[JLMounce]

Had some time this afternoon to play around with the car after doing some work on it late last weekend and this week.

I replaced the fuel pump along with a complete rebuild, including new gaskets, internal return lines and wiring pigtails. Additionally I swapped out the coil for a known food Blaster 2 coil and reverified that the rotor phasing wasn't out. The lockout mechanism on this Summit Billet distributor has a small amount of play in it, but nothing that is creating an issue where the rotor paddle isn't directly under the cap terminal at loaded ignition advance.

I can't yet be 100% certain this has done the trick, but the car did perform much better. I can't yet go full throttle as I've reset the complete learn on the system and it needs some time to adapt to the changes.

Prior to this work I took the advice of Paul K as well as Steve C and did some troubleshooting on the ignition system itself. Idling and free reving in the dark, there is no arcing apparent in any of the plug wires or their boots, including the coil to cap wire. Without load on the engine, I was able to bring free revs up to above 5000 rpm and hold them there for over 5 seconds without a hint of a miss.

I do think that I had a failing fuel pump or a dying coil, possibly both. Considering the engine will rev all the way to 5000 rpm and beyond without load leads be to believer there is not a valvetrain related issue here, which I'm certainly thankful for. It appears to have only been load dependent.

For good measure I'm going to purchase a new set of plug wires as these ones were installed at the same time as the FiTech back in 2015. I'll grab a NIB Blaster 2 coil while I'm at it to keep as a spare.

I'll update again as I get some miles on the car, but hopefully this chapter is closed and I can enjoy the driving season!