All this started after I removed all my smog equipment (including cat). I read in a thread somewhere that removing the smog equipment makes the ECM run the car a bit lean. Is this the case?

1. The RPMs fluctuate, but not just at idle. It's dips just low enough that if I have my fan switched on (the power draw lowers my rpms at idle) then it can come close to dieing at idle.

2. It likes to stink, but mainly at first start up. Get a rather large blue smoke cloud when I first start it up.

3. Lower than normal MPG. My mileage has gone down.

The only tune-up thing I've done recently is replaced all my plugs and adjusted my valves. Was my first time dealing with spark plugs by myself, but I'm rather sure I spaced them properly. Maybe the wires need replacing? With the valves I adjusted them running. Loosened them till they clanked, then 1/2 turn tighten. Neither of these seemed to help. My base timing is about 8* advanced. The other day I tried to advance\retard a bit and no effect on the fluctuating idle.

Is this just running lean or something worse? If it is just running lean, is there anything cheap I can do to fix that? I'm pulling out the 305 TBI and dropping in a carbed 383 in a few months so it wont be a problem anymore then, but is there a cheap fix for running lean that I could do in the mean time? If that's what my problem is of course.

Thanks for any help.

 

a rule i tend to stick to is if you put plugs you ALWAYS do the wires. not sure what else to tell you. new cap and rotor might not be bad idea either.

 

mine does the same thing but im running tpi. When it dies does it feel like the car just shut off but sometimes it will turn on and catch itself. Things I've done that seem to help it are to adjust the timing with engine running and est still plugged in. I just pulled timing until the idle was smooth. Another thing i did was unplug the o2 sensor and the car felt much more powerful and could hold idle with a bit more timing but still cant hold stock timing. I will be replacing the 02 sensor with a new ac delco one tomorrow. Ill check back with my results

 

Sounds rich not lean. Rich burns the eyes - it's unburnt fuel.

Blue smoke would indicate oil burning, probably the valve seals leaking.

If the coolant fan draw is reducing the idle, you have a charging system issue - have it checked for free at advance or autozone.

I think 8* advanced is a little high - what's factory spec (I had in my head it's 0*)?

Removing the smog pump should not richen or lean the car to any noticeable effect.

 

turned out my distributor was off a couple teeth it was about 90 degrees off, cant believe it actually ran. What you should do is rotate your crank by hand until the balancer mark lines up with 0 on your timing tab. now remove the dist. cap and the rotor should point at cylinder 1 if it doesnt either your balancer slipped and you cant accurately set your timing or your distributor isnt installed correctly.

 

Keep in mind, that the rotor is only going to point at the #1 cylinder IF that's where it was set previously.

The rotor can point anywhere you want it to at TDC - it's just that wherever it points, that needs to be the #1 plug wire on the cap, and the firing order needs to be followed after that around the dist.

Most folks stab the distributor so that it points at #1 cylinder, but not always - it's a good 'rule of thumb' just because that's where most folks expect it to be pointing there (like yourself), but just because it doesn't point at #1 cylinder doesn't neccessarily mean it's wrong, just different.

The biggest concern is to make sure the dist is stabbed in when the #1 cylinder is at TDC on the compression stroke!