[79firebird_99TA]

Well...I located the source of the vacuum leak and it will now idle on it's own - for the most part. It's running a bit rough though and is missing some when reving. It's definitely lopey and sounds pretty wicked at idle.

I'm a little confused about the timing. When trying to adjust the timing, the mark on the damper was showing like 25 degrees advanced (without vacuum to the vacuum advance - of course.) I knew this couldn't be right because when I tried to retard it - it was way too sluggish. It's almost like that mark is not true on the damper. If I tried to set it by ear just to rough it in at idle - it was way too far advanced by it's inability to turn over when cranking. I saw another mark on the damper (looks makeshift) that makes me think that someone knew that the original mark was wrong - or something. The throttle response is too sluggish when setting the timing with that mark as well.

So I've got two issues: timing and running a bit rough when reving.

Could it be my spark plug gap. Should they gap at .035 which is the spec for the `72 400 or .060 which is some of the later V8s?