Ok....my luck seems to be terrible...

It's bad enough I had to pull out a bent flexplate and put a new one in since the starter woudln't engage, its doing it again, with a new one, so more custom shimming has to be done, but what is aggraving is the fact that the engine wont' run right, your standing in 40 degree weather in a vacant parking lot at 10pm cursing why the damn thing won't idle, and to top it off when it stalls it won't engage, so then your laying on the freezing concrete screwing with the flexplate/starter teeth

the XE 268H isn't wild enough to warrant the tuning issues we're having. we base time the cam with the vacuum advance off, we tried as hard as possible and got base timing down to 10* advanced. it would idle around 500RPM i believe. we hook up vaccum and the idle jumps to 1000. thats fine, the vacuum advance is bringing up the RPM, we can accept that, 1000 is a tad high, i would prefer 750, but the ways things are going, ill take what i can get

it idles fine (if not a tad high at 1000) but it idles fine, revs fine, etc etc etc, the motor could not be built any better mechanically (minus that damn flexplate). the ignition is a different story. you put the bloody thing in drive, and it stalls. basically, you try and shift into drive, and the load causes the RPM to fall, which causes the vacuum to go away, which destroy the advance, which brings the RPM down to 500 which stalls the car

we tried for over an hour to get it not to stall....the more we tried, the worse it seemed to get. this cam isn't that big, why on earth is it being SOOO sensitive.

we just can't seem to get it to idle WITH advance to the point when we put it in drive, the advance doesn't fall off so much that the RPM drops and stalls. why is it being so sensitive....we get 12 inches of vacuum at 900RPM, so it's not a vacuum leak, the valves are lashed perfectly....this is driving me nuts....

the only thing we can think of is that our coil is VERY hot, like, burn you hand off hot, we dont' know why, its an accel super stock coil, no ballast resistor, with a points distributor

what should we do? try and time the thing with the vacuum advance hooked up? our only thought is to take a vacuum reserve canistor, and hook the distributor up to it, that way the engine doesn't lose vacuum when you put it in drive, therefore preventing it from stalling, the problem is ill never be able to go WOT since ill have like 50* advance...

any help would be appreciated more then you could imagine, a 7 week engine swap was not what i had in mind....

i mean, we've tried everything, adjusting the idle screw on the carb, controlling the bowls, everything....nothing will get it to idle, the vacuum drops off too much when u put it in drive, and this causes our advance to go way, which drops the RPM so much it stalls it....there is NO driveability...

 

Beats Me, Hopefully you get in going though. Good luck

 

Use the ported vacuum source for the vacuum advance. Set the timing with the vacuum advance plugged, the engine idling low enough that the mechanical advance is not kicking in (500-600 RPMs). About 12 degrees BTC at idle is a good starting place.

When you adjust the idle, there shouldn't be any vacuum on the advance. The vacuum should come on the advance after the throttle is opened a little (that's the way ported vacuum works).

Try it that way, make your idle adjustments with the tranny in drive (with the bumper up against a tree or wall isn't a bad idea - with the park brake on and the wheels chocked as well).

I believe that coil is intended for electronic ignition only. Using points without a ballast resistor will burn the points up in short order. Either get an electronic conversion kit for the distributor, or get a new electronic distributor. The combo you've got is not good.