Ok here is my problem my car has had a miss since the day i bought it. When it idles u can here it cut out it sounds like it is only one cylinder because it has a pause between cutting out. It also above 5,000 really starts to cutout and struggles to get up in rpms it gets poppity. I have ran 3 different top ends on this motor. First was the factory TPI. Second was a stealth ram setup. Third it is now carbed. Had 3 sets of wires 3 coils and 2 distributors. The motor is a 92 chevy truck 350 the guy before me rebuilt and i bought it with 2,000 miles on the motor. The guy put a small cam in it, XE262HR other than that the bottom of the motor was rebuilt to stock specs. Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be wrong?

 

have u changed plugs?
could be a lifter two tight!

 

Yup its had 4 sets of plugs

 

Sounds like the cam is at the heart of the problem, judging by the symptoms. Defective grind maybe, installed wrong maybe. I've seen guys install a cam w/ a fancy 3-way timing set and mis-match the gear index marks.

I'd start w/ a basic compression test before opening up the engine, though. 180-190 psig with all cyls within 10% of each other is what you're looking for. If it passes, then start into the engine.

 

It sounds like you have the troubleshooting sequence right.
Do the easy/cheap stuff first and if that doesn't work, go deeper.
I can think of about 20 things it could be. If you pass the comp or leakdown test, check the lift on each lobe of the cam, bent pushrod, broken spring...
I had a cracked block that was doing what yours is doing, there wasn't any fire in one of the cyls, and there wasn't any coolant in the oil either.
But the poppity sound you were describing sounds like it might be the cam too.
Hope it's not too serious.