pimpinphil

hi,
i have a 84 z28 camaro,had the l69 5 speed,the motor went,and i had a motor that i traded a parts car for just sitting there ready to go in,its a 350,anyways,i figured i would just swap them,and i did that,and along the way,i threw in a ex 268 cam,edelbrock performer rpm heads "70cc" weiand stealth intake,carter 625 elec. choke carb,and brand new distributor from jegs,with the coil in the cap,the carb is brand new,the intake is brand new,the wires are close to new,the plugs are brand new,the heads were used,but in good shape,
now my problem is i cant get this thing to run right at all,now with the stuff,im guessing i should have 350 hp's easily,but the car runs like total crap,my lt1 would eat it alive,now i know since the older one is going to be just that older,and not run near a smoothly as the lt1,but,i would think surely it would still outrun it,with as much power as it "should have"i just dont know where to go with my problem,because i dont know what the problem is,
we set the timing by ear,i know thats not the best method,but figured it would get it close,i really dont know how to set the timing at all on engines,can anyone explain to me how to do this?i have a timing light also,just really upset with my first motor swap turnout,i need my everyday driver back.thanks for everyones help ahead of time.

Chris Ja

What are you using for headers. Are you using the stock exhaust manifolds with cat converter and exhaust. If so you are using the stock exhaust manifolds and cat converter then you are not getting the air out of the engine. If you don't have a timing light then you should start the engine and turn the dist to the right slowly until the engine start to idle slower. Then back it off past were the idle picks up. With the engine hot turn off the engine wait 5 seconds then start engine. if it cranks slow then you need to back the dist up a little more. This will get the engine running about as good as you can without a timing light. I am not saying this is better than a timing light but it will get you in the area.
Also you didn't say what your compression is on the new engine. If it was a low compression engine 8.5 1 then that could be the problem. Also I would do a compression test on all the cyl.