The crank/piston will be at TDC but the cam timing would be off. Have you cracked a valve cover and checked to see if the valves are opening when they should? I'm not sure if this is your problem as I really railed on the car but I figured I'd offer up my past experience.
It's all about air, fuel and ignition. I'm thinkin that you have the good air situation- 20 inches of vac is good. It seems that you have fuel as you say the squirters work. Ignition is the culprit as this seems to be an intermitant problem. Sometimes she do sometimes she dont. I argee with saltflats about the firewall connectors. Had my problems with em. I took one apart and found that green corrosion on the terminals, washed em with a baking soda solution, rinsed em then after they dried I sprayed them with contact cleaner. I then used that newfangled electrical grease on the contacts- no trouble. Dont overlook that 50 year old ignition switch.
just a thought here. unless you checked top dead center with the head off with a dial indicator against the balancer you may be 10 degrees off. with the wrong combination of crank,balancer,timing cover due to mixing and matching various engine parts you can be that far off. while the parts can fit together there were changes over the years how they were made and machined. all the timing lights in the world wont make it go away. im not saying you have this problem i have just seen it trip up alot of people.
I had a similar issue with a 413 a very long time ago. For me, it ended up being a distributor cap crack. It was somewhat difficult to start, but once started it would idle fine, but would not run under load at all.
Thought I would update.. Fuel, it appears. What's that saying, fuel problems act like ignition problems and vice versa! I took off the fuel pump and regulator and pulled them apart and took the top of the carb off and blew out all the passages and needle and seats and re-adjusted the floats. And blew the lines back to the tank, may have been a bit of crud somewhere. Fired it up today and set timing again and A/F mix I did find that it has a stumble of 50 or so rpm at idle in park and really stumbles and dies when put in drive or rev. I think I may need to bump up the idle in park so it doesn't die in gear or is the screw under the throttle bracket for fast idle? Thanks again for the input
Carb open too far or not far enough? The position of the butterflys is just as important as the timming.
So far the only driving has been arond local streets and today I did a highway cruise down to our holiday spot for next weeks aust. Kustom nationals. So opinions requested on boggy/muddy throttle past cruise.. When I'm cruising at 50 mh I get that nice BB note but as soon as I put my foot down it just muddies up and have to really stomp to then get some clean acceleration. Timing is set now around 12 btdc with all in at 2500rpm of 36 deg. Plus vac adv. Eddy 1406 with 5.5 fuel pressure, I'm thinking vacuum leak, would that muddy things? Also have an erratic idle, tends to bump up and down. Thoughts?
Sounds to me like the accelerator pump in the carb is out of adjustment or defective. If your still pulling 20 on the vacuum gauge, there can't be a vacuum leak at idle or it would show up as a very low vacuum reading. If the vacuum reading is dropping to 0 when you step on the gas, there is a possibility that the throttle bushings in the carb are bad, those would only give you a vacuum leak when the throttle is at a certain position. Any forward and backward or any up and down movement of the throttle linkage indicates bad bushings. Older Eddy carbs and original Carter carbs had an issue with bad throttle bushings. If the throttle bushings are really shot, the vacuum leak can overcome a good accelerator pump gas shot. I put an electric fuel pump on all my old Mopars, been way too many defective (old and new) mechanical fuel pumps in my history. Did you put in the old points dist? Gene
Has the Edelbrock carb ever been properly jetted to the motor. Those are a really easy carb to tune. You may be simply too lean on acceleration due to a bad accelerator pump seal or incorrect springs on the metering rods or both. With modern fuel reading a plug in my experience can be difficult as the alcohol and additives have completely changed the way deposits look. You mentioned 36 deg. total advance (no vacuum) thats about right maybe a little less if it pings under a load. Run your vacuum advance off the timed port not full vacuum. 20 inches of vacuum is excellent for a stock motor. Download a jetting chart for your carb off the internet and get that sorted out. If the throttle shafts are worn you can put in a bushing kit. Bad busings will add to a lousy idle quailty and I have even had them make a squeeling noise as air pulls thru them under acceleration. I have had many RB motors and they are pretty dam durable motors. Make only one change at a time so you can isolate what worked and what didn't. If this is a new motor to you you may want to start with the basics. Do a compression test both cold and hot. You will never really know what your timing is if the damper slipped on the hub which is possible. If you have a screw in piston stop get TDC figured out. Anyway wish you the best. Dave
Thanks Dave and all, I don't know if it just happened or is the cause but today I had been tweaking the timing a bit at a time to find that sweet spot and the car just died and wouldnt start, felt like I was 180 out; so I found tdc of comp stroke on 1 and I was 180 out, pulled the dist to find the shaft had sheared at the roll pin and where the should be a shaft was still in the block. Pretty much a brand new plug and play Pertronix snapped in two. I'm still high from the laughing and swearing. So I don't know if there was enough movement that things got muddy or it's just a fucked up incident. I managed due to the way it snapped to align the break and the lock down the dist and limped back to my camping spot and will drive my ot car 5 hours round trip to pick up the points dist ready for next weeks kustom nats and hopefully further cruising before. Wish me luck, and I am going to take your advice on the carb Bushing also just in case. Cheers
Instead of starting a new thread, thought I would add to this as it is still troubleshooting this engine.. Have been playing with timing off and on and I have got some reasonable performance but would like to tweak some more. Set up my timing and found a sweet spot at 15 initial, I have 20deg limiters on the pertronix (px) and currently running the px lightest springs which only offers all in at 2000 rpm, where as 2500rpm suggested by most for a stockman 383. So I have around 35 total and vacuum adds another 14 approx (non adjustable). Have found I have a spurt of performance from a standing start and it then kind of runs flat until I put my foot in it and open up the secondaries (which maybe a symptom of lean carb) which is fun but not good for economy, this has me thinking that I am leaving some power on the table due to all in at 2000rpm. Contacted pertronix and asked regarding mixing springs, with a light and a mid heavy it will only offer all in until 3200 rpm. or two silvers for 3500, just nothing in between 2000 and 3200 rpm I can mix limiters and bring them down to 18* or less etc, so maybe changing initial, and trying a different tack? Just not sure which way to go on this as from reading BB 383 like the all in 2500-2800 and not sure whether 3200 is too much and even though they state "78 different advance combinations!" that they are not suited to a more stock combination. Any thoughts?
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