I just put a thumper cam in my car part number 42-600-5 edelbrock performer rpm intake 3A heads that came on the engine when I bought it. It is a 350 out of a 78 delta 88. It idles perfect in park or neutral. But as soon as I put it in drive it dies. What can I do? It seems like I don't have enough vaccum or air? Possibly. I'm not sure what I can get or do to fix my problem.

 

It also has a edelbrock 1405 600 cfm. I put a phenolic wood spacer on it to reduce my heat should I take the spacer off? And also has headers on it.

 

Type of ignition system? What is your timing set to? I know that the cam card says with stock converter, what are you using? What is your idle rpm?

 

Stock ignition. I have a msd box I thought about put on it. 6AL I believe is the part number on it. First I put it on 12. On the crank. But I've moved it since then. I had it adjusted once where it did good but it turned over slow after I shut it off so I lower the timing back down a little bit. I have a b+m 2000 rpm stall behind it.

 

hmmm
sounds like it loses vacuum to the distributor which brings down the idle which makes less vacuum.

I would try hooking dist'r vacuum to manifold, adjust idle timing to suit by turning the dist'r. see if that helps.

this gives you low timing for easy starts, then the vacuum advances the timing when running such that idle is happy. Alleviates overheating at idle too.

 

Alright ill try that

 

These cams like a lot of initial timing. You did not mention your idle RPM?

 

Probably around 900-1000 in park. I don't have a tach in my car yet.

 

What Octania and Oldcutlass said.

 

Your idle RPM is a bit high, but should not cause your issue. Double check your timing and try Chris suggested with the vacuum advance. Also make sure your carb idle a/f mixture is setup correctly.

 

Turn the idle up first. I'm inclined to think your park idle is lower than that. Those thumper cams have a lot of over lap and it's tough to gauge esp without a tach reading.