Some questions from a new owner.

[Dmitri]

Picked up an older star fm for a price I couldn't pass up, never been up close to these cars and am noticing some things I have questions about.

First, the car does not have a log book, but has been raced at autobahn country club and is certified for 2016, I'm planning to run the car with the scca. Is my best bet to just get the car a new log book? Or is there a way to check if the car already has one, and a serial number, I didn't see any stamping like you would on the roll cage of a closed wheel car.

Next, there is a chassis number tag riveted on, is there any records of chassis history? Also, how does one figure out the year of the car?

And last is some mechanical questions. I'm a competent mechanic, but this is my first time around a fm. I noticed this car has no vacuum lines attached to the advance on the distributor. Is it common place to just set a static timing and disable the advance? Also, is the brake bias adjuster supposed to have detents? It just doesn't feel right when turning the knob.

[FrankRizzo]

The pop-riveted tag that has your serial number on it has the year. The 1st 2 digits are the year. In my case, it's "98 134". So, the 134th chassis made in the year 1998.

[Fred Michael]

Log book number will be stamped into the roll bar and does not correspond in any way with the cars serial number.

[starfmguy]

There is no vacuum line to the distributor, just set with the engine rev'd up a little... About 22 deg advance should be good to start. See other posts. Others, more expert than me, may chime in here...

The detents are standard for brake bias adjuster knobs and are there for reference (every 90 deg rotation) and to help keep the knob in the position you set it so it doesn't rotate inadvertently and change the bias. Make sure all the threads on the balance bar are clean and everything turns smoothly when you turn the adjuster knob, so it works when you need it.

[Dmitri]

Log book number will be stamped into the roll bar and does not correspond in any way with the cars serial number.

Thanks, I'll have to take a closer look, there is a chance the car has never had a scca log book. Either way it should not be terribly difficult getting the car through tech and obtaining one.

[Dmitri]

There is no vacuum line to the distributor, just set with the engine rev'd up a little... About 22 deg advance should be good to start. See other posts. Others, more expert than me, may chime in here...

The detents are standard for brake bias adjuster knobs and are there for reference (every 90 deg rotation) and to help keep the knob in the position you set it so it doesn't rotate inadvertently and change the bias. Make sure all the threads on the balance bar are clean and everything turns smoothly when you turn the adjuster knob, so it works when you need it.

Kind of what i was thinking is that the timings set static, the car runs great, I however plan to do some dyno tuning on it in the future and play around with jetting/timing. Just found it a little strange that the distributor has the vacuum diaphragm and all the advance mechanical components installed but they are not used. I'll have to take the advance knob assembly off and take a look, there is definitely not type of detent that I can feel, the balance bar does turn, and seems to function, I'd just like to be able to get a more solid feedback from the adjuster.