Let's back up just a bit.. Tell us how you wired the HEI distributor.. be specific, including wire sizes. That distributor takes very different wiring than the car originally had. If there is any question here, identify the 12+ feed to to the cap, and jumper a 10ga lead directly from the battery to it. If you wired it with the factory coil wire, then you put a resistor wire in the system, that would heat up and drop the voltage very quickly, which would cause a weak spark with an HEI. JW
I'm actually a 12 Volt tech by trade, remote starts/alarms/alarms audio. I didn't use the resistor fed line at all. I ran a 10g line from from the male ignition spade terminal from the fuse box
Ones they got me ended up being non resisted afterwards . NGK-R5672A-9 guess I'll Gao them to the 45 the Champions called for
With that small of a difference in compression values, you won't need to do a cylinder drop test by pulling wires one at a time, especially since you seem to have located the miss with the fouled plug(s). I'm betting it began with a long starting crank and a bit of rich mixture until the mixture was adjusted. You'll have to go back after the new plugs are installed and readjust the mixture, I think.
New plugs in. Don't see any different. Going to bump the idle up a bit to see if it helps them shoot a new better video and check header Temps. Turned off all the lights and couldn't see any wires shorting anywhere. That would of been to easy
Checked vacuum at idle and it's bouncing between 16-17 which seems surpringly high for the cam. Starting to genuinely feel defeated, emailed blueprint tech so see what they have to say. Considering they said the shake seemed fine I'm concerned I'm going to have a battle on my hands
Did you ever shoot another video? Leave the vacuum gauge connected and slowly open the throttle to about 2500 RPM. See if the vacuum comes up and is steady. If it is just rocky at idle, but smooths out by 1500 RPM, and the vacuum is higher and steady, that is normal.
I'll try and rig the phone up to take a better video in a little bit. Tough trying to do it all alone
I'm thinking there's some carb issues that have not been addressed here enough. Vac leak, running rich? It's on my mind as I just addressed a leaking carb due to throttle shafts which were worn. I think it would be a great idea at this point to get someone else's opinion after seeing it with their own eyes.
Could be something with the brand new carb yes. As far as second opinions they're few and far between around here. Performance shops have all but died, if it's not a LS swap no one has any idea
Shot a new video, camera on a solid mount. I hung the vacuum gauge so you guys could see it, may be tough though. Was no way to judge rpm while seeing the gauge so i left it to the camera . The larger marks on the gauge go by 5's so it seems to be Idling around 15-16 and climbs all the way to almost 25 under load. I brought it up to 2500rpm and the vacuum seems to pill consistent with rpm. You can see the gauge a bit better towards the end of the video when I grabbed it. Funny thing is if you watch the video, after the 2500 rpm shot the motor is idling MUCH SMOOTHER then it ever was before. I even took a second video to show it, compared to the cold start shake or my previous video it's a huge improvement. Took all that ****ing around to get to the fresh gas? I haven't driven it yet so haven't got to seat the rings..... what would of running it like that of cleared up?
I'm starting to think that everything is fine and you are just unfamiliar with the way a higher performance cam idles. I would drive the car. Like I said, I use locked out timing for mine. It will idle the best like that if you find the rough idle too objectionable. In any case, a cam like that will like as much initial timing as you can run. 20* is about right for most cams.
Let me know if you guys can hear the "warble" in the exhaust note, can't tell if it's one thing strange or just the exhaust pulse. I'm uploading a third video showing the motor after the last video nice and warm, you can hear it more then 383 shake video 3 warble https://youtu.be/HmVQVuE_y6s And Larry you could be very correct. A cold cammed motor's reaction and idle may of been out of my wheel house. I pray it's just that because I will wear that Dunce Cap with pride
That sounds fine to me. The engine is running on all 8 cylinders, vacuum is good. If there was a problem, you would see a quick sharp regular drop in the needle. The shake at idle is completely normal for that type of cam. Like I said, you can minimize it with more initial timing or locked out timing if you really find it objectionable. Drive it. Too much idling is no good for a new motor.