Ok, Ill explain as best as possible:

Last year, I bought my 82 Camaro T top. It needed a tranny so I replaced it with a 700R4 out of my old Camaro. Ran it stock and the tranny started slipping, its best pass out of tune with an HEI dist. and CC carb and slipping into 2nd gear was a 10.37 pass. Once I had secured that, I dug into the motor, put a Summit racing cam in, pulled all the AC, smog, and even heater box out. Put long tube headers dumping into the 2 1/4in dual exhaust, Performer manifold and a crappy Carter 625cfm carb on it. Ran it at the track and mustered a measly 10.53 best, which was amazing since I had modded it decently and gotten SLOWER!

Over the winter, I messed around very little on it as I was moving alot but shot it in a coat of grey primer and fixed alot of major body imperfections, which now is useless considering my pass. side fender is crushed in

Well, once moving into my new place with my roommate, I decided to get this car running good. I put a TH350 pretty fresh with a shift kit into it with a 2400 stall convertor and put a relatively new Edelbrock 625 elec. choke carb on it. Went and ran it and it ran a best of 10.71!!! It got EVEN SLOWER!

So, I thought it over and tore it back down and found my cam was off one tooth, so me and Hodge pulled it out and compared it to his old 305TPI cam and it looked relatively the same, so no defections or anything. Put it back in dot to dot this timer and we even double checked to make sure it was on TDC compression. I reassembled everything and this time went with the Vic Jr. manifold on it. I just finished valve lash earlier and it seems to be running better. I took it out for a spin and it feels like a total turd! I would bet money it would be even slower this time! I have no idea why its doing this. The things Ive considered wrong are:

- My tranny cooler lines. When I swapped to the 700R4, I had to cut the ends off the line from the th200M cause someone previously had rounded off the heads. so we cut them and used rubbed tranny line to replace the missing metal piece on bothl ines. Ive noticed they both seem to be leaking and not a drop a day more like a drop every 5-10 minutes or so. COuld my slowness be bcause this is causing no tranny pressure?

- Ive noticed when I start my car it puffs out a water spot out of the mufflers. NOw, I thought, "whoa, blown head gasket!" Ive checked my water and dont lose any. I dont ever come close to overheating, with my old 195 'stat, i rarely actually hit 195, usually topped at 190 last august. So it doesnt overheat, doesnt lose water and no oil/water mixed. Not sure hwy it does this. Car is kept inside a garage and has been all winter and up until now.

What do you think is wrong. We have yet to set timing completely, Ill be doing that shortly this evening. Even getting timing good wont help it I dont believe. Carb seems to work fine but ive never had a good carb on there before so I dont really know. It came off a wrecked Chevy pickup that had been sitting outside for a few weeks with a hood on it.

When you give it gas, it seems to stutter all throughout the RPM range and rev real slow in gear. Now a backfire kind of stutter butl ike a pop,pop,pop kinda stutter, if you even get at what Im saying. The carb Air and fuel screws are set at 3 full turns out a piece. Its getting plenty of fuel out of the mechanical pump and Im completely stumped. any help is appreciated. thanks.

- Matt

 

oh boy... where to start....


well... firstly and foremost, your transmission is made to have a tranny cooler line for a reason. Without proper cooling and pressures it wont perform to it's best, actually it's probably doing nothing more than just roasting your tranny verrrry slowly, you can get a pipe bending tool from NAPA for 38 dollars, and the 60" pipe for less than 10. You'll need the 3/8" NPT line, that is 60" or 50" long, You'd have to grab a tape measurer to get an accurate measurement.

I just had to buy a pipe bending tool so I could make a fuel line... the tool costs a lot but it will be worth it when I can let friends borrow it so we can fix their cars at 2AM on a Sunday morning when the parts store wont be open at a later time


Now I'm curious... you went with a mechanical carb if I remember reading correctly... but did you get a vacuum advance distributor also? Otherwise all the mods in the world wont help since you'll just stay at base timing throughout the whole RPM range. This is also probably the exact reason you have no power through the powerband and it goes through verrrry slow in the 1/8th mile.


When you start the car it dribbles water? That's your catalytic converter converting the unburnt fuel to "water". A blue puff of smoke is signature of Chevy and you shouldnt worry about it, if that is what you meant though.



What has been raped on this car? Did you remove anything from it to "add more power" ?


At work today I had a honda civic come in, I popped the hood and the first thing I noticed is the air filter laying where it's supposed to be, but the air cleaner assembly is missing. I asked the woman if she knew that her air cleaner was missing, and she replied "yes, my boyfriend did that to make the car louder... do I need it?"


Just goes to show that not all "remove this and it'll make me faster!" mods work heh.

 

Can you rent the pipe bending tool from autozone? Where exactly do you buy the line, I was actually going to buy it from a junkyard off a ThirdGen but making a new one would be better!

Yes I went with a HEI Vac advance from a 78 Camaro. We checked the mechanical advances their fine, the Vac advance works fine and it sparks well.

I dont have cats. I have true dual exhaust. 2 2 1/4 pipes from my LT's to my Purple Hornies. Its only on startup, no drip or anything.

I removed the AC, Smog, and Heater Box. It still has the ALt, water pump and such. Definately has the air cleaner lol. Any other help???