Another update in the continuing soap opera. The valves continue to fluctuate as before when warmed up, but the exhaust noise is much less and the pipe no longer sucks a piece of paper. So the valves are improved but not fully well. There could conceivably be a bent valve stem on this rebuilt engine, but the valves appear very clean and I doubt they're varnished up. But I experienced the "running on 5 cylinders" bit again as I neared the end of the test run. This comes and goes. Not every time I drive but always warmed-up when it happens. I'm back to ignition again. I pulled the insulating boots back from each plug wire and yanked each wire, one at a time, with the engine at idle. Each cylinder was firing. The spark could jump maybe a 3/8" gap at each plug but is yellow rather than blue. The coil, cap, rotor, points, and condenser are all new and I've tried 2 different sets of used wires with no difference in performance between the 2 sets. Is there a temperature-dependent ignition problem here or are valves still the culprit? I'd like to think that now that the valves are adjusted better (or at least the best that I can adjust them) they'd seat themselves with additional driving. I'm running out of ideas.
