I thought I would just toss something into this old thread. The other night we did some work on Dan's rpu, like hooking up the Lokar throttle and other minor stuff. We had started the car up the day before and it ran like it always did, like a clock (well, a very cammed up clock) However, when we restarted it this time it sounded like crap and was popping through the open headers......flames coming out too.

We immediately started thinking the worst, wiped cam lobe, bent pushrod, etc. We pulled the valve covers and everything looked great and the rockers all moved like they should. We pulled the plugs and did a compression test, and it was 180 across the board.

To get another opinion we called my Son Don and he asked how the plugs looked. They were black as we hadn't adjusted the fuel pressure down from 6 to the recommened 4.5 (Rochester tripower setup), so he suggested we clean them. I tossed them in the blast cabinet and reinstalled them. The motor fired like is should and the popping was totally gone. I would have never thought carboned up plugs could cause that kind of miss, but maybe the 10.5 compression is a factor. So this week I'll pick up a new set of plugs, and we have already bumped the fuel pressure down to 4 psi.

Sometimes we assume the worst has happened and it is just a minor problem.

Don