Question about stock air cleaner system, 1979 Cordoba

[Darter6]

Hi James,I too owned a 79 at one point. This is just my 2 cents on the subject.
Mine was a 300 E58 with factory dual exhaust 4 bbl.
Car had about 80K miles.Had hard start problems at random. Left me stranded several times.As stated above I did the conversion from Lean Burn using the Summit kit.Removed the computer from the air filter housing.Cured my starting problems but no gain in performance.BUT doing that the factory Thermoquad does not have a port for the vacuum advance.I swapped to a 1973 Thermoquad.You can put a port into the carb you have. I believe there is a You Tube video on it.Or swap the carbs base plate.What did make a big difference in performance was changing out the exhaust system.My car had 3 cats and were plugged up.It would fall on it's face at wide open throttle.The system was bought from Tube Technologies Inc. TTI for short.I didn't make any internal engine changes.Sorry I ever sold that car. Just a few photos for you.You did say that you don't have to have emission inspection so you can free up the exhaust even if you went with single..

 

[PH27L7]

I think Chrysler was still using the nylon sprocket timing gears in 1979? That's where I'd start, and the next project for my '69 with almost 60,000 miles.

Plastic timing chain pieces in oil pan?

If this is a factory E58 190HP, it should have a factory double roller chain. Wear should be negligible. There is great info on the workings of the lean burn system in the FSM, if you are going to retain it I highly recommend you read and understand it. As I recall there are several inputs to the computer (essentially an ECM) that control both timing & mixture. It's a cave man OBD without the full injection or feedback system. It is not ideal for performance. I did a conversion some years back with an Edelbrock Performer (non-RPM) & 1306 carb and it ran much better. The factory cam has pathetic specs & a mild upgrade is recommended as well as shaving the heads a bit to up the compression. Be very careful to duplicate the original kickdown measurements regardless of carb. Getting rid of the restrictive cats will also help as mentioned.