i have a problem with my super bee. the motor was rebuilt and i am trying to get it running properley. i don't know much about it except its a 383 all stock except for a purpel cam, headers w/ 3'' exhaust(i know its overkill), and a carter 600cfm and a mopar electric ignition w/ msd blaster 2 coil. i've had it running for a while but it just doesnt seem like it is making power. when revving the motor it almost feels like there is a stumble throughout the rev. i have the timming set at 10*btdc and have tried to tune the carb to acheive maximum vacum.
am i missing something here should i be running a premium gas? (currently running regular) do i have too much timming? could the 3" exhaust be hurting it that much?
by the way putting the blaster coil on helped as compared to the factory coil.
also, for peace of mind. if i have the crank set at TDC i can pretty much set the distributor in wherever i want as long as the rotor points to #1 on the cap. then i can adjust timming accordingly. right?


any help will be greatly appreciated. thanks

 

the first thing that comes to mind is that the cam might be bleeding down too much cylinder pressure. If it is a stock 383 then the pistons might be "down in the hole" a bit. add in a big cam and the bottom end power goes down. I'd try adding more advance a little to see if this is the case. If the engine picks up a bit,then this is probably the problem. Also if the engine is fresh (not broken in) it will be sluggish also. Do you know what cam is in it? What pistons?

 

i wish i knew more about the motor. neither me or my pops built the car. it's pretty much the way he bought it. the motor is fresh because my dad had to have it redone because it lost oil pressure but put all the old guts back in. he's no longer with us so i have nobody to refer to as to any sort of specs. i had it running at about 15*btdc but it actually seemed worse. the lowsy timming pointer doesnt help matters either. aside from all that to the best of my knowledge, the pistons are stock and the cam is a mopar performance "purple" cam.

 

is the pistons and heads are stock, you should run premium
your compression is probably around 10 to 1
how much vacuum do you have at idle?

 

yeah i have been second guessing the fuel myself. the guy my dad bought this car from was obviously a serious hack. this thing is a mish mosh of ****. unfortunately we found this out too late.
anyways back to the issue and to answer your question i am getting approximately 20lbs of vacum, the idle rpm is about 800ish and as near as i can tell i have the timming set back to 13-14*
i drove the car today and it felt ok (but those crappy old gas tanks with no baffles. fuel sloshed back and i was going up hill what a P.I.A.) i had the advance disconnected and no air cleaner. i wanna see what happens if i try to adjust the advance. but thats as far as i got today. i still need to hook the advance back up and see what i have.
but i have also noticed that when the car is cold and trying to idle i hear periodic popping back through the exhaust.
not only that i also noticed my ignition switch is doing something wierd. when i turn the key to crank the motor it cranks but doesnt start until when i let off the key.

ughh this thing is such a ball breaker. all i wanna do is get it running reliably and drive it.

 

yeah, so much for making progress. this thing is still acting up. i put premium in the tank. now instead of just a popping through the exhaust i am getting almost a back fire through the exhaust. and loud. the car ran fine before it was rebuilt with the exception of no oil pressure. but now its crap, it has all the same internals and the only thing i changed was the electronic ignition and the carter 600afb. the only thing i can think is wrong is maybe the cam was re-installed a couple of degrees retarded or i set the ditributor in wrong. i dont know but i do know this is getting really old and fast. i need HELP!!!

 

have you re-adjusted the carb.?

 

i seem to have to mess with the carb everytime i start it so yeah i have tried re-adjusting it time and time again. i had it running and the driver side primaries were all glowing red. i backed off the timming to about 7* or 8* and tried to re-adjust the carb yet again. i ran the mixture screws all the way in and it just was barely bogging out. so i have them backed out about 3-3 1/2 turns each. i really didn't see any change in vacum while doing this either. it seems ok when the motor is hot but i know tomorrow from a cold start i am gonna have these problems all over again. oh and once i hook up the vacum advance after tunning, i will rev the motor and then the advance seems to stick and keep the motor at a high rpm. WTF!!! i am loosing my mind over here and to add insult to injury my jerked off neighbors seem to find that calling the cops are gonna make things better.

 

why did they call the cops?

 

how's things going ???

 

Call me and I'll fix it for you, all your problems are a simple fix.
phone number on my web site

 

Sounds like that is an offer to fix the neighbor situation