Ahh! A test drive that lasted more than a block and a half! Got my head gasket in from KgTrimning and the mani gasket from IPD (ordered online same day - they both got at my door on the same day too). Put it all back together again and it started right up again. I kept it revved up to about 2500 - 3000 rpm for about 10 minutes, then took it for about a 1 mile drive - keeping the revs between 2000 and 4000, not going over about half throttle. And this time, no huge clouds of vaporized coolant coming out the rear. Felt good, really good. Timing was very roughly set - retarded just shy of kick-back while cranking, didn't hear any pinging - although that's not too likely using only half throttle. I could feel the cam (Isky VV-81 - KgTrimning was out of the KG-19 when I was ordering parts) sort of wake up around 3500 - even at half throttle you could feel it start to pull harder.

I had forgotten how loud it is - I really need to get some sort of real muffler on it - those 2 18-inch glasspack straight thru bullet mufflers aren't doing much. It's better in the summer with the windows open, but with them shut the sound just reverberates inside. Hey - someone needs to answer that ringing phone! Fun for short durations though, it sounds sort of like a Harley. For whatever reason the exhaust sounds softer somehow now than it used to be. The R cam I was using before seemed to produce more distinct sound pulses, the cam I'm using now seems to make a more modulated sound. Maybe it isn't the cam, but not much else has changed - same head, same header and exhaust, same carbs.

Retorque the head tonight, adjust the valves again, oil change in 99 miles. Then figure out how to get my MS computer to run the timing advance. Adding the fuel injection hardware (DCOE style ITB's) will come later.
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I'm JohnMc, and I approved this message.