Greetings from south of the border

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MeMopar

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Jan 23, 2017
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Location
Mexico
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Hi to everyone here in FABO!!

My name is Guillermo (MeMo for short) and I live in Mexico (though I am from South America). I have been a Mopar person since I have memory - first car I remember from my childhood is an Aspen my father had bavk in the days. Nowadays I have a modified 91 ramcharger for the trails and a 72 Demon.

I bought the Demon 11 years ago, and it has been a long 8 years process for being where I am now. The car looks decent, but has a lot of running problems, and I hope that now that I am here, I can put it back to the road.

Thanks for taking me in!
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Thanks for the warm welcome.

It's a 360. It has just a few mods, nothing big:
Flat pistons
Edelbrock Performer intake
800 CFMs ThermoQuad
Crane valve springs
Mopar purple camshaft 292/292 .508 lift @.050
MSD ignition (box and coil)
Heddman headers...
And a bunch of Mopar Performance stuff:
Valve covers, air filter, gas pump, water pump, timing chain, oil stick, water neck, dizzy, spark plug wires, etc... several other minor stuff in suspension and interior, but nothing fancy...

As I said before, car looks decent, but runs crappy... where can I post asking for help?
 
Our small block section is here: Small Block Mopar Engine

What transmission and rear gears do you have?

Your cam pulls to 6,200 RPM but your Performer intake falls off after 5,500 RPM. Depending on your compression ratio and other things you could be over-camming the engine and leaving a lot of performance on the table. Putting a big cam in an otherwise mild engine is a great way to kill performance and driveability.

If you want to keep that cam you'll probably need to change some stuff to make it run as it should.
 
Glad you are here! Nice rides, and pictures of your Ramcharger are welcome too :)
 
Thanks for the props, everyone...

@BlueDream
Exactly! I think the engine is over-cammed. Several components were bought taking into account the engine -like valve springs - but sone others are a little above stock specs. Now, my dilemma is if I should stay with this cam and upgrade the rest of components, or buy another cam which gives better drivability and delivers all possible performance... what do you think should be the way to go?

Drivetrain is a dana 44 w/3.55 and tranny is an A833.

Thanks
 
318willrun said:
Glad you are here! Nice rides, and pictures of your Ramcharger are welcome too :)
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Thanks!
This is the RC.
Currently, she is running on D60r/D44 front w/4.56, 8" lift and 42" tires in 18" rims. NP435/NP241 and stock 360 which used to be TBI, but I made it carb'ed. I have here at home sone stuff I will install by march this year:
D70 rear, D60 front, both w/5.13. Crossover/highsteering arms, 2" ram assist, 63"r/56"f chevy leaf springs, and a few other things

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MeMopar said:
Thanks for the props, everyone...

@BlueDream
Exactly! I think the engine is over-cammed. Several components were bought taking into account the engine -like valve springs - but sone others are a little above stock specs. Now, my dilemma is if I should stay with this cam and upgrade the rest of components, or buy another cam which gives better drivability and delivers all possible performance... what do you think should be the way to go?

Drivetrain is a dana 44 w/3.55 and tranny is an A833.

Thanks
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Honestly, for a street car I'd de-cam the 360. You're probably losing significant low end with that .508 cam and you'd be better off with something else. A cheap and easy option would be a Comp XE268h. It'd work better with your 3.55's, Performer intake, and the engine would behave well on the street. It's what I'm running in my 340 and it's a good cam with a nice idle. There are a lot of options out there. The "right" cam just depends on what your goals for the car are. That .508 cam is a very capable and proven camshaft, but I don't think it's the right one for your engine as it sits right now.

Crappy video but it sounds decent. lol

 
MeMopar said:
This is how she sounds as of today:



I was thinking something like this:
Mopar Perf. ''Purple Shaft'' Hydraulic Camshaft Kit

Or something similar... what do you think?
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Actually doesn't sound bad at all! The MP cam you picked is a great one for your car. I'm not sure what you mean by your car currently runs bad..... does that mean it doesn't perform well? Or it coughs, sputters? What's it doing that your not happy with at the moment?
 
That would be a good cam!

This is the XE268h I'm talking about: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/cca-20-223-3/overview/make/dodge

Duration is 224 int./230 exh. @.050, and valve lift is 0.477 int./0.480 exh.

The MP cam is 228 int./231 exh. @.050 and 0.450 int./0.455 exh.

With the Comp you get more lift and less duration, and the same peak RPM.
 
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318willrun said:
Actually doesn't sound bad at all! The MP cam you picked is a great one for your car. I'm not sure what you mean by your car currently runs bad..... does that mean it doesn't perform well? Or it coughs, sputters? What's it doing that your not happy with at the moment?
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Here's what she does:
Hard starting. Takes a while for she to idle by herself - need to be pressing gas pedal for at least 2 minutes or she dies. Once she is ok, when engaging 1st gear, it feels like she is going to stall on the spot, like like of power. Once I am on my way, she is fine, but if I let her coast, then she starts surging, like if the engine was running out of gas. Then, if I come to a stop, and I press clutch pedal, she stalls.. if I want to keep her running, I have to be pressing the gas pedal and sending rpms way above 1800... and then, once I engage 1st gear, she feels like she is going to stall... on the other hand, WOT, you can feel power all the way to 6k rpms and even in 4th gear, you flat out gas pedal, and you feel someone is pushing your head against the seat...

If I could solve drivability problems so I could cruise on her with all confidence, I would leave engine as it is right now... but I am totally clueless on what my problems could be
 
Sounds like a vacuum leak or cam might be be one tooth retarded.
Retarded valve timing makes an engine favor top end RPM power, but makes idling weak and kills low rpm power.
 
Check your oil to see if there is any gas in it, and watch to see if the carb is dumping fuel after you shut the car off.

I had some of the issues you're describing and it turns out my Thumpr cam didn't make enough vacuum for the carb, and the Performer intake was heat soaking the carb. When I'd shut the car off it would flood and be hard to start back up, driving around town was tedious as it liked to stall at stop lights. My smaller XE cam and Air-Gap intake solved these problems. Hot start is 1000x better than it used to be and it's much more streetable.

You don't want your carb dumping a ton of excess fuel into the motor. It washes down the cylinder walls and can cause issues. There's a lot you could look at but I'd start by inspecting the carb and fuel system and going from there.
 
Darthomas said:
Sounds like a vacuum leak or cam might be be one tooth retarded.
Retarded valve timing makes an engine favor top end RPM power, but makes idling weak and kills low rpm power.
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Actually I took it to a "mechanics" and the guy told me they retarded time a bit (dunno how much)... I will double check timing issues.

Thanks for the tip
 
BlueDream said:
Check your oil to see if there is any gas in it, and watch to see if the carb is dumping fuel after you shut the car off.

I had some of the issues you're describing and it turns out my Thumpr cam didn't make enough vacuum for the carb, and the Performer intake was heat soaking the carb. When I'd shut the car off it would flood and be hard to start back up, driving around town was tedious as it liked to stall at stop lights. My smaller XE cam and Air-Gap intake solved these problems. Hot start is 1000x better than it used to be and it's much more streetable.

You don't want your carb dumping a ton of excess fuel into the motor. It washes down the cylinder walls and can cause issues. There's a lot you could look at but I'd start by inspecting the carb and fuel system and going from there.
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I guess it is dumping fuel. Last time I reached home and switched off the engine, and it tried to re-start again with the switch in off position...

I will start by advancing timing, searching vacuum leaks and see if carb is pouring gas into the engine after being parked... but at the same time, I will start daving some money for that camshaft you recommended me...

Thanks again for all your help, guys!!
 
MeMopar said:
I guess it is dumping fuel. Last time I reached home and switched off the engine, and it tried to re-start again with the switch in off position...

I will start by advancing timing, searching vacuum leaks and see if carb is pouring gas into the engine after being parked... but at the same time, I will start daving some money for that camshaft you recommended me...

Thanks again for all your help, guys!!
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Good luck on your troubleshooting and I hope you can get it all figured out! It'll be awesome to have the car running well so that you can enjoy driving it.
 
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