Hello I'm kind of new to the forum I have question I'm hoping you can help me with I have an sick 300. Here are the symptoms in the morning or after it's been sitting for will it runs like crap. If I try to hit gas it will sputter, misses, sometimes it dies. It runs like this till it warms up. I'm thinking it's the carb but a friend says it might timing. By the way its in a ford 78 van and it's the 1 barrel Any help is appriciated.

 

if it only does when cold could be your choke not working right timing it would do it all the time

 

My 77-300-6-1-barrel had the same problems. i dont know how many miles are on your 78, mine has 184,000 miles and after i replaced the 1 barrel with a rebuilt holley, all new gaskets, including the head gasket , all new tune-up parts, it now runs very well except for a tappet noise. your problem could be as simply as a loose carb, bad gasket at the base,loose or poor pvc valve ,a hose off somewhere, bad exhaust gasket,loose carb bolts, yes, maybe you have a timing problem, the old non-steel timing gears may still reside in your motor. they are in my opinion not one of fords better ideas. i replaced mine with a set of steel gears. the old hard plastic ones were toast. get number one piston at top dead center and get the timing correct first.i would start out looking for the simply stuff first. when something sputters, misses, and dies, it points to the air fuel mixture. its my guess that there is to much air coming in from somewhere where it shouldnt, and makes it run rough until warm.it could have a fouled plug ,bad plug wire as well. one thing i have learned over the years is to never assumed that a paticular part needs replaced. it was almost always something simply that was making it run bad.you can check for air leaks by spraying starter fluid around the manifold, base of the carb while its running. if the idle picks up when your spraying it that right there would tell you that theres an air leak in that area. it takes time to figure these thing out, but not everyone has the hourly fee to pay the man. tighting all of the bolts on the motor will help, anywhere there are loose bolts, especially around the exhaust manifold. i did a sure fix on mine , it took time but it runs like a top now, hopefully your problem is something easy to fix and its not a head gasket or something harder to deal with, unless of course you enjoy it. the 300 is such a good motor that it will run all day on 5 cylinders. hope you get it running good again.