I have a 1966 Cutlass with a 330, a 4 speed, 2 1/2 inch dual exhaust and posi rear with 3.55 gears. The motor is basically stock with a slightly larger than stock cam, an Edelbrock performer intake and a Edelbrock 650 carb.

The motor just doesn't seem to have any bottom end. It is very slow to rev and the motor doesn't really "come on" until 3500 rpms. Plus, it seems to "miss" at lower rpms.

I'm considering changing to a HEI points conversion. Anything else I should check or change. I set the timing to the stock settings and the carb is set just a little rich. The motor sounds great with a slight lope but it just doesn't pull like it should.

Any suggestions?

 

Small blocks will not have the low end pull of the bigger cube motors...however, I think your problem may be the Timing Chain. You mentioned the motor has a bit of a cam in it, I suspect that at the cam swap, the old chain and gears were replaced, and I have seen so many of the replacemant sets retarded. Most shops will not degeree a cam, so this problem is not found until the lack of low end is felt. I have built motors and have installed replacement timing sets " dot to dot "; checked them with a degree wheel only to find as much as 6 degrees of retard!!! Hope this sheds some light on your Question.

 

I had the SAME EXACT issue with my 330...turns out the ignition was retarded almost -10 degrees than the recommended +7.5 deg btdc. I ended up advancing it to +9 deg btdc...its a true rocket now! Night and day difference! No more low end bog

 

 

Hook a vacuum gauge to a direct manifold port and tell us what it is reading at hot curb idle? Your goal is to adjust the timing (by the gauge, don't use a light yet) and air-fuel mix screws on the carb to obtain the highest possible vac reading at idle. Now road test it.

Is the ignition system fresh, wires, plugs, points, cond? Is the wire going through the distributor to the coil good all the way through? Does the engine have a good ground path back to negative?

Read each spark plug. You're looking for tan porcelain. Make sure the dwell is set at 30*, the points and cond are good and the weights under the rotor are moving freely. Hows the vac advance on the distributor? Working? It should be connected to a direct manifold vac source.

This is very basic old school tuning. This will tell you and us where to go from here if needed.

Hopefully, the sprockets and chain aren't retarded as 70W mentions? You may need to degree the cam?

But let us try some simple old school troubleshooting first.

 

You do realize the original post is from 07.

 

yes, but I thought maybe it could still be helpful to other folks looking for help and ideas that navigated to this thread

 

Eric, If this archeological post mining is causing a problem with the sites interworkings/searches et al... then we need the site to flag these ancient posts somehow cuz my simple mind doesn't always register these minute details at 1230 am.

NCRS.org puts old posts in an archive folder after a certain amount of time. One can then go into said archives to search while not affecting the current posts/threads

Just a thought.

Thank you,
Steve