Started driving my car it runs pretty well.. I think I may still have to tune the carb a bit...

On to my question, I don't know if its overheating (none of my gauges work yet) but I could of sworn I smelled some coolant burning... Now my brother in law told me it could be some stuff I spilled in there because I did just start driving my car.... Last night when I was driving home in the rain I realized my hood was steaming when the rain hit it : ) Idk if thats normal for older cars with pure metal hoods or not..

My thermostat is at 180 degrees.. so I know it gets pretty hot in there.. I took out the heater core and bypassed it, I was wandering if having to much coolant could be a bad thing?

And the dieseling on I turn the key off and it does it maybe for a half second not even but its annoying and that half second feels like forever. A friend at work said that one of my cylinders may be overheating and still burning fuel when I stop...

So Im thinking its something with my timing because I just put a new distributor in and I thought I had it all timed right but I guess not, I also swapped it out for a carb which needs tuned..

Could a carb cause it to overheat if it is overheating? I mean I drive it from my house to work... about a 15 minute drive (not including the redlights) and it hasn't exploded yet lol..

 

My car did this and the timing was far to advanced. Try bringing it down a little and see what happens. Also this is just me, but I wouldn't drive my car to much without properly working gauges. I'd at least get a cheap mechanical gauge from the parts store to watch the temp.

 

Yeah thats what my brother in law keeps saying.. I guess ill go get some cheapy ones till I can afford the good ones I want, makes sense..But I still need to drive it..

I think I fixed the problem? I put some more coolant in it and change the oil to a thicker wait.. It seems to be running awesome now.. I think I had 5 30 in before switched it to a 10 30 and put some stp oil treatment in and bought a K&N oil filter... runs fine now : ) Except for the dieseling on.. I can just turn my distributor cap to the left and right for a simple fix cant I? Which way to advance or decrease? Thanks for the help.

 

Clockwise to retard timing, may need to run higher octane fuel too if that doesnt work.

 

For the running on, throttle blades might be cracked open a bit too far at idle - what's the idle speed - over 800 in park?

For the overheating - is it actually boiling? Or u just paranoid

 

I was paranoid I bought a gauge today and it stays between 190-210 lol.. It may be the throttle blades.. but it also may be my ignition switch.. because I took it to advanced and the guy there watched me turn it off and said it sounds more like a delay in the switch..


And it was way out of time.. but I timed it and no more missing so that is good I need to un retard the timing a little bit because now it feels like I drag on forever... I think it needs to be at 6 degrees.. because my engine is from a vin F car.. and thats what it calls for. But my vin is E..

 

A 'delay in the switch' sounds bollocky to me, that's the sort of bs guys make up when they've got no idea. Run-on will usually be throttle, timing, possibly idle mix, or hot carbon deposits. Most likely one of the first two or three - ie should go away with correct tuning.

Forget that 6 degrees stuff and that vin stuff, that's the factory recommended base setting for tpi. You've lost the tpi and now have a Holley and mech/vac advance dist - different ball game now - give it the timing it wants to run best. Should probably be in the 12-16 degrees range for base timing.

 

Should it be before or after?

 

Timing? Before tdc of course, won't run too good after