For those of you who don't know, I've spent the last 3 weeks wrenching on my 76 Monte. Several main reasons were because of a badly cracked flex plate and a bad motor mount. I pulled the engine out and while it was out I repainted the block and installed my new cam and lifter kit. Its a Comp Cams XE268H Extreme Energy Cam with .477/.480 lift. This project should have taken a week or less, but since Oregon weather is what it is, rain is abundant and nice/decent days are a premium. Finally, after having to tackle several other issues trying to start the car: ransmission line fitting was cross threaded and out of 9 auto parts stores and 2 hardware stores, 1 place carried the correct fitting... NAPA; starter wouldn't turn over which turned out to be dirty battery cable terminals, engine wouldn't fire due to the distributor being 180 degrees off from where it should have been. Finally got the engine fired and cam broken in Thursday. Had an oil leak from the passenger valve cover because the new gasket somehow got boogered up.

Anyway, took the car for a test drive that night and encountered several problems. The brakes had no power due to the vacuum, the transmission didn't want to shift into high gear when floored, the power steering needs to be bled and the car needs an alignment.

Today I installed a new vacuum canister which solved the brake problem. I also fixed the transmission modulator vacuum line and added a quart of fluid which fixed the tranny issue, I hope. The only problem now is the idle. It idles fine in neutral and park, but wants to die in drive and reverse. Any thoughts?

 

you can try the idel but it might be the carb needs adjusted again after the new cam etc... So i would attempt the idel but if it is more then a grand in park i would sugest doing the car adjustments and or rebuilding it also.

Also your timing can cause this issue to.

 

Congratulations on getting the car back together.

 

Ditto Mickey's answer. That would be the best stuff to check.

 

I figured out the problem with my idling issues at the PDXCGP club mod day yesterday. I had the charcole canister line and the vacuum advance line switched around. They were plugged into the wrong ports on the carburetor. After switching them, re-adjusted the timing and everythings good now. I got initial timing set to 11 BTDC, but I think I'll drop it to 10.