'71 Impala 4 door... what should I do with it?

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Well, weather you like the car or not (and I honestly don't care if you don't and at this point, I don't care to hear about it either) I hauled home the '71 Impala yesterday. My wife paid for the car, so technically it's hers.

The plan is to make it into a fun cruiser/DD for her, something she can pile her friends into and go visit the local wineries.

Loading it up was fun, most of the tires were kinda holding air after filling them... we decided to push the car towards the trailer and use gravity, since it was downhill. The brakes had pressure when it was sitting, but once we got it rolling hitting the brake pedal did NOTHING. I jammed on the parking brake hard enough to bend the pedal sideways and get the car stopped, since the car was picking up speed! Got it loaded with no more excitement using the Warn winch on the Gladiator, and dragged it home.

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I started working on it today, first thing was to clean up all the debris under the hood from the packrat that has made the 402 Big Block it's home. That took a hour or so, then I used my leaf blower to clean up the rest of the loose bits.

Once the junk was clear, I picked up a new battery and connected it.... no power. Looked at the battery cables and the positive cable to the starter had been shorting out! Also found that the power wire to the fuse block had melted and the fusable link had popped.

I replaced the battery cables and the fusable link, I connected the battery again and has power!! Cranked the car over and it turned, so I enlisted my wife to run the controls while I poured gas down the Q-Jet. The damn thing almost fired right up, then proceeded to idle perfectly. There's a bit of valve-train clatter, I'd assume the lifters need to pump up. The oil is dirty, so I'll pick up a new filter and change the oil to see if it'll help.



Since we had it running, I worked on cleaning up the interior... there was a LOT of junk inside. Ton's of diet Pepsi cans, a bunch of pesticide in the trunk and a rusted can of gun powder. Also found a sales receipt for a AAMCO rebuild of the TH400 transmission, from 1976 when the car had 70k miles on it!

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After cleaning out the interior, I gave it a quick and dirty bath with some degreaser.... it cleaned up alright! That green color inside the trunk is the original color, called 'Cottonwood Green'. It looks awesome, wife loves it so the plan is to repaint it that color in the future.

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Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Since it was running, I dropped it into gear and drove it back and forth a few feet. It moves, but the rear brakes are pretty locked up. (It just happens that I have a 4 wheel disc brake kit for this car in my shop. 😉 )

My plan is to lower it 2", add some 17" polished Torque Thrust like wheels and tires and maybe add a 4L80E for an overdrive and better freeway cruising down the road.

I'd like to upgrade from the Points distributor to HEI, swap out the Q-jet for a Holley and upgrade the intake to an Edelbrock Performer RPM... maybe Holley EFI in the future. Headers and Flowmasters would make it sound awesome... it's super quiet currently.

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TurboMinivan

Still plays with cars
Location
Lehi, UT
maybe add a 4L80E for an overdrive and better freeway cruising down the road.

I'd like to upgrade from the Points distributor to HEI, swap out the Q-jet for a Holley and upgrade the intake to an Edelbrock Performer RPM...

Every one of these ideas is an excellent upgrade and well worth doing.
 

J-mobzz

Well-Known Member
I’ve been getting blasted with ads from these guys. I don’t know if you’ve seen them but at $599 for efi it might be worth some research.
Looks like you could add on a trans controller too for that overdrive.

 

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
I’ve been getting blasted with ads from these guys. I don’t know if you’ve seen them but at $599 for efi it might be worth some research.
Looks like you could add on a trans controller too for that overdrive.


I've been seeing the same ads, I've been eyeballing their products for awhile. One of the FB ads I saw, I was reading the comments and a guy mentioned that he had bought their TBI system and it wouldn't run right. He tried to get support from Aces and they left him hanging, nothing at all. He ended up removing the Aces EFI.

I'm sure 90%+ of their products are fine, but seeing this guys frustrating experience opened my eyes.

I think paying for the Holley EFI (Sniper 2) would better in the long run.... if I go that way.
 

NYCEGUY01

Well-Known Member
Location
Willard, UT
The Aces guys had a table/booth setup at the Duct Tape drags. Definitely his target audience there.
The dude seemed pretty legit and was answering a ton of questions etc... Im sure he was in "sales guy" mode though.
There were several guys there running the LS setup and they were all saying it was good to go..

At this point I think Im fully converted to the Holley EFI.
It costs more but just works, so theres that..lol
 

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
The Aces guys had a table/booth setup at the Duct Tape drags. Definitely his target audience there.
The dude seemed pretty legit and was answering a ton of questions etc... Im sure he was in "sales guy" mode though.
There were several guys there running the LS setup and they were all saying it was good to go..

At this point I think Im fully converted to the Holley EFI.
It costs more but just works, so theres that..lol

What's sad in the original Holley Sniper has issues, which is why the released the Sniper 2. I'm not sure how much it costs compared to the Aces TBI, but I'm sure it's quite a difference. I'm tempted by the price of the Aces setup, but don't want to waste money if it doesn't work as intended.

I'd imagine the LS kits are pretty well figured out at this point.
 

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Spent some time working on the Impala yesterday, the engine oil was very dirty so I picked up a couple oil filters, a new clear fuel filter, some new rubber fuel line and a bunch of oil.

I picked up a cheap automobile endoscope on Amazon for easy inspection and ran it into the gas tank... it looked perfectly clean inside!

Draining the pan was eye opening... the oil was chunky and soooo dirty. I ran two quarts of ATF thru the engine and into the pan trying to flush the crud out. Filled the new oil filter, put the plug back in and filled the pan with a quart of ATF, a half quart of Lucas oil and 4 quarts of motor oil.

Next I replaced the rubber fuel lines and filter, hoping that the fuel pump would still work after all these years.

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I put 5 gallons of fresh gas in the tank, gave the carb some squirts of gas and it took a bit to get it fired again... eventually the fuel pump started pulling fuel and sending dirty looking gas into the old Q-jet and it was running on its own! I turned the idle up a bit to help it out and went to checking the TH400 for fluid. It was pretty low, it needed 4 quarts. Added some water and coolant to the radiator too.

After airing up the old, flat and sketchy tires I tried to drive it but the rear brakes are still locked up. I moved it back and forth about 20' and the transmission felt solid, but the power steering wasn't happy. Still more work to do!

Doing some research on the '71 402, Wikipedia says its engine code LS3!! 😍 That sounds familiar... this '71 402 is the low performance 8.5 to 1 compression, 300 HP engine... but it still makes 400 ft/lbs!

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