I rejetted the Holley 770 carb on my 440 a few weeks back. Took the car for a ride and it pulled much stronger up at higher RPMs but felt a little bit flat on the primaries. I went back home, bumped the timing up 5 degrees, and left. I got about 1/4 mile down the street and everytime I hit the gas the car had an extreme surge. It seemed to be turnning off and on instantly more or less, and would not rev up, just surge.

I pulled into a gas station to check for a fuel leak. It idled fine. I revved it up and it revved ok in park, except for a shutter around 3000 rpm the first time, revved it again and it revved clean. Put it in gear, still idling fine, pulled away and its doing it again.

Im heading home, basically idling down the street, when someone comes up behind me. I give it some gas and its surging. I noticed that the ammeter was slamming back and fourth with the surging. All the way to the end of the range on the discharge side, back all the way on the charge side, very quickly and violently. After about five surges it died out. Smoke starts coming through the cowl. I turned the key to off. I was about 200 feet from home so I ran home and grabbed a fire extinguisher, ran back, opened the hood (expecting a fuel fire) and theres nothing on fire.

On the firewall I noticed melted wires. I pushed it home and took it apart. It seems that IGN 1 at the switch (blue wire with a white tracer) is burned from the switch all the way through the firewall to the connection at the voltage regulator and then to where it plugs in at the ballast resistor. It seemed to be more melted around the voltage regulator/ballast area. I do have my ignition box and my choke tapped in from this wire.

The green field wire on the back of the alternator had an exposed peice of wire laying very close to the housing of the alternator which may have been touching before I messed with the wiring up at the firewall. Im thinking when I moved the timing I pulled this wire (since I had the plug for the dizzy running with those wires in the same area wrapped together) and it touched the alternator housing and shorted out and backfed somehow. What I dont understand is why it only did it under a load under throttle, maybe because the alternator had more to charge? It was at night and the headlights were on. I believe the vent fan was too.

Is it possible a short in the switch would cause this? I have had problems with the switch before.

And is it likely that something else (I.E. carburator) caused the surge, and the wire burned up as a result of the surge?

Any ideas or has anyone else ever had this problem? The car is a 67 Plymouth Satellite if it helps. The wiring is NOT hacked up on this car and I have no other apparent wire damage anyplace else under the dash. The electronic box has been in for about 2 months, and the choke has been wired in there for about a year, so I don't see how something there would have suddenly caused a problem.

Any help is greatly appreciated, fixing what is burned is easy but I do not want to fix it only to burn it up again.

No one?

The surge was most likely not carb related but ignition fallure. Rewire it and find the cause of the short which was probably the bare alt wire. When you put a load on the engine it might have caused the wire to move shorting it temporarily until it finally stayed shorted.

I would pop the bulkhead connector and check for more damage.

What you describe would full field the alt. Causing a serious over charge. Normally I would expect the feed line to burn, not the sensing/ign wire to burn.

Carb is not at rault. It is an electrical issue.

Regardless of how un hacked the wiring is, you still need to look it over now starting with the big wire at the alt all the way through the firewall.

If the '67 still has the original charging system the IGN1 wire doesn't connect directly to the alternator.

Correct, it connects to the voltage regulator. And for the record it does have a dual field alternator with the second feild grounded out as usual, I dont think it makes a difference but its worth noting.