As a way to try to combat their financial struggles, the company merged with the American Machine and Foundry (known as AMF) hoping to gain help from their struggles. After AMF took control, the merged company started to make attempts at improving the engine with their own funds. In 1970, the alternator was redesigned for less strain, hidden behind a new and redesigned side case. The carburetors were changed to Zenith-Bendix, improving flow and power that started to gain a better image for the engine. However, in 1974, the engine started to show many more problems. With the United States involved in the 1973 oil crisis, gasoline had a much lower octane and consistency that severely hurt the engine’s performance. Engine knock became a large problem; causing overheating that led to blown gaskets and damaged head bolts. AMF tried to combat this by producing more units in 1976 despite the engine’s problems, which ended up leading to a damaged employee reputation, along with seriously declined quality in their units. After realizing they would need some serious improvement to fix their current situation, they produced some updates in 1978 to the engine that consisted of a larger displacement, and steel struts cast into the pistons to prevent them from expanding from the heat. However, the changes were not enough for the declining quality of American fuel at the time. Valves and guides were prone to problems, along with more overheating, detonation, and oil consumption.