[SRT8-X]

For all who have read and commented, I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. I wanted to point out the sequence and a few concerns I have that don't make sense to me regarding trying to diagnose this issue. Please see below and let me know if this changes any suggestions or opens up for more. Thanks again, y'all are great.

First drive, the 327 had an original GM OEM HEI with Taylor plugs and Autolite A86 plugs. It had a period correct Carter AFB 9605S 600 CFM carb with an 10" diameter 3" tall round K&N filter. It had a cheap parts store fuel pump with inline filter from tank, hard steel fuel line from pump to carb. Open headers were run while tuning and moving around in the driveway / garage then exhaust was installed. The original wiring was present at this time too. Below is a sequence of trouble shooting and upgrading the engine both trying to overcome this issue as well as upgrading for performance and aesthetics. With ALL changes below, this issue never improved. I'll group these as they were performed.

1. Rewired truck with Painless Performance full chassis wiring harness, replaced ignition switch, replaced battery with Optima Red Top

2. Added Power Brakes, Power Steering, changed all engine pulleys to Billet Specialties

3. Added 2" tall triangular Billet Specialties Air Cleaner, Added Hamburgers 1" spacer (originally to provide air cleaner clearance of the distributor), replaced valve covers with Chevrolet Performance Cast units and Billet Specialties PCV valve / breathers

4. Replaced distributor cap / coil with DUI / Performance Distributors 50k coil / cap / rotor

5. Replaced plug wires with DUI / Performance Distributors Live Wires

6. Replaced entire distributor with new DUI / Performance Distributors (same specs as above, 24° advance at 3000 RPM per build sheet), added zero gauge battery cables to starter and ground

7. Replaced Intake, Carb, Fuel Pump, Thermostat, Fuel Filters, Fuel Lines, Vacuum lines and ports, throttle cable, trans kick-down cable, throttle pedal

8. Replaced Spark Plugs

9. Replaced transmission modulator and power brake vacuum check valve at booster

10. Added DUI boot protectors at #7 & #8

Now to elaborate. Again, none of the above solved this problem. It seemed intermittent at times since the truck would start great cold, run decent cold but never had off the line good acceleration. I could drive 10 - 15 miles and run well, even taking off well at times but the longer I drove, the worse it would get. We went to a show last week and it drove excellent on the freeway at 75 MPH but could not get out of it's own way from a stoplight. Cruising at 35-50 MPH was fine too. Kick down was great. Idling was great. Any hard throttle from stand still would not do anything. Very light pressure on the pedal from a stop seemed to do better than even applying any additional throttle at that point.

The engine idle's on and is hard to start when it's warm. Cold starts are easy and effortless.

The baffling part is that it can run great for 10 minutes cruising then this situation occurs. And again, it's only in the 1000-2500 range. Beyond that it runs great. It's difficult to test every change to since it only happens under load but I'm trying. I will take all suggestions and try the carb settings / upgrades as well as resetting the timing at a lower RPM to see if this helps. It does act as if it's too far advanced based on the run-on and hard starts warm.

When adjusting the accelerator pump rod, when it comes out of the hole the engine immediately stalls. Is this normal? As soon as it's reconnected, she starts right back up with no problems. Can the choke setting do anything to driveablity or is this just at idle?

I'd like to upgrade heads and install a nice cam with roller rockers soon but I'm not ready to do this until this problem is identified as it will only make things worse unless of course the cam or valvetrain is the actual problem. Does anyone sense that the cam could be going flat or this could be a valve adjustment issue? I'm trying to rule everything else out before I go internal. I know low compression could be an issue too and will be checking this as well. Oil pressure is lower than I'd like at about 20-25 at idle and 35-40 cruising but that seems well within range albeit lower.