[McGalliard]

More update...

Spark was lost, so I guessed and sent out the CDI box to be rebuilt with new electronics. Got it back, installed, and after a little effort it started up again... then died. Then started and then died. Did that a few times, then ran for a few minutes. Noticed that the tach needle was erratic so I thought the rebuilt CDI was bad because I didn't have that problem before. Guessed again and got a used, not-rebuilt CDI box and... no spark. Turned out my points had gone bad. Now, this is where it gets interesting...

Temporarily fixed the points with 1200 grit sandpaper as a stop-gap measure and for troubleshooting purposes. Reinstalled and set the gap with a feeler gauge at 0.014" because I didn't have a dwell meter. Everything was running and even better than before! Super exciting, until...

NOS Bosch points come and get installed. Again, set by feeler gauge but to 0.012", which I had read somewhere. Adjusted the timing, which I hadn't done before. It was WAY ahead of what it should be (if I recall correctly). Car didn't run as well as before. A little hesitation and sluggish here and there. I figured this would be fixed with proper dwell angle setting. So, got the dwell meter in hand and discovered the dwell angle was way high, like upper 40s. Spec book says 38 +/- 3. So I open the points gap to drop the dwell. Get it down to 41, so upper limits of spec. Then I started having popping at idle (out the exhaust (99% sure)). Messed around with points, setting and resetting, and timing and I can't get that to go away now. It's reduced, but still there with throttle.

So, who's got a foolproof order of operations to setting these things and returning to normal performance?!