Hi, I bought an 82 Berlinetta 10 years ago. Ran it for 3 years then garaged it for 7 years until a month ago I put it back on the road. It had a 350 engine swap from the 305 a year before I bought it by the previous owner. He kept almost all the receipts so I know what mostly was done to the motor. The block was 30 over. Heads just say remanufactured $135 each pep boys. Doesn't say anything else about them. Roller Rockers were put on. Hooker Headers, Not sure what kind of cam. 4:10 rears. Accel super coil. High rise intake with a street scoop going directly into the carb. The current carb is an edelbrock 600 cfm. I was told by a big rig diesel mechanic that took a look at my engine that the carb is too big. He said I should have a 500 cfm because its " over jetted " he says. Well the car has had no power what so ever since I purchased it 10 years ago. I can barely spin the tires. Everyone says I should be able to smoke the tires off with the 4:10's and the motor in it. I seen on this site that a 350 should have at least a 750 cfm carb. Could that be my problem? Or is it over jetted like the person told me?

A 600 isn't too small. How is the advance curve set up? Is the carb straight out of the box, or was it tuned? Which heads does it have? Do you have any specs on the cam?

Not sure about the advance curve. It isn't straight out of the box. A mechanic set up the timing and degree'd the cam when I first purchased the car. I'm not a motor head but trying to learn as I go. Below are pictures of the engine / heads. I don't see any markings on them so I take it they are stock.








Also I just changed the plugs yesterday. As you can see in the image they are all black at the ends. What sign does this give about how the engine is set up?



Thanks

Just spoke to the diesel mechanic here at my work again and he said the heads are " smog heads ".

By the looks of the plugs now, the carb is way too rich for the car now... That could be because of poor ignition, low compression, or a number of things... The last thing you need is a bigger carb.

Might want to start with the basics.. Pull the plugs, disconnect the power lead to the distributor, lock the throttle open and do a compression check. Tough to know which way to go until you know where your at!

A stock 350 running at 6000 rpm with a roughly 75% volumetric efficiency is only going to eat 456 CFM of air, anyway. Lots of guys love throwing huge double pumpers on engines cause they look neat.. but in some cases, it's a complete waste, as you'll never run anywhere near full throughput on the carb. If you have a split plenum, though, the larger cap on the carb may come in handy.

Do you have the block and head casting numbers?

no I don't. Sorry.

The numbers are a good place to start. I know its tight on a Camaro, but it may be possible to get a small cell phone camera down behind the drivers side valve cover down on the block. The firewall is very close but if you could take a pic of the numbers, if the motor is clean you may be able to read them. It's tight on most things but a Camaro may be impossible. The head numbers are easy, between the rockers on the casting.
I've had bunches of 350 come in that just didn't have power. I can think of two or three that had 882 or 993 heads 75 or 76cc heads big carbs all that, on what turned out to be 305 blocks. I always verify before I start work.

Agreed! In the future do not use Accel plugs, they are junk! Use Autolites or NGK. If you have NO cam specs it will be hard to give an exact answer, if the heads came from Pep Boys it does not have much of a cam at all in it because any heads from Pep Boys would have stock valve springs I am sure. In that case if it sounds like it has a non stock cam it's probably like a RV cam "350hp 327 cam" or similar which is about all you can run with stock springs. What did the mechanic set total timing at? An Edelbrock carb is a good daily driver carb that once tuned needs very little tuning after, they just "work". It will never give you the performance of a Holley but if you don't know how to tune a Holley keep what you have. Jegs, Summit, Autozone sells carb tuning kits for your Edelbrock. Start there with tuning what you have, kit should have instructions and those carbs are VERY easy to work on. You have two idle mixture screws in the front of the carb, you will need a vacuum gauge to set them properly. Start with them maybe a full turn out and with it idleing screw them SLOWLY in or out till you have them most engine vacuum and they both need to be set even. Are you running a stock mechanical fuel pump? If it has an electric pump fuel pressure cannot be more than 7 and 5-7 is ok. If this don't work and it's still rich you may have other problems with the carb.

The fuel pump is not stock. It does make a loud clicking noise though. It turns on as soon as you turn the key. The timing was set 10 years ago shortly after I bought it by a drag race expert that I used to work with. He did a few other things to the car. I can't remember any of the numbers on his settings. I keep getting told the timing is set to high because the car has trouble starting after its warmed up. I replaced the starter a month ago and it still does the same thing. I decided i'm first going to replace the transmission ( currently a crappy metric 200 that was swapped with another metric 200 with no second gear when I bought the car. I'm going to put in a 200-4r ) I was told that is a good transmission and no need to replace the drive shaft if I went with a 700r4. Then instead of spending lots of $$ trying to get this 350 to put out some power replace it with an already set up one. Looking around 350 - 375 hp range. I think that will turn out to be better then trying to tinker with this one in the car now. Sound like a good move?