oops forgot to answer the vac advance question.

I always thought that the port on the carb, however I have found recently that you can port it either pace, it just depends on the car.

Most of the time I'v found an auto likes full and a M/T likes ported.

ok I changed the plugs......I dont know when I can get it out to beat on it though. My T/A is soaking up the nice weather.

ok, I ran it today again, and it acted up. I removed the pcv valve and plugged the line and removed the hose to the booster and plugged the line and it revved ok but now if I go to slow down ( did it with the booster hooked up too) it drops rpm to like 300. i shut it off one time it did it and looked at the carb, fuel is full to the top of the sight glass( over full??) and it was hard to start again. Im thinking im over fueling or i have a vac. leak. any ideas? p.s. next week im getting timing tape and Im going to see where im at initial and total.

if its hard to start I'll bet your timing is off.

and a vac leak will usually cause a High idle

I really think that your fuel and air is ok but something is wrong with the spark.

Do you have the coil positive and negative hooked up correctly?

What Vac port? Full manifold vacuum. Set your base timing with dizzy unhooked and plugged to 10-12 degrees, then hook up the dizzy and adjust your idle speed. This way when you mash the throttle your advance will retard the timing to avoid pinging.

Now that's a very interesting question!

If he's loading up the engine, by putting it in to gear and the engine won't pull, it's a great possibility.

I was thinking that he had the torque converter in wrong and the tranny was binding, because the engine would rev, but won't move in gear. Could also be a plugged exhaust!!

An old Italian mechanic I used to know always said: "If itsa gotta gas, and itsa gotta spark, itsa gotta go!" Well almost always he was right.

Firstly the Vac. advance line should be hooked up to the metered line from the carb. Not absolute direct manifold vac.

There is a lotta unknowns here as the engine has been built with al sorts of after market hop up stuff which we cannot determine if they are all installed correctly.... Cam timing, blah, blah, blah, etc. However a few things are always the same.... My guess if it won't rev up properly is the air to fuel mixture is incorrect and I'm guessing that under acceleration the mixture is too lean..... Retourque the intake manifold!!!

Now here is a REALLY dumb suggestion: Are the plug wires in the right order? If a couple are "off" or if they are all "moved over one" on the distributor cap, the engine will run great, the idle will be perfect, it will rev happily in neutral, but will pull essentially "zero" power and will not rev under load (Don't ask how I became an expert on THAT!)

LOL Agreed!!

I'v had my fair share of mistakes like that........try a 4 cyl with 2 wires swaped....it wants to fire, but backfires thru the tail pipe.....twas a fun night and I think james got some killer pics of the back firing.

ok to recap, the problem went away when I removed the pcv valve from the system but now if I get on it hard and let off it goes to base idle and then drops below, it will die if i let it and then its hard starting like its loaded up. I have a list of parts in the engine on the first page of the post and ive checked plug wire order twice, once before I put in new wires then once later on just to be sure. the exhaust we put on off from my 83 that had a 429 in it, it worked fine with that and the fuel injected 460 i put in later. it will spin 3 of the 35X12.5X15s (3.50 gears, locker in rear axle)that are on it but then drops off, there is a slight off idle hesitation too.

when you remove the PCV are you pluging the line?

yup, line plugged. Im going to lower the float settings until I can get some timing tape friday. see what I get.

ok by removing the PCV you are infact making the mixture more RICH.

and by that I'm inclined to say that you might try running the mixture screws out about 1/2 a turn and see what you get.


Remember when you get the tape to be sure and find TDC on the #1 cyl. dont trust the balancer.

By removing and plugging the pcv and power brake booster you had better performance and lower rough idle. Correct?

This symptom makes me think you have a vacuum leak or rich idle mixture. Your 2800rpm acceleration problem makes me think the carb. is running too lean (accelerator pump adjustment or jetting).

Try this. Get a long piece of vacuum hose to affix to a ported vacuum connection on the carb., and a sealed container with fuel or liquid carb. cleaner, and a pair of small needle nose vise grips with the clamping jaws covered with hose to pinch off the vacuum hose. Drive it and when it stumbles hold the throttle and release the vice grips to allow the fluid to be sucked into the engine. If it then accelerates you are running too lean. Do this with everything else hooked up.