Olds / Berkeley setup question again

[painterdan32]

If you PM me, I'll try to stay with you on this. I gotta a lot goin on right now.
Most boats don't use vac. advance on dist. At WOT, there is not much vac. so you can't be sure what you are getting. Better to get rid of it and go for 34° - 36° total all in at about 3K rpm. Mine is locked at 36°, but my motor is a bit different from yours.
old
How do I dithch the vacum advance? Just plug it off and retime? I'm lost on this. Distributor has MSD guts in it already with rev limiter. is this not enough? Still wondering why I cant get factory horsepower out of better than factory parts.

[Old Guy]

Yup, just plug the vac. line at the manifold. I would check the insides of the dist. to make sure it's all solid (nothing flopping around. You will still have the mechanical advance which should help when starting. Make sure you have 34 - 36 deg total advance. It should be all in by 3K rpm.
I think you will see a noticable improvement if you put a Performer intake on it.
Can you call the folks who built the motor and find out what cam it has? I agree, you should be seeing better than what you're seeing. The cam can make a huge difference, even with lousy intake and exhaust.
When I built my motor, I used the cam recommended by Mondello. It ran about like yours. I called Mondello and told them what I had and that I expected a whole lot more for the money I spent. They sent a new cam and lifters. I made the change and it was a lot better. I'm NOT saying that you're have the same kind of deal......but.....who knows. Gotta start looking somewhere.
The builder should be able to say what power should be available, or at least a range based on carb, intake, and exhaust selection.

[painterdan32]

Yup, just plug the vac. line at the manifold. I would check the insides of the dist. to make sure it's all solid (nothing flopping around. You will still have the mechanical advance which should help when starting. Make sure you have 34 - 36 deg total advance. It should be all in by 3K rpm.
I think you will see a noticable improvement if you put a Performer intake on it.
Can you call the folks who built the motor and find out what cam it has? I agree, you should be seeing better than what you're seeing. The cam can make a huge difference, even with lousy intake and exhaust.
When I built my motor, I used the cam recommended by Mondello. It ran about like yours. I called Mondello and told them what I had and that I expected a whole lot more for the money I spent. They sent a new cam and lifters. I made the change and it was a lot better. I'm NOT saying that you're have the same kind of deal......but.....who knows. Gotta start looking somewhere.
The builder should be able to say what power should be available, or at least a range based on carb, intake, and exhaust selection.
Gona' try dealing with the timing first. Then start spending money this winter. It still runs well enough to at least get it out. Thanks.

[SmokinLowriderSS]

painterdan, if you can give me (either here or pm) the things you left out of your first post (cam specs, head casting numbers (for me to dig up airflow data) and compression ratio, I'll see what I come up with on Desktop Dyno for engine performance info. I'll assume that stock manifold is a dual-plane cross-H manifold.
The Ed. Performer RPM Air Gap is a good one ... with headers too.