Thanks ARETEE! Actually I would like it to be as good of a driver as possible. And of course faster is great, but not at the sacrifice of driveability or reliability. The real problem is my lack of experience. I haven't driven other big block b-bodies so I don't know how it really should feel. Plus right now it's not running right.
Here's the sad story. A guy I know worked on the car last year. He's not a Mopar expert but is a good mechanic in general. He replaced the head gaskets, replaced the old headers with the TTIs, installed a new brake booster, hi-torque starter motor, and the 750 Holley (it had a Holley 600 before). The 750 Holley had an electric choke. It worked erratically so I had the guy set it full open for the time being. I had to pump the gas a couple times to get the car started. That was OK with me because the 600 didn't have a choke either. I was used to it. Once it warmed up for a few minutes it was fine. It idled good, didn't ping with 93 octane, didn't overheat, didn't load up in stop and go, didn't diesel, and seemed pretty fast for a 3 speed automatic with a 3:21 rear axle. I was happy with it.
Then earlier this year the car just died. No spark. Apparently it blew the ECU. The same guy who did all the work before convinced me that a MSD or Mallory would be better and cooler to have. I bought a new Mallory Unilite and took it back to him to put it on. Unfortunately I think that was a mistake. He altered the engine wiring harness (that bummed me out) and also the car hasn't felt right ever since. To me, it feels like my car is running very rich, or like there is a potato stuck up the tail pipe ha ha ha. Now for some reason it fires instantly even when stone cold (no pumping required), and just feels rich at all throttle positions. At x-way speeds the engine kind of surges, and during stop and go gridlock at the Dream Cruise it felt like it was loading up and stalled a couple times. It was better after getting back to highway speeds, but still feels loaded up all the time. The guy drove the car a little and said it felt OK to him. He assured me the timing was spot on and he didn't touch the carb. I marked the distributor and tried advancing and retarding it a little and got no improvement either way. Actually both made it worse. It's set back where he had it now.
So I bought a whole new stock ignition (MP conversion kit for points system, includes ECU, distributor, and ballast resistor) and ordered a new engine harness from YearOne. The harness was on backorder for 7 weeks and so the Mallory ignition is still on the car. Last week the YearOne engine harness finally came in. This weekend I am going to put the harness in and put the whole ignition back to stock. I've got a buddy coming over to help me switch the distributor and set the timing. Hopefully that will get it running at least like the way it was before. However, I still would really appreciate the opinion of someone with more Mopar experience and I would absolutely welcome your two cents. It would be great to know how it compares to other similarly set-up 440s, or if there is something that just wrong or I should do to make it better. How about if I PM you next week after the ignition stuff is all back to normal?
Also thanks for the heads-up about Milan this Saturday. I didn't know about it and I'll try to make it for a while. Last fall I just missed the last few Weds Test-n-Tune days due to some brake problems. Once this present issue is resolved I hope to get there to see what it runs.
Thanks again ARETEE!
