The HIF problem is solved. I just replaced the rebuilt and modified
HIF44 (by Phil at APT) with a brand new S.U. Midel HIF44 (un-modified).
The car started right up without using the choke. It runs on the
throttle just fine now. There is a different problem that has developed
and it should have been apparent when we filled the engine with oil for
the first time. When Gerard was filling the engine before first startup
he noticed that the oil took an inordinate amount of time to drain from
the top of the head into the engine. The valve cover filled up and it
took four or five minutes for the oil to drain down into the engine. We
should have known this was going to be a problem when we ran the
engine. I have only run the engine today for up to 2 minutes at a time,
but towards the end of the 2 minutes blue smoke was coming out of the
tail pipe. If I ran the engine any longer, the smoke would get
thicker. Clearly, the top of the head was filling with oil from the
rocker shaft lubrication and not draining fast enough back into the
motor and getting sucked into the intake valves. The problem seems to
stem from the Isky tubular chrome/moly pushrods. They are larger in
diameter the the stock and are most likely interfering with the oil flow
back into the motor. I have some "stock" used pushrods to install and
see if this alleviates the problem. The thru holes in the head that the
rods pass through was machined larger for the tubular pushrods (or it
was supposed to be) so this problem was not anticipated. I am going out
into the garage right now to take the valve cover off and take a look.
I will probably have to pull the head and see what the problem is
anyway, but the "stock" pushrods should at least tell me if pushrod
clearance is the issue. If the holes in the head are large enough,
maybe the head gasket or the block is the problem. Maybe you can't use
the larger diameter pushrods with this block. I will keep the list
informed of what is found.
Mike MacLean
60 Sprite
56 BN2
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