Joined: Thu May 01 2008, 11:15AM
Location: Chicago,IL
Posts: 2868
Do you know what he did to the carb? If you had
wrote ... ~55 degrees of advance with engine shaking that I posted previously is happening at around 1300 rpm
something is wrong with that vac adv canister. That's way too much if the reading is accurate. When you're driving it down the road does it behave half way decent if you've got your foot into it (into power circuit on the carb, out of the vac adv) and just crapping when cruising (not in the power circuit, vac adv adding a lot of timing)? If you've got a surging going on you've got too much timing (you don't have to hear pinging to necessarily be too much). On my Fury, I had the computer set up to give 55* total advance at cruise initially, and it would surge a lot. 50 was better, I think I'm at 48* now and it's gone. This is with flap tops .080 in the hole, 516 heads, and .020 gaskets.
With the vacuum line connected and driving, I get the phenomena like the engine "missing" at cruise at moderate speeds like 30 mph. Not so much what I would think of as surging but maybe it's the same thing. If at that speed I drop it down to 2nd gear it gets WAY worse.
With the vacuum line disconnected it runs great in normal acceleration (haven't tried WOT yet) and cruise, but at about 65 mph the engine pitch seems to get lower and while it can hold speed it just doesn't feel "happy".
I'm starting to believe that it's multiple problems, one of which is too much advance. At this point I may try to get the curve changed, or may consider switching over to electronic ignition.
I'm getting more and more convinced that my problem is with the vacuum canister. I understand that they are supposed to be adjustable with a 3/32" Allen key down the tube where the rubber hose connects, am I correct on that? I played around but didn't feel anything there. I also understand that there are some non-adjustable ones too.
So, I've been trying to find a replacement canister, but no luck so far. Mancini lists them but doesn't specify if they're adjustable or not... I ordered one with the stipulation that it must be adjustable and I see the status of my order has changed to "cancelled" so I'm assuming it isn't. Does anyone know a source for these (1966 440 application)?
I'm starting to think that maybe I bite the bullet and convert to electronic. For my street application, should I go with the Mopar Performance orange-box kit? I see the FBO kit which seems maybe higher quality and eliminates the ballast resistor, but is it worth it?