Ok check this out, my stupid car is giving me the fits right now. I spent a while adjusting the IAB valve on the carb and it seems to be right now. It idles pretty well, sometimes a little low (gets low as 600 in park, 500 in drive) and in neutral or park you can rev the little motor to 5k with no troubles. However, once you put it in gear and give it gas the car will either bog down in attempt to die or it will go until it reaches an rpm like 1500 or so then bog down. My choke is working fine, i just changed the oil (100 miles), the cap(3k), rotor(3k), plugs(5k), wires (3k), fuel filter (3k) thermostat (changed the other day, then the problems began) are all in good shape but the car was running a bit on the rich side for some time. I was only getting 10 or so miles to a gallon on my car, and about 130 miles on a full tank. My timing is at 0 degrees, my oil gauge is currently broken (or seems to be, its been at zero for about two weeks), my temp guage has been pegged for months (replaced every coolant temp component to no avail), and thats about it off of the top of my head. My egr valve doesn't respond to anything, you can disconnect it and it will not change anything. At idle i pull about 6 pounds of vacuum, and all the vacuum wires have been thoroughly checked. With all of that, what could it be? It feels like the car just runs out of juice when you give it gas in gear. Maybe the carb just blows which would explain the poor fuel economy, maybe it just sucks i dont know im sure someone does though, thanks in advance-

 

Sounds like the car needs some *thorough* tune up attention. Set the timing back to factory spec, for starters.

Did you mean to say, 6 "inches" of vacuum? If so, that's really low. Indicates that the cylinders can't pull air in like they should. Does the gauge needle fluctuate rapidly or is it pretty steady?

Also, make SURE that it is the gauges that are faulty, and that you do have oil pressure.

Just off the top of my head, my wild guess is that the cat. converter may be plugged; this happens when the car is run rich for a while. Causes too much back pressure, makes the engine a real dog. Usually limits top speed to like 40 mph when it gets real bad.

(It revs up freely in park/neutral because there's no load on the engine. )