Those are hydraulic pumps. This is true old school with actual hydraulics.

It's the E30 DNA showing through....

Long Live the Homermobile

My dad had several Fiats growing up. It’s not that they were unreliable, they just liked to be kept in tune and had little tolerance for falling out of tune. Oh and if you went 36,000 miles and 1/2 inch on that 36,000 mile timing belt, good by valve train.

I was alive when they were made, but only remember the bad rap. It seems to me that one of the bigger issues was folks putting has in the instead of diesel, no?

In all fairness, Scion tries to make itself cool, but ends up being “that guy”

Saab and Volvo had great print ads back in the day.

Dad had an ‘85 with the 12a then an ‘88 with the 13b. After apex seal failure, the ‘88 got a street ported motor with noticably more power.

Emissions were a big part the. GM Quadrajet is truly a highly refined carb especially compared to their early TBI systems, yet it still sucked at passing emissions.

That was when my MIL first moved in with us. I have been fixing it up and it’s running well right now, so no deletion of stuff just yet.

Very true. That was taken before I swapped out the cap and rotor. You also stay dry when doing most work.

Indeed! My 88 F-150 is running I thin 12 or 14 advanced on the 300 I6. Pulls like a freight train and I can pull 20mpg if I keep it under 60 and shift at 1500rpm.

I need to time the van. I can probably advance it a bit since I don’t have inspections to deal with. Advancing is easy, but timing could be complicated. I think you must go in from the bottom like you do for the front plugs.

So true. Plus the later ones had all those computer controls on the carb too! I remember looking at my dad’s wondering why they needed so many....

You don’t know how fitting that is for the van....

Very true, but it makes up for the time saved in bloody knuckles trying to get the spark plugs swapped out.

It does have cruise control, so that compounds the issue with the speed differential unit (has speedometer cabled going in and out on one side and thick vaccum hoses going out the other) and the vaccum diaphragm both being at the rear of the motor. It’s a pretty impressive system for being entirely vaccum controlled…

The “Holy Jet of Quadra” and a decently tuned one at that.

Chances are my 2wd 88 F150 coulda yanked that thing out. Hook it up and idle away with the ‘ol 300 I6. Heck, a “off road recovery unit” = a winch in my book.