We brought our boss’ ’79 Jeep Cherokee to The Dyno Shop in Santee, California, for a tune-job hop-up. Since we were way impressed with the power and driveability that shop co-owner Mark MacNeil and technician Alex Huerta squeezed out of our 200,000-mile Ramcharger (“The Ultimate Tune-Up,” Mar. 2000), we were close to wetting ourselves with anticipation as to how much power they could squeeze out of Péwé’s freshly rebuilt AMC 360.
Despite the condition of the rest of the vehicle, the engine bay sports such niceties as an MSD 6A box and an electronic distributor and wires, as well as Edelbrock’s Performer cam, manifold, and carb package. The parts were good but just not set up correctly. The “iron warthog” suffered from a severe off-idle stumble, pinging, and dieseling at shutdown. Check out what the tune-up pros at The Dyno Shop were able to accomplish.