Thread: Recent FE 390 Rebuild. Engine Bogging when 4 Barrel kicking in. New Carb installed

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Do you still have the point type dist' if so check the dwell if you don't have a dwell meter use a feeler gage if you put new points in did you lube the cam and get the screws tight too small of a gap gives too long of coil saturation and not enough discharge time and will cause the problem you describe

I guess what doesn't make sense to me is that just last week me and my brother were testing the power of this motor at my expense of course and it was just blasting through all gears and not bogging at all although I never floored it at a dead stop. A few days later I get in it and it started the bogging thing and I never made any new adjustments prior to taking off. Fuel tank is new. I guess I'm a little spoiled with the last carb I got from Edelbrock. It was the same performer carb but a 750cfm. My Nova has a 454 4 speed with a performance cam and I installed it and proceeded to do burnouts and enjoy the heck out of my car with no problems whatsoever. Maybe I got lucky with that one. I don't have any specks on the cam I have in this engine so I'm not sure how to go about tuning this set up. The engine is equipped with a high performance HEI distributor by the way. By Blowby problem seems to be slowly getting better and the smoking coming out of the exhaust seems to be sporadic. Hoping the break in will solve those problems but I'm still nervous about everything. If anyone could explain the best way to fine tune this puppy I would love to apply to this beast. I know that I shouldn't be gunning it too much this early in the break in period so I will try to restrain myself. Yah right.

Originally Posted by stotzbotz

I don't have any specks on the cam I have in this engine so I'm not sure how to go about tuning this set up.

Originally Posted by stotzbotz

It has a high performance cam, solid lifters

How did you set your valves? What are the valve clearances set at?

The person who had the car before me was a little strange but he did give me some info about the car's engine. He told me to adjust the valves at 18 on the intake and 20 on the exhaust. It hasn't been adjusted since we first did it after the rebuild initial set up so maybe it's a good idea to go back and re adjust the valves even though there hasn't been more than roughly 150 miles put on the car.