'68 Barracuda Notch

rymanrph said
I'd like to get someone to take a look at the car and do a little tuning on it. It starts up fine, but wants to die without a little gas and until it's a little warm. Putting it into gear without a little gas will do the same. I'm not the best technician when it comes to diagnosing sounds, but at WOT I occasionally hear what I think could be pinging.

All in all, I think the car feels like a slouch. 360 bored .30 with a Holley 4 barrel 670, 280.480 cam, 727 with 2800-3200 stall converter, 8.75 rear end with 3.23 gears. Are my expectations too high? My brother's '09 Challenger 5.7 feels like a race car compared to it and I think my old 4.0 Jeep could give it a run for its money. The throttle response is lousy and it just doesn't have the get up and go that I expected.

The car sounds fantastic, but I just want the bite to be as good as the bark.

I would say it's not atypical for a Mopar to be a little cold natured, but much of it is to do with how your carb and timing are set. If your choke isn't set right, it can cause cold idle issues, or if the idle mixture is too lean. If it's too rich, it'll load up and you can definitely feel that, and see it on your plugs. Talking about timing though, if you think you hear pinging, it might be too far advanced, and that would certainly make the car feel slower because the engine is essentially fighting itself to gain rpm. Have you timed it or actually done any tuning?

EDIT: I'll just amend my statement now; if you haven't checked out some of the tuning threads over in the tech section, grab a soda, cup or coffee, or a beer and start reading. There are likely over a hundred threads on conditions exactly like what you explain above...guys like rustyratrod, moper, abodybomber, etc are all very knowledgeable and could help you out quite a bit. That being said, check out the tech section and search tuning, or timing, or something related and just check out all the hits you'll get