I knew it was too rich, so I made an appointment for Bob Stegemeier's chassis dyno. When I got there, Bob called 4 of his friends so they could see what a Rochester injection looked like. Bob had also never seen one before. Although leaning it out netted 90 HP, the torque took a drastic nose dive at 4500 RPM. Bob attributed that to the poor exhaust port on the Dart II's, plus the fact that I still had 1 5/8" headers. AFR 210's and 1 3/4" headers resolved those problems. Engine pulls much harder on the top end now.
I plan on getting back to Bob's dyno this year for some more fine tuning. The dyno was a good learning experience for the Rochester. We learned how much a half turn on the mixture screws affects the A/F ratio, and also learned that the fuel curve is pretty flat. (The 455 ft/lbs listed in my post is somewhat deceptive since it is influenced by the torque convertor; how much, I don't know. Given that, 455 is still a stout number, IMHO, for an N/A 406. Stegemeier pointed out that the amount of torque was good even though the torque curve was bad.)
On the negative side, the Rochester looses about 20 CFM, which translates to about 50HP over a GOOD modern 4 bbl and manifold. However, the Rochester was the original pattern for tunnel ram manifolds, so there is some possibility that extra power being picked by the "ram effect". My sole reason for using such an archaic intake is good A/F consistancy. It has the effect of a streetable tunnel ram without the bogs, pops, and lags of carbs.
