Hey guys, I posted the other day about some stuff and was hoping for more help today. I bought an edelbrock performer cam for my 454. We installed it the other day and managed to mess up the timing gear and ended up breaking half the push rods. We pulled it all apart again and replaced the pushed rods and fixed the timing. We fired it up today and it lugged for about 5 minutes while I had it floored until it warmed up a little and ran on its own. We let it run at around 2k for 30 minutes to let it break in. Once that was over with we timed it to the 6 before mark (stock) and although it idles okay it acts very strange when you push the gas. It takes several seconds to register when you press the gas and several seconds to drop back down to idle once you let off the gas. We tried changing some of the carb settings and a few other things but no matter what we do it seems to lack all power in the low end and still has very long delays between pushing the gas and letting off of the gas and the actual reaction from the motor. Has anyone else seen this before?

Thanks

Paul

It only does this when you give it gas? Does it idle ok?

vacuum leak?

You may have other problems going on but the timing is off for a performance cam. I usually set mine at 16 and work from there.

You definitely need more base timing then make other adjustments .

Besides the timing, make sure your throttle return spring isn't binding not leting it return to idle.

Paul,

You need to do a compression check.

I know you are not going to want to hear this, and I sincerely hope I am wrong, but if you bent pushrods, it is because the valves were hitting the pistons. Those valves are probably now bent. Might not be enough to keep it from running, but enough to keep it from running right :( You really need to do a compression test and preferably a leakdown test before you do anything else.

Boy,i hope you didnt also do a lot of excessive cranking to get it fired up along with bendng the pushrods and possiblly bending valves at same time to which could collectively help kill a flat tapet cam not soon post breakin.

You need to chk compression now to see if you have any bent valve/s.

Anyway,The eddy cam you running needs 18 deg base timing & not the very retarded 6 deg base timing thats for a stock gm cam with a ot less duration then even a ild aftermarket cam has.

Thats why it wont take the gas very well and is acting strange or popping back when yu give it the gas seeming to be very lazy/laggy sounding.

Set base timing to aprox 18 deg with motor idling approx 600 rpms to ensure mech adv in dist isnt affecing base timing setting,also ned vac adv unhooked & plugged when setting base timing too.

The idle will increase a ot when adv tming from 6 deg base to 18 deg and you will have to reduce idle speed again to 600 rpm max and may also have to reset base timing again to get it back to 18 deg too at the same time.

Then after setting base timing rettach vac adv to full intake vacuum and also reset idle mixture & speed too.

Note, ckk your spark plugs to see if they are carboned up/fuel fouled from running base timing 12 deg retarded @2 only 6 deg for breakin when your cam needs approx 18 deg base timing & replace them if they are black /fuled because that can also cause driveability issues,misfirng,etc.

Scott

sweet thanks guys I will try the timing tomorrow if we dont have any luck i will try to track down the compression gauge... the idea that we might have bent the valves has been in the back of my mind since we found the bent push rods. I guess I wouldnt lose too much sleep if i had to replace my crappy heads but it's bad timing financially. Guess we will see tomorrow. Thanks again.

okay have new spark plugs and advanced the timing to eighteen degrees it runs a lot better now but still have the same problem where it tries to die a bit when you give it gas till around 1500-2000 rpm when it takes off- then when you let off the gas it still takes 15-20 seconds to return to idle speeds. For some reason vacuum is leaking for quite some time after the throttle is returned which is causing the advance to keep the motor to keep high rpm for quite some time. Still have not done a compression test. Any more ideas or is the next step making sure we didnt not bend the valves and would that cause the symptoms i am having. Thanks.

nevermind- took the heads off and the valves were bent. Guess I'll go from there. ha Thanks for the advice.

replaced the heads with 049 which was a huge upgrade from my peanut heads with bent valves ha car is very aggressive now a little disappointed it can't run until it's competely warmed up (which takes about 4 ice ages) maybe not the fastest car i've been in but hands down the most powerful. I am starting to learn traction is the other half of a v8.