well. I'm learning more and more about how the jets influence the emulsion tubes and Dave seems to have a different approach that I may have to try to see if it translates to Dellortos...