Really need to get my daily driver

Ok.

You changed to much to fast. There are to many "could be's" at this point.

I would pull the motor and then start by pulling that balancer, timing cover, and drivers head.

Here is a easy to understand video on degreeing a cam.

Ok now thats done and everything is set at to put your heads on( new gaskets).

Ok now our timing is set and we know what our cam numbers are. You can put on the timing cover, balancer, then rockers. Inspecting the pushrods and rockers where the pushrod hits the rockers at that time. Give the springs a look while your here looking for any damage etc.

Ok now our valves are all correct. You can throw on the intake. Before you put the gasket on set the clean intake on the heads "dry" with no gasket. Your looking for any gaps between the head and intake. You can set a low profile led light that wont hit the intake in the valley and with the lights out and shop dark(perferably at night) you can often see any gaps easily. You need to cover and openings like the distributior hole etc of course.

If you have gaps its not a big issue. Just mark that area with a permanent marker so you know you need some gasket filler in that area.

Ok pull the intake and remove the LED light. Then put down new gasket and the correct rtv before installing the intake. Inspect the cam gear , chevk the function of the vacume advance, then with the engine at TDC install the distributior.

Ok now onto the carburatior. Same deal with the LED light set light inside the intake then set the clean carb on the intake dry with things tapped off then with the lights off check for any gaps. All your looking for is areas that need rtv. Put down the gasket with fuel resistant rtv on the top and bottom then torque it down. Oh shoot you left the led in there. Yea remove that before putting the carb on.

Ok. Now we have a engine that is timmed correctly and is air tight. Get some new vacume lines using the old as refrence and one at a time swap out tge old lines for the new.

Make sure you maintain any pcv system. If you have an egr make sure its hooked up. If it has the egr blocked off make sure the plate has a good gasket and gasketrtv so it is not a source for leaks.

Now your ready to put the engine back in(remove the distributior cap temporally). Once in you can install new exhaust gaskets and bolt up your exhaust. I like remflex exhaust gaskets.

Ok engine us and all the electrical is hooked up. Now you have eliminated several "could be's" you can get into playing with the carburatior and timing adjustment knowing whats going on with the shortblock.

This is more a time thing then cost. Your into it for mostly new gaskets. You will need a degree wheel and dial indicator to find the cam numbers. One of those things you buy a good one once and if you dont loose or loan it out for it to never return you wont need another. You may be able to borrow or rent these tools.


This is a good amount of work. But it is worth doing the detective work writing down your results then saving them in a notepad file somewhere so you know whats going on. That engine could have a massive amount of combinations it could have done to it over the years. Doing the detective work will give you a foundation to further tune.
If you dont do this your dealing with the "could be's" hoping you get lucky.

Yeah I find that unusual as I don’t think Greenwater is Indian reservation land. Frequently you can find 100 octane leaded at reservation stations. But no where else. One weird one not to far from me is an independent Seattle station getting up toward Lake City has it. But sometimes reservation land is a few acres surrounded by city usually on water where the Indians retain fishing rights that weren’t too far out of town back when but the cities grew up around these reservation holdings. And then again the station in Greenwater is right next to the river so it might be one one of these treaty fishing spots.

Anyway the backside of Mt. Rainer is a great ride during the week as there isn’t much traffic. A lot different on weekends in that regard but mostly locals going camping or fast water fishing as except for the Sunrise outlook open only in summer there isn’t any services or lodging that attracts he casual visitor most of that is Paradise Lodge on the west side facing and close to Tacoma. The back side is popular in winter because of a big ski resort just before the park but the park is closed and snow removal stops at the park entrance. So unless your ready to handle 15-20 feet deep snow there ain’t no way in.

Keeping my motorcycle racing on the track or off road or at least I did before getting too old, riding the highway I‘m just a gray beard Harley cruiser guy that puts his feet on the highway pegs and watches the scenery roll by.

Bogie

Okay guys I got my engine to run smoothly at 12 degrees before top dead center... I haven't set total timing yet and I haven't plugged up the vacuum advance yet but my vacuum advance is on the ported connection on the carburetor.

While I had the distributor out I went ahead and put in lighter mechanical Advanced Springs.

The engine doesn't like the idle below 900 RPMs and if I put it in Drive it drops down to 400 RPMs and if I hit the gas it backfires and dies. This happened at Six Degrees before top dead cylinder.

I went from 6 degrees before top dead center under to 12 degrees before top dead center with the idle at 900 RPM and just took my timing light and Advanced the distributor to degrees and jumped in the car and reversed it and mashed it and drive..

Everytime it bogged and hesitated a bit when I mashed the gas pedal, the only difference I was getting was the amount of power once the power caught up with the mashing of the gas pedal.

Starting to think that the accelerator pump is starting to be the culprit of my issues...

I bought a new accelerator pump but I'm also seeing that you can adjust it before installing a new one... I'm going to try to play with those three accelerator pump link holes and see if that fixes my bogging problem before I replace it with a new one.

The engine is idling a little smoother as well so I'm also going to spray a carburator cleaner around the vacuum hoses, intake, and carburetor base to see if my rpms shoot up

I got everything on video but I'll have to edit it into one video so if you guys want that let me know.

Accelerator pump inspection...looks bent...

Idle speed is very cam dependent, a stock cam 305 will idle around 5 to 6 hundred in gear and about 700 out of gear.

Given this engine has been touched before you got and sold to you as a hot rod who knows what cam is in there. Getting vacuum readings in these RPM ranges is a quick way of getting a rough idea of what kind of cam is in there.

Another possibility is the cam wasn’t timed correctly if somebody was in there previously for either a cam and or timing set replacement? It’s never easy picking up someone else’s work.

Basic timing is done with the vacuum advance disconnected and the vacuum source plugged. Most emission crammed 305’s only ran 4 to 6 degrees static base advance. Vacuum advance varies a bit based on which year and model canister is on the distributor but these usually have a range of 7 to 12 degrees.

The mechanical advance if idling 900 RPM and your using soft springs may also be turning on which will interfere with getting a good base setting. I much prefer doing this work with the timing tab rather than a dial back, there are some ignition systems that fake the dial back and you end up not knowing we’re tge timing really is.

Big cams like a lot of base advance and require a fast idle, this of course leads to a high stall converter to give some RPM space for the engine to idle. But again we don’t know anything about the cam so we don’t know if the problems your having are from a big cam fighting a stock stall converter for idle speed, or something else is going on.

A lot of what you describe hints toward the direction of a bigger than stock cam against a stock stall converter, but this isn’t conclusive by any means and without cam lobe timing data, like I said vacuum readings as it idles in neutral or park to in gear can give a little insight as to what might be there without needing to do a deep dive on the cam straight away.

Bogie

OK guys I found two issues...first issue I found is my carburetor idle mixture screws are broken, sent to me like that from Speedway Motors with the "New In Box" carburetor when I bought it...there isn't any tapered ends on them...


The second issue I found is 1 of my spark plug wires are bad, so I've been running on only 7 cylinders, and maybe only 6 cylinders while pulling one plug from the engine, it wasn't connected all the way, not sure if it was the one I found to be faulty...tested the OHM resistance on all and this one gave no reading and it's rusted inside...wires are a year old.

ericnova72 said:

Cheap spark plug wires if that is rust....quality wires have stainless terminals on them.

Click to expand...

These are 10.5mm plug wires and OEM plugs...others are telling me to get platinum plugs, but what about the wires ?

Should I get the OEM 7mm or another set of quality aftermarket 10.5mm wires with the platinum spark plugs.