1969 Coronet 500 performance

[Riaancoet]

Good Day from South Africa.
I recently bought what was according to the Vin a 1969 Coronet 500 A/t with 318. Once of the previous owners went thru a lot of trouble to turn it into a Super Bee Tribute/ clone. Although this is my first muscle car , I can tell the current 383 , Holly performance carb , and Edelbrock performer 383 intake, combo is not all that it could be - performance wise.
Where does one start - without taking engine out for better performance ?

 

[steve340]

Try taking the car to a good tuner - get the timing and carb right can make a big difference.

 

[YY1]

Pic of the carb and linkage could help.

Agree- verify the timing.
Not necessarily "by the book" but by the- "advance until it pings under wide open throttle, then retard until it stops pinging" method.

 

[lewtot184]

Check to make sure the EGR holes are plugged in the bottom of the intake plenum. It may have 8:1 pistons in it.

 

[R413]

Camshaft timing is wrong
Ignition Timing off
Distributor not advancing
Carb tune all wrong
Carb not opening fully
Secondaries not opening, running on 2bbl only
Low compression ratio
Valve job not sealing
Piston Rings not sealing
Oil too thick
high volume oil pump takes power to run
Heads ported too much
Too big of valves for the engine
Too big of a Cam profile for compression ratio
Wrong torque converter
2.76 rear end gears with those tall tires
Brakes dragging
Piston to cylinder wall clearance too tight
Solid 7 blade stock fan really robs power
5.0 lever in the trans makes for overlap on 2-3 shift
Trans shift kit causing overlap on shifts
Trans slipping due to no throttle pressure linkage
Trans or rear end internal failure robbing power

Or any slight combination of several of these turn the car into a dog that won't run hard. I have seen all of these cause problems, and no matter how small they add do add up. You can see the difference on a time slip at the drags.

Also you have wide steel wheels that look like 8" wide, they weight 30-32 lbs each, plus those big tires. They both slow the car down in drag racing comparisons to liteweight aluminum wheels.