[Jim Nilsen]

I have been trying to get the tune to get some acceleration without popping and have run the acceleration tables all the way up to try and get it to work, the ve table keeps wanting to like things one way on the way up from idle and another way on the way down. The Rhoads lifters are playing havoc with the timing to adjust the idle speed thru the ecu and the list goes on. I get one thing to work better and and others get worse.

I am learning more and more everyday about tuning and find I am practicing on the worst case scenario of an engine. The cam is just too radical and has no low end to work with even with the rhoads lifters to help.The good side of all this is I am learning a lot about tuning.

I have ordered up a cam from Comp Cams, I went with one the XFI flat tappet cams that has good midrange and excellent top end. These are made for fuel injection and should eliminate the problem caused by the stock car cam.

Any other problem I might still have should show up when taking it all apart. A couple of the guys at the Hotrod Shop think I may have a cam lobe or 2 going flat. When doing the lash tuesday again to check I couldn't see any signs of it and the oil when I changed it didn't have particals in it but that doesn't mean it isn't starting to happen.

I am getting thoughts of putting on my 2.02 heads that are polished ,ported and cc'd but they could use a little freshening up and time and $$ is still the evil demon here like always. So much to do and I just want to get it running good before I finish up other things.

What's a guy to do sometimes?