Cranking Engine but no Start...

[Zed Head]

It sat for a year.  Does it have new fuel?  Is it still fuel injected, or has it been converted to carbs?

 

Sorry, but now it's just a car that sat for a year and runs poorly, with new "spark plugs, spark wires, cap and rotor".  Still missing details.  Many of the good suggestions have already been made, above.  Just start back at #1, and replace "won't start" with "runs poorly".

[ramsesosirus]

When I bought my 76 Z, I had to get it running.  It would start and die every time.

I disconnected all of the electrical connectors and cleaned with "Electrical Connector" spray aerosol.  Had to sandpaper some of them to get a good connection.  This was the bulk of the problem: bad connections between the bullet connections in the engine bay.  There are quite a few of them.   

After this,  had to remove the fuel tank, have it cleaned, and the inside strainer cut out by the radiator shop.  It was very rusty from sitting.  I replaced the fuel pump since the rusty gas likely was not good for it.  I added a Fram G3 filter before the fuel pump.  Ran great after this until  threw a rod.  Rusty tanks cause bad fuel flow, and caused mine to die after a few minutes.. when I was away from home...

A few months ago, after installing a used engine, connecting everything, new plugs, cap, rotor, starter, battery, gas... couldn't get it to start.  Checked fuel, had fuel at the engine bay filter.  Checked spark at coil, good.  Used timing light to check spark also, at plugs.  Good.  Sounded like it wanted to start.

Found TDC and played with the spark plug wire locations on the cap, as the rotor was not lining up right at TDC...

Turns out the Chilton's manual's Firing order is correct, however the image incorrectly shows the #1 in the wrong spot.  The #1 terminal on the cap should be the furthest most towards the front of the car.  My Chilton's showed it one below this... which threw everything else off.   This also made sense with what  saw at TDC, the rotor was pointing the terminal above what I had as #1.   

Just some ideas for you... HTH

[siteunseen]

On 11/17/2015 at 9:24 PM, jalapenobusiness said:

However....It is quite rough when driving. When in 1st gear, it jolts/surges a lot. It gets smoother as you transition up gears. 

That's a classic sign of the coolant temp sensor.  Mine would spit and sputter until 2,500RPMs then pull like a champ.  Put a potentiometer in line and now it's like a new car. 

$5 at Radio Shack then do what Blue explains here. http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/tempsensorpot/index.html   I ran my knob into the cabin for tuning on the fly, played with it for a few days until it was right and haven't touched it in years.

EDIT: On second thought, put a G-3 filter coming out of the tank like above said and see what comes out of the tank.  Easiest to do and you'll need one anyway. http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/fuel/g3filter/index.htm