216 troubles

i have a 51 chevy with a 216. it idles fine and does good revving it up, but if i put the pedal to the floor it stumbles and fights its self especially ifi floor it at med to high rpms. any ideas? the cap,wires and dist are in good shape. my next guess is the carb(which sat 4ever) ****s or maybe timing.
thanks,

dan

 

Fuel filter might be clogged. My 235 had the same problem a while back and the filter was clogged with junk from the tank.

 

If you can, swap another carb on, see what happens. make sure the idle circuit isn't covered (notch in the gasket) otherwise it will never idle right and operate well at high rpms. I had horrible vacuum leaks, switched to a holley/weber, runs so smooth its worth looking out of place

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84292

I ended up getting the linkage sorted out, just a little bend here and there.

 

If it's a car that's been sitting around, make sure the mice didn't fill the muffler with seat stuffing and seeds! It happened to me one time.

 

Remove the tube from the side of the carb that goes to the vacuum advance at the base of the distributor. **** on it, release.. if your tongue or lip gets ****ed back into tube, you've ruled out the vacuum advance as a cause of your mid-range poor acceleration.

***uming you have the stock dizzy on there, take the distributor cap off, squirt just a little WD-40 down under the base plate that your points are attached to, this will provide the centrifugal advance within the distributor.

How's your timing? do your points just open when that little ball in the flywheel comes across the marker in the flywheel housing? If mine is timed wrong it'll idle nicely and go as long as I'm gentle with it but when the timing slips I know it...

 

plugged main jets. probably got a lot of **** built-up in the jet well. pull the main out and blow-em out ,and the p***ages, clean out the well and try it again. as long as you're there make sure that your bowl is full, could also have **** built-up behind needle and seat preventing bowl from filling.

 

OK - A real 'old-time' solution

Reverse the wires on cylinders 3 & 4, pull the air cleaner, start the engine
Open the throttle 3, 4, 5 times; you will be rewarded with a series of real nice back-fires from the carb, complete with a nice flame about a foot long

Put the plug wires back where they belong and see if things are better

I've actually done this (it was 1960) and sometimes it worked.............

The theory is that the backfiring can jar loose any minor plugs/clogs in the carburator p***ages, and sometimes you'd get lucky

 

I say definately timing.

 

thanks guys. i'll see if i can work on it sat. i actually have an extra carb to throw on and i'll reset timing.

 

i had the same trouble with mine until i replaced the distributor. the shaft was so wobbly it would miss points at higher rpms. get a rebuilt if you havent.

 

Probably want to disconnect the vacuum wiper hose before ya try this.

Bob

 

i replaced the carb. it still ****s at higher rpm's. i set timing. i think i might pull the distributor to lookfor wear. ugh. at elast i can get it around town for now. i might get someone to recheck my work. i've never done this before on these cars.