heres an odd one for ya.....

GotDart said
You can temporarily short across the ballast resistor with a wire to see if it changes the behavior. The reason for the ballast resistor is to lower the current draw through the points and the coil. This makes them last longer. The voltage is not really that important, and it can be different from one car to another depending on the coil and resistor used.

well points are not an issue anymore on this car... they ahve been eliminated with the install of the electronics.

GotDart said
Something else that I haven't seen mentioned is vacuum advance on the distributor. Do you have it hooked up? If so, to what port on the carb? When you set the timing, did you disconnect it?

yes it is a vac advance on the distributor and yes it is hooked up. i am not sure which port its on as i did not do the setup on it. and yes i did time it with the vac disconnected and have run it disconnected with no change.

GotDart said
Another thing you may want to do if you haven't already is run some cleaner through to remove carbon build up on the pistons and combustion chambers. Something like GM Top Engine Cleaner or Seafoam.

i already have. i ran a can of 44K fromt he dealer through it. this stuff works great. found that out when i did the headgasket on my old mercedes and had all sorts of crapola in the fuel system and cylinders. buttloads of carbon buildup.... ran like a champ afterwards...