new engine does not want to start

[Johnny Blaze]

Got new engine done in truck.(project Air Force 69) Basic 355, small cam, mostly stock. Got it to fire up pretty quick first time, ran for a minute or too and died. Fired up again, ran for a minute or two and alternator belt started squeeling. Messed with it, and got it running again for a minute and died.

Now it does not want to start. Cranks good, almost sounds like its not firing, but it did fire up once for a breif second.

I think I am missing something obvious here.


It has a new HEI ignition, fresh build quadrajet carb, new stock mechanical fuel pump, new lines, new tank.

I have tried moving the dist. back and fourth and it seems to not matter.

I verified the dist ws not a tooth off.

Can anyone help? I got a week to get this thing drivable.

[Turbo67camaro]

I don't know if its possible for the plugs to get badly fouled in a few minutes of run time, assuming the mixture was way off, but I'd pull a plug or two and check.

[Johnny Blaze]

I tried that the other day. They wren't bad.

Plugs are R45TS new, gapped at .045" I was thinking of tightening them up around .035".
Wires are new Moroso 8mm street wires.


The time or too that it firesd it really came to life. Sounded good.

It does seem to be flooding real quick. Carb guy just went back trough the carb and says its all good.

[Wheel Werkes]

Could it be the coil? Also even if its not the problem I would gap my plugs to .35-.38 max. All N/A cars I've worked on seem to love it in that range.

[Johnny Blaze]

I'll tighten the gap tonight.

I swapped the cap and coil with one I had liying around, didn't make a difference.

I'm starting to question this distributer. Its a new Pro Comp unit. Wired straight to the unfused ign. spot on the fuse box, same lead that powered the hei when the 6cyl was still in the car.

Tach does not seem to be getting a good signal either.

[Jameson]

Have you actually checked for spark?

[Johnny Blaze]

Checked the other week and it had spark, I'll check again tonight

[66larkgs]

Your jumping around to much.... relax buy a 18 pack and start one thing at a time...
Step1 -- Do you have spark? install inline spark tester or pull a plug. if yes go check fuel step two.
if no spark , pull plastic cover off of coil and have a buddy check voltage to your red wire on the hei coil. make sure you have 12 volts while cranking and meter is set to dcv20 range. make sure you have a good ground also. if you have 12volt and no spark check the button on the bottom of the coil that touchers the rotor. if all is good and still no spark replace coil.

step2 pull feed line to the carb and put in small container.. crank engine and fuel should rush out as it is being pumped out.. be carefully of spilling fuel because of fire. if you have fuel out of the pump than reinstall line and check carb. check fuel inside of your qjet and now give the throttle a few chucks and you should see fuel comming out of the boosters while you are looking down the carb. if you have fuel go to step three.

Step Bring your engine up to top dead center compression stroke, easy way to do that is remove the valve cover, spin the motor over and watch the valve springs. intake, compression,power exhaust is the four strokes.. so watch that intake spring open and watch it close as it closes watch your crank pulley mark. have your dist car off and the rotor should be pointing at number one bronze tang on the inside of the dist cap. if not you are off a tooth or two.

if your timing is dead on do a compression test.. doesnt sound like you wiped a cam out that fast , but i have seen it in the first days without using zddp cam additive.. set your base timing @8 and total at 32 to start.. 35 plug gap is fine and it will run fine, with a gd coil 45 -40 is fine.. all depends on what your motor likes and how it runs..
gd luck.. if your stuck pm me and when your in the garage give me a call and see what we can do.. sometimes walking away and comming back the next day makes you see something that you missed.. good luck

[Johnny Blaze]

Your jumping around to much.... relax buy a 18 pack and start one thing at a time...
Step1 -- Do you have spark? install inline spark tester or pull a plug. if yes go check fuel step two.
if no spark , pull plastic cover off of coil and have a buddy check voltage to your red wire on the hei coil. make sure you have 12 volts while cranking and meter is set to dcv20 range. make sure you have a good ground also. if you have 12volt and no spark check the button on the bottom of the coil that touchers the rotor. if all is good and still no spark replace coil.
Checked last week had spark. Will check again

step2 pull feed line to the carb and put in small container.. crank engine and fuel should rush out as it is being pumped out.. be carefully of spilling fuel because of fire. if you have fuel out of the pump than reinstall line and check carb. check fuel inside of your qjet and now give the throttle a few chucks and you should see fuel comming out of the boosters while you are looking down the carb. if you have fuel go to step three.

Plenty of gas coming to carb, and out the boosters when hitting throttle.

Step Bring your engine up to top dead center compression stroke, easy way to do that is remove the valve cover, spin the motor over and watch the valve springs. intake, compression,power exhaust is the four strokes.. so watch that intake spring open and watch it close as it closes watch your crank pulley mark. have your dist car off and the rotor should be pointing at number one bronze tang on the inside of the dist cap. if not you are off a tooth or two. As stated, alrerady did this and verified it was not off.

if your timing is dead on do a compression test.. doesnt sound like you wiped a cam out that fast , but i have seen it in the first days without using zddp cam additive.. set your base timing @8 and total at 32 to start.. 35 plug gap is fine and it will run fine, with a gd coil 45 -40 is fine.. all depends on what your motor likes and how it runs..
gd luck.. if your stuck pm me and when your in the garage give me a call and see what we can do.. sometimes walking away and comming back the next day makes you see something that you missed.. good luck

Plenty of movement at the rockers, checked that as well. I am using Brad Penn Break oil and used Brad Penn assembly lube, should be plenty of zinc in it.

I agree, sometimes you just got to take a break. Its weird it will crank and crank, fire, then nothing.

I'll keep you posted this evening when I get home.

[Jim Nilsen]

While you are running around getting parts ,make sure you pick up an inline fuse for your ignition if it doesn't already have one. You will need the protection some day and it may have caused you trouble if you didn't have one.

Fuel or spark is the best guess cause you definately are getting air. You have some good instructions from Paul. I believe you have an ignition problem at the coil or the ignition box/board or the pickup in the curcuit for triggering the spark..

Goodluck

[Johnny Blaze]

While you are running around getting parts ,make sure you pick up an inline fuse for your ignition if it doesn't already have one. You will need the protection some day and it may have caused you trouble if you didn't have one.

Fuel or spark is the best guess cause you definately are getting air. You have some good instructions from Paul. I believe you have an ignition problem at the coil or the ignition box/board or the pickup in the curcuit for triggering the spark..

Goodluck

Thanks. I am getting fuel so I'm pretty sure its ignition as well.

As to the fuse, you mean a fuse in the power wire to the dist? What size fuse? I've never heard anyone say to fuse it, always power straight from ingition hot at the fuse.

On HEI conversions I've always read get power from the fuse panel at the unfused ignition hot source. This is how it was with the 6cyl.

[zombiekiller]

how about the ignition key cylinder/switch? is it wired correctly to get spark in the "run" position as well as crank?

Did the car oroginally have a resistor that is now absent? Have you tried using a push button "jumper" style switch to rule out the switch in the dash?

[Johnny Blaze]

how about the ignition key cylinder/switch? is it wired correctly to get spark in the "run" position as well as crank?

Did the car oroginally have a resistor that is now absent? Have you tried using a push button "jumper" style switch to rule out the switch in the dash?

switch worked fine before the v8 swap, nothing changed with the wiring.

[surnufz]

Did you check all your grounds? Make sure there is good contact from the battery to the frame, engine block to frame, and there should be a ground strap from engine to firewall. If all grounds are good and it's still not running, try running a wire directly from the battery to the ignition wire on the distributor ( connect wire to distributor first so less chance of direct grounding the battery lead). Also, if it starts it will keep running until you unhook the wire from the battery. If this works, you have a problem with the ignition wire somewhere on the car. Hope this helps.

[Johnny Blaze]

Thanks for the tips.
New ground wires include, batt to engine, engine to firewall, cab to frame. I don't have on going from engine straight to frame.
I did check the power wire at the dist and it had full voltage.

It's sounding more and more like the dist itself, a shame considering it's brand new but it is a Pro Comp.

[surnufz]

Another thought; an experience I had with starting a new engine was when I tried to start it, it would start when the key was in the start position and cut off when I released the key. I found out that I had the tach wire and the ignition wire mixed up. Swithed the wires and I had music and some excited friends (very healthy SBC with open headers)!

[66larkgs]

Another thought; an experience I had with starting a new engine was when I tried to start it, it would start when the key was in the start position and cut off when I released the key. I found out that I had the tach wire and the ignition wire mixed up. Swithed the wires and I had music and some excited friends (very healthy SBC with open headers)!

You always fuse your power wires.. nomatter what, i think you are getting confused with a points set up when you run a resistor in the wire to cut the voltage down so you dont burn out the points.. are you sure you have 12 volts all the time on your coil wire. you need to back probe that wire, put the meter on your windshield and watch it while you are cranking. it sounds like you have something wired wrong. i have used tons of procomps dist and never had a issue. i have seen people grab a key on engine on 12v wire and they should have grabbed a key on contant 12v wire. a 20amp inline fuse would be fine also or you can grab 6 inch of fuseable link but you have to use butt connectors and gm style connectors and crimp it in. double check your wireing, like someone else said your might have grabbed a wrong wire.

[Johnny Blaze]

So, I pulled the plugs, they were a little wet, cleaned them, tightened the gap to .035" and reinstalled.

Checked for spark, getting spark at the plugs.
Checked the red wire on the distributer, with the key on I have 12.5 volts at the red wire, when cranking it drops to 10 volts.
Could this be the problem, and if so what does that mean?

[Johnny Blaze]

As stated before, the power wire to the hei is the same power wire that was on the 6 cyl. And it worked fine for a year.
Inthe new engine did run for a few minutes, no wiring changes happened between then and now, though I did go through and double check them.

This voltage drop on cranking has me wondering. Could this be coil, module or pick up coil?

Thanks to everyone so far!

[Johnny Blaze]

I've read the drop to 10 volts is normal, is that correct?
I jumped the terminals at the starter, did no different. Unplugged the tach, on a whim, didn't change anything.

[Johnny Blaze]

Got it! Just as I thought, something silly.Distributer cap, the little thing under the coil sat too far down in the hole, due to the hole being to big.Swapped cap, and it's running like a beast!Thanks to all who gave advice tips and suggestions!!

[Wheel Werkes]

Good to hear. Gotta love easy fixes.

[66larkgs]

Got it! Just as I thought, something silly.Distributer cap, the little thing under the coil sat too far down in the hole, due to the hole being to big.Swapped cap, and it's running like a beast!Thanks to all who gave advice tips and suggestions!!

way to stay with and congrats!! always a great feeling when you hit the key and she fires to life.

[Johnny Blaze]

way to stay with and congrats!! always a great feeling when you hit the key and she fires to life.

And it's better when it's a bad part and not a dumb thing I did!

[MonzaRacer]

Heck I just trim back old resistor wire to firewall plug and solder on a new 12 gauge power wire to the distirbutor, if you dont want to cut the old points wire the n just solder wire up right next to the fire wall plug, skip the going to the fuse box and its is still fused but only at fude link near starter.
As for testing get a crimp terminal that fits distributor power side, crimp on a 12 gauge wire and hook directly (like jamb it in battery terminal not bolted in) to 12 battery and have someone crank it. If no fire ask around for spare HEI, if you had an hei for 6 cyl pull it out hook it up with ground to body of dist, spin it and see if fire flies. Pull plug wire at dist cap will let fire fly to wrong place.
Guess we need to have a you tube video on basic inspection/diagnosis. hmmmmm ,where is my video camera,,,,,

[Johnny Blaze]

Instead of "making a video" just read the thread, and see that I fixed the problem which was a bad part, not a lack of troubleshooting.

It's working good now and I'm driving it everyday. Have already put 1000 mikes on thr new engine that I built myself.

[jakeaw87]

drop to 10V is very normal, thats the starter amperage draw pulling the whole system down. if it is below say 9 then you would have a bad battery.

edit : oops didnt go to second page im an idiot