About two blocks from home my good slant six died on me...it was hard to start, and barely had any power to get me into the driveway (no throttle response, the engine acts like a rough idle with no pickup with the pedal floored, if pedal not floored it dies...).

Looked through the basics fuel pump is good, the carb is fine, I even swapped over another carb and it still did the same thing, I swapped out the ballast resistor and ECU thinking they might be toast, still would only start floored after a long roll over, then idle rough and die...So I suspect a massive vacuum leak somewhere...

It doesn't give me enough time to spray around the carb base and runners to see if the manifold gasket is leaking (or the runners are warped). The bolts are torqued to spec (I checked, and tryed them at 11 ft lbs just in case).

Sounds like I'll be checking the stack and putting a new set of gaskets in... I'd almost swap over the the Hpak at this point, but I want to make sure everything is still running correctly and I don't have any other problems at that point, before 'playing' with a new setup and carb.


I can't win!

-D.Idiot

Bummer. I agree, sort this out first, before throwing another can of worms on the fire.
Bad chain?
Is the plastic distributor gear intact?

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'66 Cuda 225/4spd
'66 Dart GT convertible 225/auto
'64 Dart GT 340/4spd

You sure its not carb related? Kinda sounds like it to me.

Is the distributor gear still in one piece??
DD

I'll pull the distributor tomorrow morning, I have a box of spares to throw in there (and one new one I have to recurve back to specs anyway).
I don't think it's carb related, since the carb ran fine all morning, and even fired up fine and ran nice on the way home, the 'poof'. I pulled that carb off, put a new 'wafer' on the manifold, then plugged a BBD I got off a running 318 (got it early this week)....and it ran exactly the same as my other carb, that's why I suspect something else. I don't think it's the timing chain since it's a dynagear double roller unit...so next up I think the dist will have to come out and see if the plastic gear is toast.

Thank god it died where it did, but jeez only 15K on the rebuild and now I'm worried....

thanks guys, will post more findings tomorrow...

-D.Idiot

This opens up a good question: are plastic gears the only ones you can get for a dist.? I would think that since very little stress gets put on it, a soft metal gear would last a lifetime.

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'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG

Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me

Jopapa NAPA used to carry the Echlin DG-404 iron gear for the slant distributor, not sure if it still can be ordered.

I'm exceptionally happy now,

I've got good spark, the plugs were all black and sooty (rich/flooded), cap, rotor and plug wires all checked out. I cleaned and regapped the plugs, acted like it wanted to fire, but didn't catch. The distributor gear looks like it is new. I retarded the timing and tryed to light it, the roll over felt better and it idled with the pedal floored, but was rough.

Think I'll rebuild the BBD, and see if that changes anything, for fun, fitted up my Holley 2300 and Mr. Gasket 2300, and it fired over, but it needs lots of adjustments before that will run correctly (and the correct linkage too)....

more later,

-D.Idiot

From NAPAonline.com :

"Balkamp Distributor Gear - Hi-Perf -- Mr Gasket Company,Alloy Aluminum, Bronze

Item#: BK 7354712
Price: $ 47.49

Manufacturer: Mr Gasket Company
Warranty: 6 Months
"

On napaonline i looked up a 71 valiant 225 and got the following under ignition section:


Balkamp Distributor Gear & Pin Kit
Usually ships in 24 hours. BK
6551120 $ 4.99

It didn't mention anything about material type. What did you use to get that result shiftless?

$47.49 for a distributer gear??!!?!?

Hey, its "HI-PERFORMANCE" its gotta be worth that much...

It reminds me of the time when accel used to relabel the stock mopar distributor cap as "hi-performance, hi-alkilyid" for three times the price of the stock one. Buyer beware...

Sounds absolutely classic for a stuck needle valve that's flooding the carb. Way too much gas will cause it to only run wide open, when it can finally get enough air to match the extra gas and produce an ignitable mixture.

_________________
Everyone driving slower than me is a moron. Everyone driving faster than me is an idiot. With all these morons and idiots on the road, I can't get anywhere!

The weird part about it....

I now have 3 Carter BBD's in 'the dip' at the moment pending an inpsection and rebuild. The needles looked good, but two had floats that were toast (including the one on my car...aka 'sunk').

Hopefully, by this afternoon, I'll have a new set of brass floats and have one rebuilt to tune and run, and have the other one ready as a spare 'just in case' for later.....

Jeez...

Thanks, V8440

-D.Idiot

Glad I could sorta help, though it sounds like you just about had it figured out on your own. At least you don't have weird mechanical problems, like stripped/broken distributor gears or a bad timing chain.

_________________
Everyone driving slower than me is a moron. Everyone driving faster than me is an idiot. With all these morons and idiots on the road, I can't get anywhere!

I've been down the "foot to the floor" road before, thats why I knew it was the carb. Glad you got it fixed!