I feel like I've been beaten a dead horse on this one, and it's frustrating me to no end. I found out the delta cam I installed with the rebuilt head was entirely wrong. I talked to the company that made the cam and the said it wouldn't run right with the computer and fuel injection. I ordered a 268 torker cam from engnbldr which helped out a lot, but still hesitates on acceleration.

Would a stock cam be more lenient on timing?

I've micked with the timing by advancing it one tooth on the cam sprocket. It runs 50% better advanced like this. I can't get the dot on the cam sprocket at 12o'clock. Does this mean I have lost TDC due to head shortening?

I also adjusted the air flow meter to give it more gas and this helped also. The engine acted like it wanted more gas up to a certain point. The intake is sucking air like you wouldn't believe. When accelerated hard, the intake sounds like the exhaust off one of those sport compact cars.

I've had it up to 70 mph in 4th gear. It loses power in 5th gear and has a hard time going above 65. The engine does not perform like it did or should. It's running like it has water in the distributer.

Rule #1 to having a powerful engine that lasts more than 5K miles....NEVER OPEN AND ADJUST THE AIRFLOW METER!!!
Even LCE who popularized (is that a word??) the "Free HP" trick admit that it should only be done with a heavily modified engine to get it to run. I tried it out after heavy engine modifications...4 weeks later I was pulling the motor. Want details?? In short..put it back where it was.

Cam sprocket dot is used for alignment during installation only. When assembled before turning the engine it should be under a bright link in the chain and just left of center....not at 12:00! The cam dowel pin that the timing gear slips over needs to be at 12:00. This is TDC #1 for the camshaft/topend.

Messing with 1 tooth advance/retard is playing with fire but doable.

Delta Cams? Been talking to Johnny?? LOL I'll quit now before I hurt someones feelings.

If the engine is still not running correctly with the 268C then your problem is elsewhere. What all was done to the engine? Rebuild? Head and or block shaved? Ive done just about everything there is do with a 22R-E to break them and to make them.
My best guess is tuning hasnt been "massaged" and that something is off in the geometry of the entire topend assembly- distributor included.

With one of EBs cams, EGR must be buffered or blocked, warm idle speed pushed up over 1K rpm's (but not much more) and valves set per HIS specs. Ignition timing needs to be at factory spec (5* BTDC) and the airflow meter unphuckered with. A couple of hours fine tuning, test driving and more adjusting will be required to get it dialed in.

Keep in mind if you are running a stock exhuast system, the engine will back up and choke worse than a fat chick trying to poop after eating 5 lbs of cheese. If the motor cant fart properly then it dont matter how good it can breath in air. If the exhuast is restricted...it aint leaving the combustion chamber and not letting fresh air/fuel charge in.

Lotsa variables involved! Start with basics...what is new or changed? Was cam just an upgrade or part of a topend or full rebuild?? Whats your engines specs right now IE: timing, warm idle etc.

~Darin <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/baby.gif" alt="" />

i just go a street rv head and torkr cam from eb and my engine goes back in tomorrow. you have to mess w/ the egr valve w/ his cam? what do you mean buffered? restricted a little bit?

>>>*Evening! I believe you emailed me earlier, here is some more info that might be helpful.

One neat feature of our 268C/Torkr design is it is very computer friendly. Only 218 degrees duration @ .050" lobe lift, and only 2 degrees of overlap, volume is made up in ramp speed.
So when all is right, intake manifold vacuum is normal, thus idle quality is perfectly normal. This means the stock settings for the system will be correct, all others will be wrong.

You explain that you have the cam timing one full tooth advanced, I can think of no situation where this would be correct, or would perform properly. What this does tell me is very likly the cam timing is late when setup on the mark due to the head being surfaced. It would need to be quite a bit I would think, like .030" or perhaps more since advancing one tooth seems to help as you report.

This does complicate things since the actual figure is unknown.

You mentioned an intake noise in your email, noise of this type is usually what we call "standoff" or actual reversion in the intake air horn itself. The common description is of "air rushing" or a puttering/purring noise. Sometimes a pop sound as the throttle is quickly opened can be a symtom. The cause could be a large valve timing error, or even one or more valves bent creating a passage into the intake as the piston moves up the bore. A very poor compression seal due to a bad valve job will also do this. From your description I suspect one or both of these two may be the case.

One thing is very sure, you cannot operate the engine this way for long without damage. I would suggest you get some foundation testing done, a leakdown test and compression test are good places to start.

It may well be that asking around to see if you can find a good local tech with knowledge and equipment may be helpful, I would think the fuel savings alone from getting it right would easily pay the cost.

I have been known to ask for help many times myself when some odd problem beats my poor abilities.

You are welcome to email anytime, I will be glad to try and help if I can....*EB

Thanks for all your help Ted, I really appreciate it. Yeah, the popping noise in the intake is exactly whats happening. When I take the accelerator from idle to full throttle it makes that sucking/popping noise.

I think you're right in needing to take it to an actual mechanic. That's not as easy as it sounds in Currituck/Outer Banks NC. I've talked to a few of the honest ones around here and either they don't have time or aren't really interested b/c I have done most of the work. I don't neccessarely need them to fix it, I just need to rule some things out.

What other problems could be caused by the engine running like this?

This whole mess started with a blown headgasket. I bought a rebuilt head from a guy that bought it from a company called Sunwest. The head looked really nice as far as I could tell. He bought it for $700 and I got it from him for around $400. He sold b/c he didn't have time to mess. It is supposed to be a little more high performance. I'm sure it has been shaved, but I don't know how much. I can't find Sunwest. They used to sell stuff on ebay, but I haven't seen them on there for a while.

When I put the rebuilt head on I installed a new timing kit w/ steel rails from EB, water pump, radiator, fuel filter, catalytic converter, and all new gaskets.

I do still have the stock exhaust on it. I was waiting to get the truck running right before I put more money into it. Would the engine idle rough if this was part of the problem?

I tried massaging it, that didn't work. I've advanced the distributor one tooth, retarded it frontwards and backwards upside down and sideways. I don't have any specs, I don't have a timing gun, I don't know what I'm doing.

>>>*As an engine operates, there is a controlled fire on every cycle. As with any fire, if it gets out of control, excess heat is created. This can burn pistons, valves, actually melt things in there.
This may or may not show up as coolant temperature increase since that system can handle excess heat to a point.

Yet certain areas of the head/block will get too warm, the usual result is the designed in weak link fails, this is the head gasket of course.

My best guess is you have leaks at the valves. Repair that, get the compression to normal, set the cam timing/ignition timing back to where it belongs and she should run. The 268C/Torkr will operate a couple of degrees retarded on the cam timing, it is our 270/430 that gets into a snit if it is timed late, that one needs to be on the button......*EB

I took off the exhaust from the cat back...no improvement. At this time timing is back where it should be and AFM is back to stock.

Interesting development though; I took off the throttle body, cleaned it up, and removed the TPS to check it out and adjust it. I gave the whole assembly a few dirty looks put it back on and started the truck. While the truck was running I rotated the TPS. When I ran the TPS all the way clockwise it started running great. It was idling smoothe and throttle response was pretty quick. I took it for a ride and it ran strong at the start. It was still missing a little, but I was gettin happy. "Almost there," I thought. I pulled out onto the highway and it just took a dump. Right back to where I started. Could this be a sign the TPS is bad? I mean, the truck ran good for about 2 minutes, I could have lived with it for a while.

The idle has started jumping all over the place now. It started to do this before I did all this work on it. Sometimes it will rev really high and keep increasing in rpm overtime and then just cut back to normal. Or, it will rev up for about one second and drop back down with a little cough at the end.

When I had the throttle body off I was messing with the injectors and noticed that they rotate. Is that normal? Is that how they work or do they just have play like that. I never thought to watch if they move during acceleration until now.

I've been thinking of getting an adjustable cam gear to see if it would help any since it runs terrible at "right" timing mark and a little better one tooth advanced. I just don't want to keep throwing money into it if it is something wrong with the head.

whenu adjusted the tps you could have went to far so it wont gett a reading i be the you will get the same results if you unplug it. it puts the computer into a "limp home" mode. PROBALY not your problem

I put a mild LC engineering cam in my 22R back in the day, never ran right after that, i wrecked it a few weeks later, best thing that ever happened to me...put full coverage on it and cross your fingers.