One of the best shows I’ve ever been to since I’ve had the car running is the “Wings and Fins” aircraft & car show held at the Riverside Airport. We had a great time there last year and I’ve been planning to go again this year, which was held on March 29^th. This show has a huge variety of new and older vintage aircraft along with a big car show, lots of vendors and good food too. Last year they had about 300 cars and beautiful weather to go along with the 80,000 people that showed up. The show is free to the public, which is why they have such a good turn out.  

The time between our last show and this one (Wings and Fins) was about three weeks, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to change a few things on the car before I went. Why change things you ask? Plain and simple…I’ve been bored!

The things that I wanted to do or change on the car were easy, but sometimes finding the time can through a wrench in the works. The changes would be made to the engine compartment and one thing in the rear of the car, which are: painted valve covers, spark plug wiring looms, starter, carburetor spacer, battery tray and a few other minor things.

Here is what the engine looked like before the changes. If you look close, you can see a throttle stop right above my purple throttle bracket which happens to be a stainless bolt. The bolt threads will be covered by a new anodized piece that I made and right below the throttle bracket is some linkage that goes to my throttle position sensor (TPS).
 

I ordered up the new parts and also made a few items as well. I wanted to send in a few aluminum parts to get anodized purple (what a surprise) and polish a few others. One of the items that I thought would look good anodized was the carb spacer, which I bought from Reher Morrison. This spacer is a two-piece unit which is comprised of one piece measuring ½” and the other being one inch thick. The top piece is called a reversion plate and the bottom is more or less just a spacer, stacking up to a total of 1 ½” and brings along some Pro Stock technology with it.  Reher Morrison claims that using this spacer combo increase’s horsepower and pulls more fuel from the carburetor. I have no doubt that it will because these guys have been building Pro Stock engines for over 35 years.

One other item that I’ve wanted to do for almost two years now is to have some valve covers that are painted the same color as the car and to have the same graphics on them too. The first person I thought of was the guy that originally did the flames on the car, which makes since because he did a good job. The first step was to spray them orange, and a week later, Bart, my paint guy had them finished. Then Bart was nice enough to drop them off with the graphics guy for me. After waiting for over a year and a half and two phone calls later, I decided to give them to someone else.  

Larry told me about a local guy, Stan Howton, and after talking with him, Stan said that he could do them in a week. One thing led to another and sure enough, Stan had them finished. And he did an awesome job!

They have the same colors in them (blue and purple) as the car does and I'm very happy with them. I also shinned up the valve cover hold-downs because they were getting a little dull.
 

Once I had the box of anodized parts back, the carb spacer was first to be installed. I had to hand trim two of the three gaskets because the spacers had been CNC milled and the wall thickness was much thinner than any normal spacer, leaving the gasket hanging into the plenum area. Reher Morrison told me about this cut-to-fit gasket process so it wasn’t a surprise, but takes time so you don’t cut too much or rip it. The gasket surface ended up being less than half of what it was originally so I hope it doesn’t leak.  

Once the carburetor was on, I noticed that I would have to lengthen two of the four new studs that hold the carb down with because I didn’t take into account my throttle bracket thickness (1/4"). After cutting and welding on some longer pieces, I was back in business. Also notice the new purple spacer I made coving the threads of the throttle stop bolt. It's hard to see in this picture but I shinned up the TPS bracket on my buffing wheel too along with the heads of a few bolts.
 

Now that the carburetor is installed, it was time to install some new fuel inlet fittings that I thought would look nice (purple). This meant that I wasn’t able to use my existing duel fuel lines so it was time to make a new one (which was the plan the whole time). I bought a few new AN fittings and some braided steel tubing to make up my new fuel lines but one of the fittings (T fitting) was back ordered. After calling Summit Racing and asking them about them drop shipping the fitting directly to my house, they assured me that it would arrive in a couple of days instead of a couple of weeks (back ordered items take much longer if you don’t call). This was great news so I placed my order for all the stuff I needed with the guy on the phone.  

A few days later, everything came in, except my T fitting, but I still had a few days before the show, so I worked on other areas of the car to get ready for the big day. I also installed my new sparkplug wiring looms which are now chrome. When I took the old looms off, I took the time to polish all the stainless screw heads that hold on the black wire separators. And while I had the buffer all warmed up, I polished the two hold down screws on my distributor cap too. It’s the little things that make the difference. And again, I was bored!