This sounds familiar...I had a similar problem a couple of years ago and it turned out that my timing chain had jumped during break-in. If you start losing teeth on your ring gear, this is your problem.

Double check the dial on your digital box and then make sure it's set to not pull out the 20* and see how it starts for ya! That may atleast help that issue.

any up dates?

Hey everyone! Guy's I really appreciate all the help on this one. I have double/triple check'd TDC, where the rotor is at #1, plug wires are on the correct plugs, etc. I just did a compression test. Not good IMO. All plugs out, carb WOT, 150-160psi...I would think should be over 200 with my set-up. I'm thinking timing gears are not correct. I used the double roller timing set-up with the multiple crank way. I thought I installed it at 2deg advanced, but now, I'm almost positive I goofed up somewhere.
I just looked at the MSD wires again. At the plug at the MSD box, the tach wire is definitely grey or tan. I'm color blind on light colors.
Keith, you are a gentleman and a scholar! I really appreciate the offer and would make it worth your while! If I can't figure this out by checking the timing / degreeing, I'll take you up on the offer!
Again, thanks a bunch!! Jeff

you always hope for the simple,,!
work backwards, then find the solution,
hope all goes great, sound like it ought to be great motor for you

If you want,let me know when you get everything apart to check the cam timing and I will come down and help you with it if you are unsure.
I just want to see you get it running well.

Something else I thought of,do you know you have good fuel in it? I had mine start running similar to yours one year after running all year and then got a bad batch of fuel. I replaced eveything ignition wise at my team finals trying to find the problem,only to have my other car do the same thing when I got home and dumped my remaining fuel in it.
Sometimes it is a totally different problem than you might think.
Keith

? maybe....

Solid Core spark plug wires cannot be used with an MSD Ignition.

What carb are you using? Maybe try a different one?

Sledgehammer, Mine is totally different. Mine is the MSD 6425 6AL, NO spark retard. It has 2 looped wire to cut if using a 4 or 6 cyl engine. Page 2 has instructions for tach. Quote:" the MSD Ignition features a gray tach output wire that provides a trigger signal for tachometers."
I had FireCore make the plug wires this year at the Nats. I told them I was using an MSD system. I hope the wires are the correct ones and not solid core. Take care, Jeff

I had the same problem.....bad gas! I replaced everything and was extremely frustrated until I found the problem. Initially I ruled out it being a gas problem because I had just put fresh gas in it. I drained the bad gas out of it, put fresh gas (from another gas station) back in it and the car has been running great ever since.

i helped a friend with some new 6-pak carbs once. while doing an inspection of the carbs i found the vacuum passage to the pods on both end carbs blocked with brass plugs. this was a factory booboo. disconnect the end carbs from the linkage and pull some vacuum on them to see if they're working.

First you compression is about 10.25 so 150 to 160 is not that bad with a 246 deg cam.
did you check you cam degree again after picking the +2 deg keyway?
always check check recheck

next 57s are way way too cold for that engine go with 61's or even 63's
just go to your local parts store and grab a set of RC12YC and put in to try!
you are sure your firing order is correct?? seen a guy swap 6 and 8 and is power was down 40% and they are so far appart in the firing order not mush ill effects just two cold holes! and of course 5 and 7 are easy to mix up! :-)


On second thought you should be around 180 so maybe you cam is installed retarded??

A temp. gun will tell you if you have a weak cylinder.

If you have tried everything else and nothing has worked,it may be time to try and set your dist drive gear like it calls for. I had the same problem and that was the fix for me. Some times its the simple things that get you. I know everyone thinks I wrong but is it not a least worth a try?

Hello Everyone! Pulled front of engine apart this afternoon. I was hoping to find I had gears off. Well, according to my machine shop / engine builder, it is the way it should. I've attached a pix of the gears. We called Comp. The cam is a custom grind. They said on 7 1/2 CL. I kept comming up with about 8 1/2 so I advanced it 2 deg. You can see this on the gears. Now I'm kind of back to square one! We are gonna double ck this again tomorrow. I did double ck at TDC and I'm pointing at #1 on the dist. Firing order is correct. Checked 3 times with another set of eyes! I just can't see it being ignition related, because it ran the same with the Mopar ignition in it. Just very lazy, no power to get out of it's own way. Anyone ever heard of a cam doing this? Crank key wrong? I'm lost (again)! Take care, Jeff

I once accidently put my MSD ignition on 6 cyl and I didn't notice the problem until I staged the car and hit the throttle. Way down on power and didn't sound/feel right, aborted run. i couldn't believe it wasn't more noticable.

So triple check the wires cut to make sure you are set for 8 cyl.

I have also seen cams ground way off, maybe 8 degrees as I recall. This was using the same crank, timing set, and block setup that I checked 5 other cams on. So it was the cam, the degree wheel didn't lie.

And if the polarity of the MSD connection to the distributer pickup is wrong, it will run like crap also. I have even seen the wire color code wrong. Swaping polarity did the trick.

Really stupid questio, but is it possible the plugs could have become gas fouled upon your initial break-in? I had a crate motor that behaved exactly this way, finding out later that I had gas fouled the plugs on a fresh small block crate motor. Just a thought.

try swapping dist. pick-up wires, seen this before