#470190
I’ve found and fixed a lot of the problems my Ecto is having and finally feel like I’ve got a reliable car. I’m posting the results here to benefit whoever might make use of this info. This info isn’t just for owners of a 59/60 pro car but anyone with an old pro car turned Ecto.

On a personal note I’m fairly upset that one of the major problems wasn’t caught by and/or was outright caused by (a) a professional classic car shop that’s been in business for 50+ years, (b) a performance race car shop that handles upgrades, (c) an electrical engineer whose only real duty with this car was to make sure the electrical and ignition system worked, (d) the rat-bastard tech writer for Pertronix whose installation guide gives advice destined to cause their product to fail. I’m not a car guy so when it’s up to me to be the expert and figure out what’s going on, it kind of pisses me off.

THE ENGINE:
The engine is not the problem. The car was built and delivered with a Caddy 390 powerplant, 325 horsepower and a Turbo 400 transmission. These were fine to run the car with before and still are. I know a lot of people have suggested “Why don’t you just replace the engine?” but the block itself isn’t at fault, there was never anything fundamentally flawed with the engine itself. The problem has always been all the things that on and around the engine. Right from day one as these rolled out of the factory they had elements that were proven over time to be a bad idea, the sort of things that have brought about all the changes we see in car today. Things like:

THINGS TO UPGRADE:
1) Replace the generator with an alternator.
2) Install 2 batteries, preferable something deep-cycle like an RV/Marine battery
3) Battery Isolator
4) Upgrade the single brake cylinder to a dual brake cylinder
5) Either replace the dual-core radiator or have it reconditioned and while you’re at it, block off internal radiator inside the main one.
6) Modern carburetor.
7) Modern air filter.
8) The distributor was a point-and-brush system, highly unreliable. Upgrade to something modern like a linear-induction type system.
9) Replace mechanical fuel pump with electric fuel pump. Placement of pump is crucial.


1 – ALTERNATOR

Generators only provide electricity, whereas alternators charge batteries. If your car still runs a generator just get rid of it. I recommend no less than a 125amp alternator, I believe Loren runs something like 170amp or better. Anything under 120 amps and you’re not serious about running 2 lightbars and all other equipment related to being an Ecto.

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2 – TWO BATTERIES

Get two batteries, preferably both deep-cycle RV/Marine batteries. One runs the car and never drains because of the drain from the accessories. The other runs all the non-car stuff and ( as long as it’s a deep cycle battery ) can pretty much be ran into the ground before recharging.

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3 – BATTERY ISOLATOR

The battery isolator lets one alternator charge two batteries but prevents the batteries from draining each other. The amps of the isolator should meet or exceed the alternator. If your alternator is 125 amps then obviously a 120-amp isolator will soon be overpowered and burn out. This happened to me. You won’t see this happen instantly, but it will happen over time. My current configuration is a 125-amp alternator and a 140-amp isolator.

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Also, if the cables between the batteries and the isolator are ever connected improperly you will also short it out and likewise will not see the degradation of performance at once. On my car, the mechanic who finished the Nov 2012 rebuild hooked the isolator up wrong, shorted it out, discovered their mistake and connected it properly without telling me. They hoped I wouldn’t notice. At first I didn’t, it seemed to run okay and they probably thought they were off the hook. For the last year I’ve been wondering why the batteries always seem to hover at “just barely enough power to run” but never fully charge.
Internal workings of an isolator if it worked properly:

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Internal workings of an isolator when some jerk hooks up the cables wrong, shorts out a DIODE ( turning it into a mere resistor ) and allows the charge to never fully distribute on one or both of the batteries. Diodes make the power flow in one directions, resistors let it flow both ways. Not a desirable result.

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I recently tested the isolator with a multimeter and caught the damage. A call to the shop confirmed they made this mistake. Apologies were issued but the damage was done. ( * = Inside each isolator are two giant diodes that let power flow in one direction. If you burn one out, it becomes a resistor which lets power run both ways. It’s not like the performance 100% fails when it burns out, it still gives the slight impression that it’s sort of semi-working and catching the problem is fairly hard, short of actually connecting a multi-meter to the isolator.
AJ Quick, jackdoud liked this
#470192
4 – DUAL BRAKE CYLINDER

Many of these older cars came with drum brakes and a single brake cylinder. It’s a wonder anyone lived through this phase of the automotive industry. Regardless whether you upgrade your drum brakes to disc brakes, at least upgrade the single brake cylinder to a dual brake cylinder. This can literally save your life or someone else’s.

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5 – RADIATOR

Many of these pro cars had dual core radiators, one smaller one inside the larger one. If the inner wall were to rupture, the coolant and oil would mix. If that happens, now you’re rebuilding the entire engine just to resolve the trouble this caused. Right from the start Eric and I noticed oil and water mixed so the new engine + rebuild we got was really an inevitability. ( Below = before )

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The lesson was learned and we now run a separate intercooler for the oil, mounted to the front of the radiator. I can’t recommend an intercooler enough, the alternative being a sudden water/oil mix and an engine in need of rebuild. ( Below = after )

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6 – CARBURETOR

I spent $800 to rebuild the ’59 Caddy carburetor, and it worked so-so. ( Pic taken before the rebuild )

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Then I got a $300 Edelbrock carb and things have never run so smoothly. Modern is better. Don’t waste money rebuilding a period-authentic carb and don’t waste money on a big brand name like a Holly. Edelbrock’s knock-off is impressively well dialed-in. At most you’ll need to drill some new holes on the arm where the gas pedal connects.

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7 – AIR FILTER

The original air filter housing that comes with an old car is awful. It’s a sealed chamber with a single snorkel.

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Buy something with a 360 opening that can draw in air from everywhere. I use a cheap $20 Edelbrock one that’s given me way better air input than what came with the car.

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AJ Quick, jackdoud liked this
#470193
8 – DISTRIBUTOR

This is/was the biggest problem in the car and the cause of 90% of my troubles. The winning combo for the ignition system is to replace the point and brush system with something like a Pertronix 1181 and a corresponding coil. When we first did this in 2010 Eric couldn’t get the car to turn over. This was the cause of problem (a), resistance. In reviewing the installation manual it provides the following advice:

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Fine, so it didn’t start because the 6ohm resistor was still inline. We removed the resistor and the car started. Problem solved, right?

Not so fast. What the manual doesn’t tell you is that the coil is only starting because it’s getting a high and unregulated amount of ohms. Yeah, it starts now but only because it’s slowly frying the coil. I’m sure this serves the financial bottom line of the company selling coils but now I’m going through new coils every 10 trips. I’m a bit upset that the electrical engineer, classic car shop and performance car shop didn’t catch this. I’m not even an “expert” and yet I figured out that you should probably calculate your own resistance solution and stick it in there.

SOLUTION: I installed a 2-ohm resistor but you may need to make your own calculations based on what distributor and coil combo you go with.

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A good guideline is 6-ohms is too much and 0-ohms isn’t enough; this assumes you’re using a coil with 1.5-ohms of resistance built in. There is such thing as a 3.0-ohm coil that requires no resistance and of course the majority of coils you can buy in any parts store tend to be 0.x-1.0 ohms of resistance at best. When my car was repaired after 2013 Comic-Con the mechanic installed a 0.7-ohm coil with no resistance. No wonder the car got harder and harder to start, the coil was melting. Here’s what it looked like the morning I got back from Hank and Will Deutschendorf’s Halloween event.

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Once solved this brings us to problem (b), coil placement. Some say moving it just a few inches doesn’t make much difference but I disagree strongly. So far, moving it up to the firewall has dropped the temperature about 40 degrees. ( Green circle highlights where the coil used to go. )

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Also, I’ve since added some heat sinks to the coil and knowing me, it’s just a matter of time until I add a computer fan to the whole thing. It runs a lot cooler and so far all of my ignition issues have gone away. The last 2 trips to L.A. went off without a hitch.

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AJ Quick, jackdoud, gb4ever liked this
#470194
9 – ELECTRIC FUEL PUMP

This one is as important as the Distributor issue in my opinion. By design, most of these old cars have a mechanical fuel pump. The pump is located up on the engine and sucks gas through a long straw that goes back to the tank. Basic science is that it’s easier to push than to pull, and a mechanical pump is always pulling fuel. That sucks.

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The problem with that is something called vapor lock. You’re driving on the freeway, exit on the offramp, and as soon as you come to a stop the car dies. Good luck restarting it until it’s cool again and the pressure has returned because you’re the proud new owner of a case of vapor lock. This has happened to me a lot in that first year. The proper solution is to bypass the mechanical fuel pump with a restrictor plate ( $20 at any auto parts store – orange circle below ) and install 2 fuel filters and an electric fuel pump.

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One fuel filter goes back at the fuel tank , the electric fuel pump goes right next to that ( it’s easier to push than to pull ) and then run the fuel line all the way up to the carburetor. Just before the carb, install a fuel filter. ( blue circle ) I recommend a clear one so you can see if the fuel is flowing when the ignition is on. This will make troubleshooting easier later.

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With these solutions in place this car has finally become somewhat reliable to drive which is important to me, the majority of my trips are from San Diego to L.A. and that’s about a 300 mile round trip. I can’t afford to fail knowing how far I need to be towed back. As mentioned before, none of these issues had anything to do with the 390 engine or the original transmission. There is no need to replace these, just upgrade the unreliable parts and assure that the math was done right in regards to your ignition system voltage.

Since I’ve heard so many people tell me to “just drop in a different engine” here’s some of the shots I took while trying to mount a Chevy 350 into the car. The motor mounts:

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In this next shot, notice how the engine & transmission feel the need to angle back just to get into the car? The only way to make the engine sit properly in the mounts would be to remove the transmission, then yeah, it would fit just great. Too bad about actually needing that transmission connected to the engine to drive, eh?

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Meanwhile, a rebuilt 390 comfortably seated in its natural environment.

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By the way, for those of you who know Venkman71’s story about how his driveshaft bearing snapped and tore out his brake lines, here’s a pic of the cavity where the shaft and carrier bearing are ( currently removed in this pic ) and their proximity to the brake cables. Just imagine the shaft in the middle of that.

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If something twirling around in there suddenly snaps it basically becomes a big fork wrapping up a plate of spaghetti.
Here’s brake cables removed from my car from that same general area. One was completely frayed and no longer connected to anything, the other one looks like it was about to snap in another couple of uses.

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In case Vincenzo330 is reading this, I should let you know that this frayed cable on the right is what was stopping the car as we went down that steep hill that one time you and your girlfriend were in the car with us. Yep, that was it. That’s why I was yelling “Oh thank God! We made it! We didn’t DIE!” I wasn’t kidding about that at all.

Sorry about almost killing you.
#470243
One thing to note about an Electrical Gas Pump (if you haven't figured it out already) is placement is very important. You will want to put as close to the gas tank as you can, and have it as low as you can (preferably below the gas tank). Otherwise you will start burning up your gas pump as well. That's one reason most new cars have the pump in the gas tank. The gas keeps it cool. There is plenty of information on that in hot rodder's forums and such. And like you said you need a filter before and after the pump.
#470263
OOOOOOO thats ruff ....

some " professionals " are far from that ... you the car owner is always the one that pays the price and gets the learning curve.....

if you lived closer you could have brought it to my shop and i would straighten it all out for you ...
Fifthrider liked this
#470376
Glad you posted Kris, you're exactly who I had in mind when I made this. I hope your car gets built only once, not over and over like mine until the lessons were learned. :-?

Good luck on those RPMs, it really is a bear trying to figure it out but once you get it dialed in, it's all worth it. Your car made a lot of progress in just the last couple of months and looks incredible. I love that you've got a spotlight with the mirror on it. Sometimes it's the little touches that just "sell" it, ya know?
#4828158
No idea what the model is. On Sept 4, 2014 I upgraded to a 150amp alternator and a 200 amp isolator.

Keep in mind, my car runs a ton of electronics that most others don't. I've heard other Ecto owners on a forum criticize "Why do you need all that, I don't?" Well, good for them, but I do. I think we set up Venkman71's with a 130amp alternator and a 150 amp isolator just to be safe. At least one other owner I know claims a 90amp alternator is enough. (shrug) If you're not running anything other than a car then sure.
gb4ever liked this
#4832190
how did you go with the new edelbrock carby and setting the TV rod, was it just drilling a new hole for it as well as the throttle, or did you utilise the old carb bracket?
also, what CFM did you go for?

thanks :)
Dave

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