Traxfish said

I'm in the process of giving my barracuda a valve job, removing the heads and cleaning everything. I verified it has a sticking valve with a piece of paper getting sucked to the exhaust test. The engine was ran with a badly rusted gas tank and red particulate for a while which I blame for bad carbon buildup. It had strong vacuum, if not a steady vacuum, so I didn't suspect other issues. It ran pretty strong except for a seemingly random misfire at low rpms and a lot of water and soot in the exhaust, with some oil burning especially when cold, and gas mileage much lower than expected (~13). The entire fuel system up to the manifold has been replaced under my care.
Engine idling:

Would you suspect other issues?
Soot is probably carbon buildup in the valvetrain but could the water be another issue?

Once I got the manifold off, I looked at the cam and the wear patterns concern me. Some of the lobes are worn across the top. How normal is this? I have not yet looked at the lifters.


If the cam and lifters need replaced, what is the OEM lift/duration? This car is a driver/cruiser and I like the low end torque. It shouldn't see high RPMs often.

I have several books including the Plymouth service manual but not the experience of building and tuning one myself. Trying to get the latter.

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