what cam??

Ok, I have a couple questions and you guys will decide what I do... The jeep is running really good, but something is slightly off. Not much at all but you can tell its not quite dead on. Now the carb does have a vac leak at the throttle shaft. I have three possible suspects for it being not quite dead on.
!. THE CARB (OBVIOUS)

2. INITIAL TIMING IS AT 12*BTDC. THE CAM HAS 4* GROUND INTO IT, SO IM WONDERING IF IT SHOULD BE MORE LIKE 10* MAYBE EVEN 8*

3. PLUG GAP. AC/DELCO R43ST GAPED AT .040, SHOULD I PUT IT AT 35 INTSTEAD.

What would you guys do? its running well, so im kinda leery of messing with it. If anything, it sounds like you should be going a little faster than you are going. Maybe I just expected a lot more from the new cam. IDK
Oh yea, it has a header leak, which is getting replaced today.

 

1. I wouldn’t worry about the throttle shaft vacuum leak, unless the shaft is so wobbly that it begins catching and hanging up on the return. All carbs will leak a little right there and are metered to handle it, to an extent. I called Edelbrock wondering about the same thing and that is what they told me, and they were right my problem ended up being elsewhere.
2. Tune timing by ear then check where you end up with the timing light just for future reference. Unless you’ve gone through and degreed the engine you don’t know where true TDC is anyway. Personally I don’t mind running it a bit advanced, as long as the starter will spin the motor over and you don’t get pinging when giving the engine a load. Retarding timing will save a little gas but you’ll have sluggish throttle response and too much timing retard will run excess heat through the headers. The sweet spot will be between those two extremes.
3. .040” is a bit wide, .034-.036” is closer. I’m also running plain ole AC Delco’s so those are definitely fine for sparking your engine well past the power band your cam will provide.
4. Header leak, this is most likely where you’re feeling a bit of a stumble. Fix that then start looking at the other stuff, but I’m betting it’ll smooth right out. Been through the same thing and you can feel it lose just a little bit of oomph every time that exhaust tick came around.

 

You were right. I put the plugs at .35 and put better gaskets on the headers and it is running awsome, smooth as can be. No stumbles or hesitations, the only thing that I notice is, I can come to a stop one time and the idle is at 850ish and come to another stop and the idle is at 1000. It will do that off and on, I figure its that vac leak at the throttle shaft and I can live with that.. Thanks for all the help, I cant stay out of the jeep now!!!

 

Hell yea. That’s what I wanted to hear. :easy rider:

 

Ok, I have my cam review. Cam is a comp cams extreme 4x4 series 12-235-2, been driving it a few weeks now and I love it. awsome low end torque, great mid range, nice idle with a little lope. I had to do some carb tuning but finally got it right. I really got on it the other night, and MAN was I shocked at the power. thanks to everyone on the help and suggestions.