Oof. This is not like cooking; following a recipe you saw in a magazine is almost guaranteed not to get you where you want to be. Keep in mind that magazines exist to put reader eyes in front of advertisements; the articles are just the bait. And often the articles are really just ads themselves.
No…no, they really did not. It is not possible in an 8-page PDF to explain anywhere near everything involved in a project like this. It would have gone a lot better for you if you had stopped in here and said "Hey, I saw this article; does this look like a good plan to follow for my car?". Then someone would have asked you for details about what you want the car to do/not-do/do differently/all those questions I mentioned before.
You had one already! The car was built with one.
Okeh, so you have put a large pile of money (+ time + effort) into a large pile of parts, and you're still right where you were before. Don't you think it might have gone better to post details of the running/driveability problems and worked through systematic diagnosis to find and fix the problem, learning about the car (and cars in general) as you went along?
Throwing parts at a car problem isn't how to fix it, it's how to get broke and frustrated.
"Coil not making enough fire" is pretty much not a thing. Coils can go bad, and if symptoms actually indicate yours might be bad and you happen to have a spare on the shelf, swapping it in can be a quick shortcut to a fix at best (low-stakes gamble at worst), but if you're buying parts to swap in on a wild guess, it usually won't end well.
Throwing more parts at a car problem still doesn't work. Remember, these cars ran fine with basic points-condenser ignitions when they didn't need repair. They did not run poorly because of an inadequate ignition system.
Yes, it really is. Fraudulently marketed junk.
"They" say a lot of things; you got lied to.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Dude, stop doing this. You cannot run up a credit card bill big enough to compensate for not knowing what you're doing. Again, I'm not trying to dunk on you; nobody's born knowing how to repair old cars. But the problems you're having are only going to get worse, the more you spend on ill-advised parts.
This is an ill-advised part. So is that fuel pressure regulator.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I posted the plan and the parts list, and referenced the article at the beginning of this thread in August 2023. I didn’t follow the article exactly because I got input here that lead me to the Edelbrock 4bbl. Everyone who commented on the parts list said it looked good.

I started the project after the 1bbl Carter carb failed and we were not able to get it back to life after a rebuild.

I only did the carb, intake, and exhaust - didn’t seem like a crazy amount of mods. And I didn’t buy the new dizzy and coil (which were aLeo on the original list) until my mechanic thought the old one might had been the problem.

I was just coming back here looking for help getting it dialed In. Yr telling me the distributor was crab, I did ask a year ago.

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//DRATS

Oh. And a $180 starter. Which, was not on the list and maybe I didn’t need, but was recommended to me by another expert. But - I gotta tell ya, the car starts up way better than it ever did before.

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//DRATS

When you did this swap, did it run Ok after that? Or was it not running well before that and the swap did not fix the problems you were having?

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

Ok. Story time. Let me break down everything in as much detail as I can remember.

My wife purchased the car in 1999 with her dad at an auction in Carlisle. It was her first car. The car had been running pretty fine for years. I would stop short of saying great. But I think it was running well enough. For a while it was our only car. I’ve driven it between GA and NYC 3 times. (fun story - one time the alternator bolt broke on the Jersey turnpike at 2 am driving up from GA and I was able to attach it using a coat hanger wire I found in the trunk long enough to limp it the last 60 miles home).

It’s a little hard to say it if it was in perfect running order because it was so low power. It never idled great. It always kinda jumped around a bit.. But it accelerated smoothly enough. We could cruise at 70mph on the highway. I don’t have another stock 1bbl slant six to compare it too. But I had several mechanics work on it over the years and just trumped the performance issues up to "this is the way this car was designed".

This was the case till the car sat in a garage for about two years. We had moved to a new apartment and had to park it off site. One thing led to another (locked the ignition key in the trunk accidentally and it took a while to get it out - had a lock smith come buy, I tried to pick it - had to take out the back seat, also Covid, death, and life) and a bunch of time went by and she hadn’t been cranked. I had put some Sta-bil in her while she was there so I thought she would be ok. In 2021 I got the key out of the back, attached some jumper cables to the battery, put some fresh gas in her, and tried to crank her up. No dice. The garage had a roof leak at some point and moisture had gotten under the car cover and there was some new rust and even moss in the engine bay (around the balancer and the bottom of the motor).

Now - reminder. I lived in an apartment at the time with no onsite parking. I didn’t have a place to tinker on a car. It wasn't allowed in the garage. So I had the car towed to my mechanic.

On My Mechanic: I trust him implicitly. He’s been working on my cars since 2010. Including the cuda. I have a modified Subaru that I autocrossed with the SCCA for a few years. He is from Malaysia, and was the head mechanic on a racing team there. He learned his trade there, where European cars from the 1960’s were common (mini coopers) - so he has experience with cars from the era. Also, he’s a friend. He doesn’t charge me all the time for simple work and we give each other Christmas cards. He would never try to screw me.

So, back to the story - I towed the cuda to him. The battery was totally dead and had to be replaced. She would crank after that - but ran very rough - he came back and told me that the carb was bad. So he rebuilt it (he's also rebuilt it in 2012 so I know he could do it). I got it back but It didn’t run right. It was expelling a lot of white smoke. I took it back to him and he said he thought it was too far gone a needed to be replaced. So I went down the rabbit hole of looking for a new 1bbl carb. I think I actually posted here looking for one at the time. Ended up buying one from eBay. We got it and there was a problem with it. I think there was a plate or maybe a floater that was missing? Sorry I can’t remember exactly. Anyway - he ended up fabricating something to get it to work. But it still didn’t run right. Took it back and he was still pointing to the carb as the issue. I think we got a third carb form eBay at this point and it ran poorly still. Lots of white smoke. Also the battery kept draining (I know this had nothing to do with the carb).

So - I didn't want to waste my money on another ebay risk. So, we talked about what it would take to go with the 2bbl setup and get a brand new carb. I originally was going to go with an OEM 2bbl Super Six manifold, but after getting burned old parts - I thought it would be better to go the mod route and support Aussie Speed who were making cool slant six performance parts. I liked the idea because the car was so slow and we do have to drive it on the freeway in NYC -- people get rather aggressive. Having power when you need it would make if feel more safe. Besides -- I always felt like she deserved to breathe. I felt like she was being strangled by the tiny exhaust and carb wanted to open that motor up. And also, i think a throaty awesome sounding slant six on a yellow car with a floral top and interior would be fun and unique.

That’s about the time I started doing more research, read a bunch of article, watched a bunch of peoples YT build projects, and put together a list (including links to all my articles and research). I posted the google doc to this thread with the parts list and the plan. Took the feedback (thank you), made modifications to the list, and over the course of several months I purchased the parts one at a time. Then sent her to my mechanic for the job.

Now, reminder, at this point, my guy who has never done me wrong was still saying the issue was the carb. , and I had no reason to not trust him. That's why I redid the intake and exhaust. To get a new carb with more than 1bbl, I needed a new manifold. If I was gonna take off the manifold, might was well do the exhaust manifold and the exhaust pipe and muffler.

So, my mechanic put the parts on, but, it was still having issues getting to run smoothly. It wasn't smoking anymore. But, he said it was running rich and he couldn't get it to lean out. He thought the problem was the electric choke on the 1901 - “might have been defective” - so he returned it and got the 1905 with a manual choke. It was noticeably better, but he was still having issues getting it tuned. He did a bunch of stuff we talked about here already - gapped the valves and did the timing best he could with the balancer rusty (hard to find the marks) and he did a smoke test to look for vacuum leaks. At that point we talked and we thought maybe there was an ignition issue. That’s when I bought the Performance Distributors dizzy, the firewire, and coils and shipped it to him. He put it on and he said that did the trick. He dialed in more tuning and then I came to pick it up.

But when I picked it up - it was choking at low speeds. Now, I believe him that it was running good before that moment. But when I dove it out to the lot, it would only ride smooth once it got above 25 mph. Like - perfection. But at low speeds it was a total dog. It felt unsafe. And it got worse the more I drove it. My thought was maybe it was smoothing out when it switched to the secondaries?

I let my guy know and he said “I wouldn’t know what else’s to do at this point” which was sad - he’s never give up before - but he’s had it for 7 months. (We also rebuild the transmission. There were shavings in the pan and it had been slipping for years - I was putting off the expense . It gears perfectly now).

This is when I came back to the internet and the 1969 Chrysler Service manual I purchased. (I have a house now). And I started to look up "Issues" to follow the diagnostic steps in the manual. But I wasn't sure about the vocabulary. I didn’t know how to describe the issue in order to try to diagnose it. Hence the original question and the video (is this sputtering? Is this misfire??). I read a few article / vids that pointed back to the electrical system for “sputtering” at low speeds. Uncle Tony’s Garage described what I think sounded like what I was expecting and he said more than not - it’s a bad connection to the plugs or a bad coil. This is when I spotted that the coil was only getting 7 volts and needed 12 and the ballast resistor was still in place.

I removed the resistor and sliced the 4 wires together to try to get the coil the volts it needed. Also, and this should had been the first thing I checked, the choke was stuck partly closed. I didn’t actually realize it wasn’t open all the way when I first looked at it. I didn't know it should be 90º - it was more like 60º. This is probably exactly why it was a dog at low speeds and my mechanic thought it was running great. I detached the choke cable from the clamp to give it a little more movement and fixed that issue. I noticed some places it looked like the wires to the ballast Resistor and the voltage regulator were patched with electrical tape. I re-spliced those patches with Sopoby wire connectors to ensure a good connection. Also pulled the boots back on the spark plug wires and made sure the connects were making contact. After that, the sputtering improved a lot but didn’t go away completely like it did before, it never got smooth any more. Just struggled to speed - all the way to 50 mph - which is probably where it tops out now. Atleast now it's consistent!

I looked for shorts in the wires. Checked all my cables. Bought a timing light to check that. The timing mark is about 1" below the edge of the plate that has the marks on it. I took a volt meter to test several parts of the system and noticed the volts were bouncing around. Now, given my inexperience, I wasn’t sure if it was normal, or if maybe something was up with how I was probing. I did not write down the variance, but it may have been as much as two or 3 V This also could be psychosomatic, but it seems like the engine idle was going up and down in time to the volt fluctuation. I replaced the solid state voltage regulator (the cover had come off of it and the circuit was exposed) with a new mechanical one to see if that was maybe the issue.

I still think the 650 cfm carb isn't helping. I can still return it so I’m gonna do that and replace with the 1902, once that's on, I'm going to continuity down the process of elimination.

I think that’s everything. Please don’t judge me for trying to find the issue the way I did. I looked for guidance here, YT, and in the service manual. Because of my experience lack I need help determining if something seemed normal / also looking for vocabulary help so I could look up the issues in the manual and so I knew how to describe the issue when I posted / searched for help.

My dad always said to me “there’s no better way to learn than through experience, but the best teacher is bad experience.” This is me getting experience. I love to figure things out. I know I will get this car running great.

Thanks again for the help.

EDIT: Wrote this on the subway and walking on my phone. Fixed typos and broken sentences.

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//DRATS

This could indicate a blown head gasket which would make it a dog power wise and poor idle...etc. Black smoke is fuel. Blue is oil. Did you or the mechanic ever do a compression test? If not pull the plugs and do one. Report back with readings.

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

Ah - yeah the smoke was always blue white. I didn’t check compression but will ask him if he did. I think there was oil on the plugs when I checked them Sunday. Not sure if that tells you anything. Oh, I actually posted a video of the motor running from 2018 here on a prior thread. If this helps - this is how it use to run. https://youtu.be/5dmuJJQrdUE?si=zJUpCjgS8Fr3tLCj

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The mechanic said 90 psi average. I can get a gauge and test again if we need a reading per cylinder. That seems low, but, is that critically low?

To add more detail around the smoke - I’m not getting white smoke since Loon did the install with the new carb. I get some black smoke when the choke is closed that thins out after I open it up. In the video I posted a few days ago I have the camera on the exhaust pipe. The car was idle well to my ear. The smoke happened with the old carbs and really was only bad when the car was sitting for a while between cranks and only happened badly when I first started it.

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//DRATS

You need to know if they are all close to that range. Or if one is much lower..etc.

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

Confirmed, he said they were all close to 90 psi. Nothing significantly higher or lower.

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//DRATS

Welp, I just installed a carburetor for the first time! The 1902 on and I'm hearing improvements. Generally it went well (damn little washers kept dropping) but I discovered some things along the way.

Here is a new video : https://youtu.be/65lUC7KGJBo

I think it idles pretty good - seems much better than before. I'm getting less of the dropping of power sound when I open it up. The timing mark also seems way more stable and it reduced the timing back to where the marker bracket is.
HOWEVER it seems like I need an adapter for the throttle. When I push the throttle pedal all the way down the throttle lever on the carb barley moves. So I can't test drive it yet. This would had been true for the 1905 which, might explain some of the issues from the old carb.

Internet people said that the Edelbrock carb is really more configured form a GM car - and that the geometry of the Chrysler throttle is different. There is a different location on the carb to mount the cable to compensate but you need an adapter. I reached out to Summit and they said this one would do: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/edl-1481. It also looks like some folks are mounting to the larger whole here:



I also ordered a new return spring because that one is so rusty.

Let met know what ya think about how the car is looking and sounding and if that bracket / adapter is correct. Also, does anyone have a photo to the marks on the timing bracket? I can't read mine from the rust.

Thanks

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//DRATS

Think I found another issue relating to the throttle, not opening completely. Looks like the connector in on the Lokar Throttle cable Is preventing the gas pedal from opening all the way. Here is a video. https://youtu.be/LngBkFhzeF0?si=x5a7c7HXomAm614a It looks like the throttle pedal was cut at the top in order to get this thing to connect with this end.

Should I take this end off and try to connect it a different way? Maybe I could bend the arm out

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//DRATS

I also just realized the compression test was done before the valve lash tune. Am I right in understanding that that tune could effect compression?

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//DRATS

Hi forum. So, I did the valve lash and made some tweaks. Then I got a pressure gauge kit and have new compression test results

6 - 108 psi
5 - 101 psi
4 - 100 psi
3 - 105 psi
2 - 100 psi
1 - 100 psi

Low, but I think still in the operable range. Correct?

Put in new NGK plugs. Removed the crush washers this time (champions were in there with the washer still on). I got a piston stop, confirmed my TDC mark by rotating till stop on both sides of the stroke. Marked my balancer then measuring the center between. Got a timing light that does RPMs and dialed in about 750 at idle then set the timing to about 8° - 10° where it seems to sound best.

Still seems to be running rich. The plugs I put in yesterday were black. I cleaned them up and put them back in. I dropped the accelerator pump pin down to the leanest setting already - I’m thinking I’ll need to get the tune kit from Edelbrock and put in thicker metering rods and lighter springs.

Anything else I could try to lean it out?

Thanks!

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//DRATS