Hank, I am over by Tahoe. I appreciate the offer- I think I know where my old dizzy is. I have to admit, I have taken the lazy route on this one…the old me would have pulled the HEI distributor out on the first day and found somewhere to load it into a distributor machine to check it, before I did anything else. Old age has me not enjoying the repeated disassembly of things. I used to enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together. Of course, it might have something to do with the fact that now that I am teaching, I have no surplus time or energy left over for my hobbies!
I will probably pull the distributor this weekend for a quick swap, if I can find the time.
Jon, I’m going to re-check the timing this weekend, and most certainly if I pull the distributor for a quick swap with my old points setup. Ll try to get a video of it as well.
Jerry,
you may be right. I had forgotten that the Bulldog cam isn’t all that mild of a grind. Much higher lift than the Corvette cam. Part of my trouble here might be having zero reference regarding an in-line 6. I have no experience with these engines outside of this particular engine. In the past, when we would put a performance cam that was a little more aggressive than this cam into a high compression V8 with tube headers, the feel and sound of a rough idle was very different than what I am perceiving with this engine- this one is more like a subtle, but abrupt “skip” in the 261. It could have to do with all the rotating mass the 261, compared to a V8 with a light flywheel. You can just feel it with your hand on the 261 and see it at the exhaust tip on a cold day, but no coughing, spitting, snorting, shaking like the V8. Perhaps that is the “rumble” that I should have with this cam. The skip also does persist beyond idle-it’s still there at probably around 1500 rpm. After that, it is gone, as far as I can tell. Freeway rpm feels like smooth as glass.
I’ll check idle vacuum indications again- I forgot what I saw early on in this process. I do know that the engine gives me way more vacuum at idle than I thought it would, which is nice for my power brakes.
Thanks again everyone for all of your input.
Dave
Last edited by Norcal Dave; 03/14/2024 12:30 PM.
