Frankenstein318

Thank you all for the replies. Let me try to answer some of the questions you all have asked thus far.
The overheating has only happened once so I have been unable to reduplicate it since. Of course, I have made some changes to timing and carb fuel/air mixture since that day.

As far as shooting soot out. At first I just noticed some wet spots behind the cars exhaust when I fired it up for the first time in the morning. I never really saw it as a big deal as I never saw a black cloud nor did it struggle to start. However, a coworker noticed that a black cloud would jump from both exhaust tips when I started it after it sat for a while (i.e while I had been at work) plus it always smelled a little rich on start up. The last time it blew soot out of the car was kinda funny…. To me anyways. I had run the car into town first thing in the morning and when I returned I parked in the driveway instead of putting it in the garage like I always do. My wife came home and she parked right behind me. Mind you she has a white mini cooper. I figured I had better get my Duster in the garage so she could pull her car closer to the house and off the sidewalk. I got in fired her up (mind you she started up quick no throttle used) I pulled into the garage turned around and her white mini now had TWO huge black eyes! I have since held white paper in front of the exhaust and have gotten minimal soot on the paper. I am not sure what the cause was that day. Maybe it didn’t like the mini being so close. Anyways I am still waiting for that issue to rear its head again. Nevertheless, the soot did come from both sides not just the cold side. I have adjusted the carb again since then.

The hard start.. I think I got that figured out I am certain it was an air fuel mixture that was causing my issue. I have not had the issue in a few days.

Yes I am running exhaust manifolds and I have not checked the function as of yet. I will test it and get back to you.

rub2stix.. When I first found out that I was running cold first thing I did was pull the plug. The plug was clean (less than 20 miles on new plugs) I rechecked the gap and it was spot on. I then put the plug in but left the wire off started the car and it ran like real rough. As soon as I plug the plug wire in it smoothed right out. I am sure that cylinder is firing. But while doing all the checks I ran into another problem. I have a harmonic balancer wobble now. I am certain it is new. As I have spent a lot of time looking at the timing marks to not notice it before. But when I took the power steering belt off due to a leak… well it was really noticeable. So now I am onto that.

nm9stheham thanks for the insight. I will look into your advice as soon as I fix the above-mentioned problem. Thanks for the vote of confidence!!

2darts. I found one website that showed my casting number
Cylinder head casting number 3769973 1975[FONT=&quot]
3769973[/FONT] http://www.mymopar.com/headcastnumb.htm
Also as far as chasing the blue spark. I will test again, but I have had the car in a dark garage, fired her up, and found no spark loss. My dad taught this trick to me years ago.

Again Long winded on my part but I wanted to make sure that I replied to everyone. I will make sure to update when I get the harmonic balancer sorted out…..now how to tell the wife I need to spend more money……