Again, a lot of great input and ideas here and I appreciate the help.
The one thing that I will do first is check the grounding on the ECU as the painter pulled the engine and did a fantastic job of painting the engine compartment after he removed all parts hanging on the inner fenders and firewall. With a new coat of paint, I am sure it could have affected the grounding as it was just mounted to the firewall. By the way, my ECU is a orange Mopar unit. If grounding is not the problem then I will change out the ECU first.
One question or comment on the Carb suggestion. I did not know Holly was known to leak but the 780 dual pumper was probably more than I needed when I replaced the Carb about 5 years after I bought the car. I had a (supposed) 6 pack cam installed by a buddy and the original carb did not have many adjustments available - thus addition of the Holly 780. The car originally came with a Holly carb on it so I stuck with the Holly name to try to keep it more original. I can tell you the idle of that cam was rough and when the hammer was down it ran darn good. With this set up though, it idled rich - I had black residue smoke coming from the pipes at idle which would eventually leave black residue on the rear valance panel about the exhaust tips. It also smelled very rich to the point you could not stand to be in the garage when it was running. Now, since the engine was pulled and I installed a "mid-range" cam - a purple shaft cam according to the Summit Racing representative, there is a noticeable but confusing difference in the car when idling. No more black smoke when idling and no more smelly exhaust. I did not change any jets in the carb, I thought it might even run richer, but it appears to be running (idling) great with normal white exhaust and not an over powering rich fuel smell like before?? Again, I am very much the novice but thought it might be the other way around without changing or reducing the jets in the carb?
If it was running too rich, shouldn't I see a and smell the rich fuel burn as before, and when I pulled the air cleaner to spray starting fluid in the carb, wouldn't I have smelled gasoline if flooded? Wouldn't the starting fluid at least make the engine hiccup or stutter with an attempt? When these bouts happened, all I would get is engine cranking with no hiccups or any attempts what so ever that sounds or feels like a flooded engine trying to start?
I am the original and only owner of the car so I pretty much know what is in the engine (with the exception of the previous cam and that is why I replaced it). Like I said previously, I did change the dual point distributor to a new electronic ignition system which replaced the ECU (I think) and the distributor, which I think no longer has points to adjust or mess with. The only other modification was I cut the heads to the 69 383 specification to get rid of the lower compression for the first glimpse of the smog systems of the engines. Other than that, just a stock 383 engine with mid-range cam and the Holly 780 dual pumper.
I will not have a chance to test anything until next weekend, but promise i will post results here since we have some interest and debate going on lol. Again, I appreciate all the suggestions and help here.
Happy New Year!
Larry
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I just remember one other thing that is different with this restoration. I changed the valve covers to chrome one from summit racing. Previously I had Micky Thompson covers which had a PCV valve in one of the covers. These new covers had no punch out for the PCV valve, it only has a breather oil fill cap. Again, just a novice but thought the PCV value was for the "smog engines" and I probably did not need it. Do you thing this could be related to the problem?
