I had a long list of other things to do to the car and was finally able to drive it for a while today. How it went is a little lower in the post.
A couple notes:
- Bought a pretty good fuel pressure gauge and made my own rail cap per Clark's instructions. The cap leaked a little which I assume is normal since there's no ball bearing making a seal. Next time I use it, I will try Teflon tape. The fuel pressure read perfectly and rose in a linear fashion with increasing RPM just like I hoped.
- Cleaned and adjusted the AFM to make the mixture a little richer (about four teeth).
- Plugs were perfect light tan with no indication of combustion issues.
- I did not do anything about fuel yet since George mentioned that he's never had a fuel issue in the 87 octane range.
Now for the test drive: It started and idled well like before. All gauges indicated perfect. It had pretty good power pulling away but still had a dead spot/slight miss like before ... in second and third gear. Figuring that the other indications were positive, I drove it longer and took it through more driving conditions. The more I drove it the less the dead spot was apparent. The car eventually had good power through all five gears and various rev ranges. Most of the driving was still at around 6,000 feet elevation. I drove for around 1/2 hour and about 30 miles. I had replaced all the suspension bushings, etc. and put on new tires so I need to get an alignment. I did a string alignment and it drove nicely. I didn't want to damage my tires so kept it short.
I took it close to redline a few times and drove to highway speeds (about 80 MPH) and it would accelerate to about 90 MPH pretty easily. I'm careful about tickets since I've gotten a couple lately. There is still a much less pronounced miss but the power in all gears is MUCH better. My plan is to keep driving it to see if the flat spot goes away altogether. I'll also move up an octane range on the next fill just to eliminate that as an issue.
One question though: There is a whining noise that matches RPM. It's not real loud. It has all new belts including the timing and balance shaft belts. Could this be just new belts seating in or something more worrisome? Or something unrelated to belts?
Thanks! I'm jazzed about my new car ... finally.