Good evening. We have recently installed an Edelbrock 650 electric choke carb, RPM intake, open element air cleaner, new plugs and wires, and upgraded from single to true dual exhaust with X pipe. My question is with all of these additions, will I need to do anything with the distributor? The car runs totally differently now, with a good kick in the seat, but I just wonder if a little dist work might help a bit more? Engine is a 350

 

What camshaft does the engine have?
What distributor - points or HEI?

 

She has a stock cam and a points distributor

 

Did you set the dwell, timing and carburetor since installing those parts? If not, make sure you use a dwell meter, timing light and vacuum gauge to properly tune the engine.

 

If you have not changed the rear gears or changed the converter, I doubt that you will see or feel any great difference in changing the advance curve of your distributor. Changing the curve may even be detrimental in your case. As stated by Olds64, a good tune up is your best friend now.

 

Just make sure your tune settings are in order. Maybe advance the timing a couple of degrees.

 

Thank you all very much. I will be purchasing a timing light and dwell meter to get things dialed in a bit better after work. It’s been 20 years since I’ve touched a muscle car and totally forgot about the hidden power in the dist. Tuned the carb with a vac gauge and totally forgot about the dist 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

 

Your car is not a muscle car, it was a semi luxury car in performance, ride, and equipment.

 

You forgot to buy a wideband too to do it right. Tuning the carb with a vacuum gauge really only effects the idle.

 

ha ha, a guy was complementing our car the other night and he threw out muscle car; my wife quickly said a Cutlass is not really a muscle car. I asked where the hell that came from. She said her great aunt would never drive a muscle car, that’s why she drove Oldsmobile’s.

 

I totally disagree, I had a 72 Cutlass 350 2bll . I added dual exhausts and recurved the distributer . Made a huge difference. Since a lot of the increase in performance was at lower RPM I assume the increase was due to the recurring.