Help!! Engine Miss

[Ben Kallies]

Update 10/15/11. I've now replaced or swapped out literally every ignition system component with either new, or known good parts, with no change.

I completely drained the fuel system dry, installed fresh fuel, and sent out the carb for a check, and freshening. No change.

Because the engine ran great on the dyno, I don't suspect that it's a mechanical issue with the engine.

Next step is to start from scratch, and completely redo the wiring. Winter is just around the corner here in WI. I better get a new heater for the garage.

As always, I'm open to ideas. Thanks for reading.

-Ben Kallies

[Rich Aman]

Ben, before you do anything, put a new set of plugs in the car. It has been sitting for so long, there might be condensation in the plugs that comprimised the insulator. Been there, done that

[Ben Kallies]

Thanks Rich. I installed new plugs last weekend. As previously stated, I replaced literally every ignition system component.

-Ben

[Hans Olsson]

The battery?

[larrylomascolo]

The new wire you used,I would remove all the new mods you did and check the wire ,I had new wire with bad copper inside ,changed wire and fixed the problem,never thought that could happen because it was new wire but it was junk wire,change it back the way it was and go from there,,

[Alan Roehrich]

Get some 10 and 12 gauge wire and wire just the ignition up straight to the battery with jumper wires. Eliminate ALL wiring and ALL switches from the system. Have the battery, or batteries, fully tested. With just new wires straight to the battery for the ignition system, you eliminate everything outside the engine and the ignition system.

[Bob Gullett]

The problem you describe sounds familiar. I assume your combo is a quadrajet. You don't mention if you have tried a different carb. I have seen where a piece of something gets lodged in a jet and basically causes the engine to run extremely lean. It almost sounds like is running on 1/2 the cylinders. Just another idea. When reving the engine up what does the timing do? Does it stay steady?

[Dion Hildebrandt]

Originally Posted by Bob Gullett

The problem you describe sounds familiar. I assume your combo is a quadrajet. You don't mention if you have tried a different carb. I have seen where a piece of something gets lodged in a jet and basically causes the engine to run extremely lean. It almost sounds like is running on 1/2 the cylinders. Just another idea. When reving the engine up what does the timing do? Does it stay steady?

Have you opened up the carb? What I quoted from Bob happened to me, I put my car in the trailer sounded great went to the track and wouldnt run. I changed fuel pump cleaned all the filters and lines, changed ignition boxes, plugs (which looked 'normal'ish) and wires, cap and rotor, checked timing chain and the timing, etc. was looking at the big dollar carb and thought 'naw it cant be that' put on my spare carb Voila problem solved. Took my carb down to Bob to have it looked at and there was a chunk of orange silicone plugging a jet. To this day I still dont know where that came from but no more running issues, hope this helps.