OK. To answer Dragon Slayer’s questions.

What is in there now is the FBO, no ballast and the 40111 epoxy coil which is 40K and 1.5 ohm primary.

What was in there was either the blue JEGS box or a real Mopar chrome box. Coil was the same. Ballast was 1/2 ohm.

Motor is a ‘68 Hemi built for the restoration in 2010 by a guy in Florida, Ed Hillman. Stock compression, cam is the Mopar P4349257 hydraulic which is 248 duration at 50 degrees. Lift is 524 and 507. I do not know how the cam was installed (spec is 104 cl). I run the distributor at 18 degree +/- initial and 35 degree total. I have had no detonation.

When I got the car 10 years ago after it was just built it did detonate a bit at part throttle, running at 25 degrees initial and a 36 advance, with what was a very fast curve. The car was running a rebuilt distributor with a Pertronix Ignitor I, that distributor had very inconsistent spark and advance and I replaced it with a Mopar electronic that I rebuilt using my Sun machine. Spark is very clean and consistent coming out of the distributor on the Sun machine, advance curve is now more of a gentle hump towards full advance. I do run vacuum advance. The carbs are set up with stock jets. In the rear carb I am running the stock 7258 rod on the passenger and 6855 on the driver instead of the stock 6954 rod. In front I have 7057 passenger instead of 6859 and 6857 instead of 6859. Yellow front springs, orange back. I run a mix of Sunoco 110 which a station near me sells and some pump 92 when convenience and an empty tank dictate. Engine idle vacuum is weak, at around 10 inches though steady.

In the first few years that I had the car it fouled all the plugs quickly and regularly. Over the years I improved that over a series of progressions to where #1 fouls, #2 is pretty dirty and the rest of the plugs look great with a nice tan color. As you can see, I might be running the car a bit lean as I became obsessed with the plugs. I get about a 100 rpm or a bit more drop from 900 when put it in gear. Torque converter is a 3000 rpm stall. 4.10 rear.

So I tossed the Pertronix I based on all the plugs fouling and the distributor failure, went with the Chrome box (probably should have tried orange first), then tried the JEGS box since why not though that seemed to make the idle worse. Back to chrome and now the FBO which I need more seat time with to see how it is doing…seems well after only two drives.

Carbs are set up at idle using Dragon Slayer’s advise in previous posts…front carb butterflies closed and using the back carb as primary. I did take the front carb a little too lean on the springs and rods and had a lean backfire show up, so quickly went richer to where I am now.

My goal is to improve its manners when caught in traffic, but more importantly get better life out of the plugs. I run Champion 12’s, tried Autolite but that actually made things worse. I do not run the washer on the plugs, counting on the tubes to keep the seal. I do change the tubes as needed. Overall, the car runs well, pulls very strong like a Hemi should, is clearly more powerful than my stock 440. I have debated just swapping the cam to something less, but tuning seems easier and I do like the way it runs (and sounds). I don’t want to go to MSD, all the wiring is pretty much stock now, jumpering the ballast was a big step from stock for me.