Another Boring Report From North Georgia Mountains

My 1986 coupe was delivered eighteen months ago with 44,000 miles and now has more then 51,000. Of all cars owned this one progressed from good enough to geeeeeee wizz. And I have proxy numbers for the 1/4 mile drag strip. My local two lane black-top has a perfectly spaced 1/4 mile but it is up hill and keeps elapse speeds below E fellonies.

The Caddy CTS 2.8 dohc/vvvt (215 hp) repeatedly did a bit over 70 mph. The same for my ohv 3.5 ohv vvt (220 hp) Malibu Maxx. These were low benchmarks and last year the Mondial managed a bit over 80 mph. About the same as my supercharged two ton Mark VII Lincoln.

In recent weeks the car just seems faster. The word 'seems' does not much count so the last two days I decided to see if the seat of my pants were worn out with old age. Twice the Mondial was pushing 90 mph. I KNOW Itallian speedometers are often optimistic. But it is the same speedometer that recorded a bit over 80 mph last year.

And the damned car just seems a different thing. As if awoken from a twenty five year slumber. I only speculate on the reasons. Its not as if I babied the thing last year - I scattered a clutch at 7,500 rpm 90F and now pretend, mostly, the red line is 6,500 rpm. But this last Summer I decided to attack potential carbon build up which was absolustely notorious in BMWs of the era with K-Jet.

BMW used crushed walnuts through the intake, but I was fresh out of crushed walnuts. So I decided to simply drive in routine ways to avoid build up, plus adding cat/cleaner (removes tiger hairs from your injectors). This meant two things. First and formost no cold idle low rpm warm ups.

I live on a small mountain and so this is an easy thing. I just run down the hill in first between 2 - 3 thousand rpms. Thats about three minutes and the car is up to operating temps. For the next fifteen or twenty minutes I never shift below a light-medium throttle 4 - 5 thousand rpm.

And thats about it. The thing seems to have fallen in love with me. I still add 8 oz two cycle oil to each tankful and perhaps the cleaning agents in that oil might have helped as well. I don't know, only report what has actually happened.

PS - For the sceptics. I have been running 60/40 glycol water mix unpressurized the entire time. I took one look at the nuclear reactor capable piping systems and said no frign way is this ever going much over abient pressure if I can help it. Have not added a drop of coolant the entire time. Your results will vary.

 

PPS - One more thing on oil type and weight. I use Mobil 1 10-30 but the local NASCAR capable mechanic up here in the mountains who fixed my clutch ($2,000 labor) warned me of some seal leaks and recommended I add Lucas Oil Treatment.

The oil went down twice and so I added two liters of the Lucas stuff. Car loves it.

 

Yeah, I have always suspected an optimistic speedometer. However, in recent weeks the car seems to have had a cup of coffee or something so I tested it again on my 'proxy' run. Almost ten mph faster (90 v 80mph).

Never seen such an improvement in any car I have ever owned. I suspect 25 years of carbon has finally bled off and there is clean intake/exhaust flow. The engine certainly sounds different as well as feeling stronger.

Speaking of Italian electricals. It was raining today so tested the wipers. They actually go back and forth with some regularity these days.