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Well I have an update kind of, but some clarification, too. The engine ran fine, sans ticking or misfiring, up until the day I broke that rocker arm bolt. After that, since I switched back to the Holley carb and repaired the rocker arm bolt, it's been acting up.

I am running a combo that, straight from Hughes' collective mouth, "would be fine". I am running 1278 retainers, 1110 springs, and stock locks with the stock lifters, pushrods, rockers, and valves. My valves shouldn't be bottoming out if they're still straight, as not only am I running RHS heads which have a larger dome height than stock, but I am running Speed Pro pistons with four valve reliefs milled into the face.

The minor update was that yesterday I decided to clean up and reinstall the Edelbrock Performer carb I am borrowing. It's a 1405 with non-adjustable floats. I slapped it on and the car not only doesn't idle rough anymore, much of the ticking went away. Even more, the misfire at 1200+RPM is only very slight right now, probably due to the spark plug wires (I'd guess).

What's left of the ticking I can attribute much of it to a leaky exhaust system. I have been a bad boy and never got my exhaust system welded up; it's still clamped together. I figure that I can live with the subtle ticking right now until I get the exhaust welded up, and then I will re-evaluate there. I drove it around yesterday a bit, and I found that it's running easily three times better than it was the day before.

I still have a lot of diagnosis to do on the wires, the misfire, the valvetrain noise which is there but subtle, but I'm feeling a lot better about it. It really helps when you have working parts on your car!


The floats on that 1405 are adjustable. You bend them to the correct height and drop settings.