emergency ignition trouble

[nickbean]

yesterday I was preparing my car for a trip to seattle (I just dropped an L28 and five speed in my 240) I will be my first voyage of over 30 minutes with the new engine, so i thought that i would tune it up before I leave I started by setting the points gap to .5 mil. and timing to about 10 degrees btdc, I took it for a quick test drive but the engine would stumble while accelerating, so I advanced the ignition about 3 degrees, better but would stumble when it reached 4000 rpm, i thouhgt that it might have point bounce or something due to the increase in gap so I set it back to the way it was before I started and set the timing back as well, but now it would barly idel. thinking that I may have scewed up the distributer, I switched to my old distributer (ignition system and both distributers are from 240), but now the car won't even start, just the ocasional ear shattering back fire, and sometimes out of the carbs. I'm stumped because I still have spark. if any of you can figure it out I would apreiciate it, any insight would help

thanks nick

[2ManyZs]

Hmm, first off you have the timing too far advanced at 10 degrees BTDC, it should be 5 degrees BTDC.

Point gap should be .016 to .020, have to go find my feeler gauges to see what that is in mm.

If that doesn't help at all, is it possible you got the plug wires mixed up when you switched?

It sounds like you may have the plug wires mixed up the way it is backfiring out the carbs and the exhaust.

[nickbean]

the car would barley idel at anything less than 10 btdc, the manual I have doesn't include the firing order if anybody has that it would help. oh I tried to work on it this morning and the battery was completely dead wouldn't even turn on the dome light, maybe because I left the timing light pluged in all night

[Zedrally]

Sounds all to familiar, doesn't it 2many!

Point gap at .5mm is OK, check the firing order remembering it's anticlockwise on the distributor.

If you don't want to go loopy search for treads on Firing Order. :stupid:

[nickbean]

started at square one rotating the crank to tdc, set a rough timing and corrected the firing order, after that the car fired upand i set the timing to 5 degrees btdc but it is still running very rough. what kind of idel could I expect from an engine with an air fuel mixture way to rich? (god knows why but the engine had a returnless fuel system rigged up when i dropped it in, I tried switching to original 240 system but it didn't run right so i switched back, and i think that this is causing a rich mixture at low revs) the engine is a 280 with an e-88, crane cam, round top su's, and electric fuel pump. I just need to know what you guys think my next course of action should be.

thanks nick

[Bleach]

I once had a simular problem and then later on the car wouldnt' start at all. It still had spark, but it ended up that my points/condenser needed to be replaced anyway because the spark was way too weak.

So you have had the L28 driving good before?

I would alsmost say to check your valve timing. If it was driving good before, then you can't possibly have put the timing chain on wrong.

[2ManyZs]

I think the first thing would be to check your plugs and determine if all the cylinders are flooding or running rich. If that's the case it is possible you are running too high a fuel pressure with the electric pump and are flooding the carbs without the return line. Do you have a regulator in the line? If not try a cheap on set a 5 psi and see if it runs a bit better. I would still re-install the return line after installing a regulator though.

Second would be to check your ignition out as BleachZee suggested.

Third would be to pull the distributor while the engine is at TDC and make sure the distributor drive gear is installed correctly, most service manuals have a diagram that show the proper alignment of the drive gear. It is possible it is out of time at the drive gear so that when you set your static timing by the marks the distributor is still out of time and that might be why it runs better with the timing set too far advanced than it should be.

Have you also checked the wiring around the coil and ballast resistor?

That should keep you busy for a day or two and hopefully the problem will be something fairly simple that is just being overlooked...... wouldn't be the first time that it turned out to be something simple that is causing the problem.....

[nickbean]

well aparently my engine is of the rare self healing type, the car was still running like turd but I warmed it up and decide to take it to the parts store for new plugs, (ealier we had set the fast idle screw so that it would idle at about 1000 rpms) I was about seven minutes out when all of a sudden at idle the engine reved way up to like 3000 and sustained it, when i got to the auto parts store I backed the fast idle screw off all the way and it returned to its usual idle and has been running really stong ever since. I know that this sounds wierd but it's not the first time that this engine has done this to me it did the very same thingjust after I droped it into the car, I had set the fuel delivery system back the way it should be, and it ran rough so I changed it back to the returnless and it still ran rough but after a short drive (ontop of the usual ten minute warm up) it returned to normal. has anybody else expirienced this phenominum before, or does my engine contain magical regenerative powers.

[2ManyZs]

Never had one "magically" cure itself, yet....

Now that this has happened I am wondering if the problem may rest solely in your distributor. It is possible the small bearings in the distributor plate and/or the plastic cage that holds them is bad and it is hanging up the advance plate and this is causing most if not all of your problem.

I think if you do a search, you will find a post by EScanlon that describes the distributor cure.

Easier still would be to take a look at this link for the distributor problem..

http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/probs.html

[2ManyZs]

In fact, the more I think about your problem, I'm almost convinced it is all in the distributor. This would explain why you are having to set the timing at double what is normal to get the car to run right in the first place.

And if it is the advance plate hanging up, it is possible that it came loose when it revved up and is now where it should be....I guess we should have thought about this one a little sooner:stupid: