Others have made some very good suggestions about the possible source of your engine troubles. As someone said, the actual point gap is irrelevant so long as dwell is correct. But the gap/dwell mismatch may indicate worn distributor parts. I myself have experienced a stuck centrifugal advance and it totally took the power away from a brand C engine.
One thing to consider is the camshaft. Do you know exactly what grind was installed? This can be a big problem if a modern grind "emission" cam is installed since overlap is usually way too much. A friend experience "gutless wonder" performance from a purchased long block years ago and went nuts trying to determine the cause. The problem turned out to be the cam grind.
HTH, Pete in PA
From: "JAY D'ANGELO" <cadij@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: IML: Engine problems Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 05:46:04 +0000 Reply-To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Just put a brand new long block 413 in my 64 Imp Convt., but it doesn't idle
properly and is very sluggish off the line. We did a new PS unit, water pump, radiator, master brake cylinder, coil, points, condenser, cap, wires, plugs and an Edelbrock 1406.
We set the plug gap at 35, points at 16 and the dwell dropped to 21. I hooked up the vacuum advance hose to the driver side port on the carb and wired the electric choke thru the whatumacacallit on the firewall.
we set the timing to 10 and got it to idle smooth, then it would get rough in gear, like it had a vacuum leak. Then we were able to get it falrly smooth by readjusting the distributor and it roared in park. In gear, it's smooth but slow off the line and pings.
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