rookie's tune-up day

[0X01B8]

So, today was 'see if I can get it tuned better' day.  Specs are:  440, 750? carter afb, purple shaft cam, electronic ignition.  I think the cam is two steps bigger than the M.P. suggested stock resto cam; it's lumpier than I wanted but I remember getting a great deal on it and the engine guys said it would work nice.  Anyway, initial timing is about 12-15 btdc.  I've never had any problem with detonation so I left it as is.  I hooked up a vac gauge and a tic-toc-tac.  Fully warmed up it seemed happy idling at around 1100 rpm.  It would die out when I went much below 900.  I did the idle mixture screw routine and the best I could get was a wildly fluctuating 12-13 on the vac gauge.  It ended up about 1 turn out on both screws.

It starts much better now when hot.  I used to have to almost floor the gas and it would fire up on about the 6th crank.  Now it starts on the 2nd/3rd crank without touching the gas so I'm pleased with that.  Also, occasionally it would run-on a little after I shut it off.  It hasn't done that yet.  WOT, is pretty much like it used to be, which is fine with me.  My favorite thing is to floor it around 25.  It downshifts to 1st and usually chirps the tires, shifts into 2nd around 40ish, chirps the meats again, then shifts out of 2nd at about 80-85.  Sounds great too, I highly recommend the hemi repro mufflers, BTW.

Is the cam causing the crazy vacuum fluctuation and does the 12-13 sound about right?  If I had to guess I would say its the P4286677 - 272/272 0.455/0.455 cam in the MP catalog.  I think there's more I could do to get it to run even better but that's for another day.

BTW, I almost forgot just how much attention a Charger gets on the road - "everybody's looking at me!"  But you guys already knew that.

Thanks for reading.  Here's a crappy camera phone picture from today.

[Silver R/T]

nice charger

[Plumcrazy]

BTW, I almost forgot just how much attention a Charger gets on the road - "everybody's looking at me!"  But you guys already knew that.

Youll get use to it.