phish1270

I have a '65 Barracuda that someone (I am sure he would not take credit) has put a '70-'74 318 into. The car is missing when I am driving down the road & the motor shakes quite noticeably when I hold the idle around 2000 rpms in park. I DO NOT have a timing tab so I am not able to tell anyone what the timing is set at. The car starts on the first turn, runs fine at idle, starts once it is hot & does not ping at all. I have replaced just about everything, new cap, rotor, points, condenser, plugs, wires, vacuum advance canister & carburetor. The vacuum advance that was on it would not hold any vacuum so I replaced it. It is an Edelbrock 650 with an electric choke. We adjusted the idle & mixture with a vacuum gauge & are getting around 19. The vacuum advance is hooked up to the timed port on the passenger's side of the carb. The motor runs perfect & smooth as glass with the vacuum advance unhooked & the port plugged. I really would prefer to use the vacuum advance especially with gas at almost $3. Any ideas? Could the timing cause this problem? As I said the motor does not ping & there are no issues with starting it once it is hot like you would normally have with bad timing. Could I loosen the distributor, turn it a bit & try it? I should be able to tell just revving it to around 2000 & seeing if it shakes. Could I just hold the revs up & turn the distributor to see if it will smooth out?

Will a switch to electronic ignition fix this? I have a buddy with a distributor, control module & voltage regulator that he said I can have; all I would need is a wiring harness & some instructions.

Every time I try to take this car anywhere something happens & it is really getting frustrating that I can not enjoy it.

I really appreciate any and all ideas, suggestions or advice. Thanks to everyone in advance.

theomahamoparguy

I know you said that you replaced the vacuum adv. with an another one but how much advance does the "new" canister add and at what point does it start to come on. You know most of the mopar vacuum canister are adjustable with an allen wrench through the vacuum port on the can itself. I think you use an 1/8 th allen wrench; not sure is how[clockwise or counter clockwise] to adjust it but an old service manual might help. Also, I think the degrees of advance [how much it adds] are stamped on the arm of the unit. Compare with the one you replaced. The factory used a ton of vacuum advance with the mid to late 70's cars in combination with an EGR system. If you got one of those cans on the ignition, your old point system may not be able to cope with the extra cylionder pressure and is having trouble staying lit sort of . Even if you do have the EGR. it would be hard for a point system to keep up with the "smog motor" timing curve.
That is what I can think of right now other than some type of plug fowling...........Dont know if this info will help you situation but good luck.
If that's not it, im sure someone else might have an idea what is the problem. We'll figure it out........ENJOY!!

phish1270

I had my buddy get me the vacuum advance that matched the # on my dist. but I will check it tonight. I did try to stick a couple of different sized allen wrenches in it last night & none of them "grabbed" anything. I will try it again tonight. I am getting ready to dump the $ into an electronic conversion, is there any chance that that will help this issue? Is there any adjustment that I need to worry about when I installed the vacuum canister?

Polaradude

Do you have access to a digital timing light with rpm ? Keep us posted.

phish1270

I have a timing light at home, not sure if it is digital but I do not have a timing tab. I plan on marking TDC on the motor & putting some timing tape on the balancer but I won't know where 0 is. I will be able to adjust it & at least have a reference to go back to if needed.