Holley Carb questions and answers

[Michael C Henry]

If you havent guessed I'm on vacation . I'm burning up use or loose annual leave. my goal is to get this running and fouling cured . When it actually was back firing through the carbs I had ruff timed it usung a method that worked for me thirty years ago With a point distrib. I could turn the crank over bringing #1 up on compresion and set the timing marks at 8°bftdc .I would have a grounded plig in #1 wire and turn the distrib untill that plug sparked. and it would end up at 4°bftdc. It didn't work with the Mallory Unilite distib.I ended up at 12 after tdc . I had to pick up the distributor and move it one tooth. That makes a 48° change.With the mechanical tach drive I can't have move the distributer that farr by just turning it.
Every time this happened I took the plugs out and cleaned them
( glass beed blasting) before trying anything again. I blamed the carbs.They were drueling gasoline at one time ,and after all , too much gas causes carbon fouling. I didn't suspect my new ignition system. I relpaced an old Mallory HyFire IV cd box with a new Mallory HyFire VI 685 cd ignition box and the same Mallory Unilite 38 series distrib and Mallory Pro Master 29440 coil that worked before I took the car apart . The rev limits are different ,normal is set at 5700 rpm and when I flip a switch on the dash sending 12volts to the box by a particular wire it goes to the other rpm limit that is set at 2500 rpm . There was no balast resister in the old system .but Mallory has a shorting plug that elinates the box and a resister is needed when that is used. the directions said that the presence of a resister would not affect the operation of the system ( them telling me that it didn't take much power to operate).There is a small message saying that some racing application may operate without the balast resister.I'm gettin tired of swapping plugs , cleaning etc. I need to determine If the fouled plugs are causing the missing==to much gasoline. Or is the missing causeing the fouled plugs== Ignition system failing.None of this was obvious when ideling or reving in neutral like during cam breakin which lasted for periods of twenty minutes three times, in close sucsession in the alley with a rented fan stuffed in the nose after warm up. It only happened when in gear under way.