I got the timing chain installed and everything put back together. I had just put new plugs in before I got to the timing chain and today I put a new cap, rotor and plug wires on it. That stopped it from back firing through the carb the way it was but didn't completely get her running the way I wanted.The idle is still pretty high to get it to actually run smooth, around 1700 rpm at 30 before top dead center. I couldn't get it to idle much lower that that, lowest was probably around 1300 and 20 before tdc, but will stall once put in gear. Tere is still a vacuum problem because it will idle low and then raise slightly on it's own and when I put a gauge on it the vacuum bounced around. The only other thing I can think is I have an issue with one of my valves not seating or closing properly. That is my next step is pulling the heads and giving then a look on the other side to see what shape the valves are in but I am going to give it a few days to see if I'm missing something that one of you might catch. I'm not sure how many miles are on the engine and if the valves are bad and needs the heads redone I'm not sure if its worth the money to rebuild them compared to building a 360 to replace it. Thanks in advance guys.
I am assuming the timing set at 30 degrees and 20 degrees respectably is set at 2500-3000 rpm and not an initial timing setting. If your trying to set it at that much of an advance for the timing at an "idle" setting, that could be part of your issue.
I'm also not understanding how you can't get the idle below 1,000 unless you have a big cam. I have to think your throttle blades are not fully closing, or you have a bad vacuum leak, maybe at the throttle bushings. Can you shift the throttle arm forwards and backwards a little when the motor is off? I didn't look, what carb is on the motor?
I went back and read and I see you have a 600 Holley carb. The 1st thing I would do is pull the carb and set a straight edge across the bottom (the surface that bolts to the motor) and make sure the corners where the carb bolts to the intake are not pulled down. There should be no gap between the straight edge and the bottom of the carb when the straight edge when its placed corner to opposite corner across the carb, or even across the same side of the carb. Any air gap can be a vacuum leak, even with a new base gasket. Back in the day, a lot of the Holley carbs were run with the thick ply cardboard gaskets and then the 4 corner bolts were cranked down warping the carb base. extreme tightening even resulted in cracking or breaking the ears off. The problem carbs are the ones that had the corners pulled down but didn't crack or break. They would suck air under the base, and even between the base and the carb body, even with the bolts tight. I've seen a few guys that were lucky enough to file or grind them flat, but not many were that lucky. I think once they were pulled, they just kept pulling a little more every time. Gene
