Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[V8 Nutter]

I have just been watching Ric's V8 Pilot Video. Just a few points all based on my Pilot owning days about 60 years ago. The original carb on a Pilot would have been a dreadful Solex very complicated and not very reliable. They had a couple of diaphragms that used to fail regularly. The Ford carb that was on Ric's engine appeared in the late thirties, I believe Holly had something to do with it. The Stromberg 97 was used in the thirties very good carb. float level is critical prone to flooding if pump pressure was too high and fuel starvation if the float level was too low Fuel pump pressure was about 4 to 5lbs. If it was too high a couple of extra gaskets under the fuel pump/breather tube mounting brackets would bring it down. No need to take the radiator out to get to the distributor. That distributor and cap look right. Points gap is absolutely critical a slight variation and it wont accelerate. The vacuum brake is adjusted by screwing out the adjuster until the engine just starts to pink under hard acceleration from 15 MPH in top gear. Screw the adjuster back in until it just stops pinking and lock it up. Ignition timing is 4 degrees before top dead centre. Spark plug gap is critical at .025. Pilots had ballast resistors in the ignition system, I can't remember if they had a resistor bypass for starting. The old rules said a well set up Pilot should accelerate gently from 5MPH in top and should reach 60 in second without miss firing. They also said you should be able to stand a half crown coin on edge on the inlet manifold with out it falling over, I never managed that.