74 Plymouth Duster, 360, A-500, 8 ¼ w 3.23 sg. Running at 185 degrees (confirmed with good IR heat gun). 3/8” pick up in tank with -6 AN braided line between tank and fuel pump. New Carter HV fuel pump with Performance World regulator set to 6 psi. Fuel filter is perfectly clean. Holley 670 Street Avenger on an Edelbrock Performer 318/360 intake. Stock 1.88/160 J heads and unknown pistons (100PSI compression even on all cylinders when cold). Unknown cam, but definitely more duration than stock. Stock electronic ignition with cheap parts store ign. box with external ground jumper to case. I adjusted the reluctor gap to factory spec. Timing at 22 deg. btdc @ idle with total 34 deg. in at 2500 rpm. I messed with it for a quite a while and it runs best there. I just redid my intake gasket due to a bad vacuum leak and it seems perfect, no more vacuum leaks. ? I put new MSD wires on it, a new parts store cap and rotor, I will put new plugs in it as soon as I have time, but I did pull them when doing the compression test and they looked fine.
No hint of ping and runs smooth and sweet up to 4500 rpm then sputters badly (even free revving it in park). It recovers immediately when I shift. I used to shift at 5300 no problem, and accidentally let her spin up over 6000 once unintentionally.
The season is almost done here and I’ll be putting it in the garage for the winter with the intent of doing some work on it to be ready for spring. My question is this, where should I spend my time looking for this miss?
What spec does everyone use to set the reluctor gap to? Did my cheap shitty ignition box partially fail? I am leaning toward it being an ignition problem but I really don’t know.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Cley
