[77 TRASHCAN]

Originally Posted by njsteve

I checked the relay connection and it is the melted wire syndrome. 20 years ago I put an inline fuse in the power feed for the high speed circuit, where it enters the relay. You can actually see the orange wired, white plastic inline fuse holder in the upper left corner by the passenger side hood hinge, in the first photo above. I think I did this because the original wire melted, so I thought a fuse would protect the wire in the future.

In actuality, all it does is heat up the inline fuse carrier enough that it softens the plastic and then the metal connectors no longer contact the inline fuse, cutting off the 12 volts feed.

I jumped the two ends of the melted fuse holder and high speed then functioned perfectly.

I guess I forgot that the relay is the thing that is supposed to be protecting the circuit from heat damage but it doesn't do too good of a job at it.

I guess I will go back to the original 12 gauge wire and forget the fuse.

Steve,
Thanks for the laugh!!! All the other A/C maladies I've experienced w/ my car, I forgot about melting the big relay wire....I cut the big wire out of my harness, and put a seperate (better) connector on it, it was all I could do.This wasn't too long after my car was out of warranty...been a while...

From what I could tell by the short video, the 350 sounded like it idles fairly smooth???
How smooth is it??? I currently have a 350 in my car, and I happen to have a 068 cam, thinking about trying to give it a little boost in power, it's about all the budget will allow, for now...

How much did you take off the head surfaces??? That year 350 was rated at 7.6:1 compression. Any gain in compression would have helped.