73 240z won’t start. Have spark

[Shawninvancouver]

Have spark in all 6 cylinders. New coil new points. Just put su round top carbs in carbs were fully cleaned.  Even tried starting spray.  Nothing ignites.  What so ever.  Fuel is flowing into carbs.  What could it be? 1.5 ohm coil. New plugs. Any ideas? Plug order  was checked.  No back fires no miss fires no nothing. Help!!

[Zed Head]

Where are you spraying the spray and what is it?  Is it real starting fluid?

Have you measured cylinder pressures?  Compression.

Have you pulled a spark plug and examined it?  Maybe you flooded it.

1 hour ago, Shawninvancouver said:

Fuel is flowing into carbs

 

[Shawninvancouver]

Brand new plugs.  It was spray starter. Liquid fire.  No nothing.  How could it be flooded? I drained float bowl.   What else can I try?

[Namerow]

Somewhere on this site, there's a video posted by @Patcon where he shows his technique for starting an L24 engine that (IIRC) had the carburetors completely removed.  That may give some ideas for what you did wrong (or forgot to do). 

FWIW, it doesn't take much of a shot of starter fluid (spray) to light off an engine.  You may have created a totally over-rich condition by being too heavy-handed with the spray bottle.

That said, have you taken the steps to ensure that you've got a spark at each of the cylinders?  This isn't hard to do.  "Electrics first.  Fuel second".

[240dkw]

I am going to go with, timing/compression. What have you done to get the dizzy in the different position? Your new photos show the vacuum advance pot in a different but still not correct orientation.

[Shawninvancouver]

Ok 240 I flipped the mounting bracket over on the dizzy. We put it back on the car then we took the valve cover off got the camshaft position up with the piston at the top so we were in top dead centre then finally the distributor rotor was pointing at 8:30, which is exactly where the mark was on the top of the distributor cap so it was properly done and then put the spark plugs in the proper order and had spark and all cylinders. My only question now is if the timing was too advanced to retarded with the car, not start because we did nothing to do with timing. The distributor could still rotate with the one lockdown screw on the distributor which we did not rotate at all.

[Shawninvancouver]

Do you think by loosening the lockdown screw on the distributor and rotating it slightly and trying to start the car again it may start it would heavenly distributor slightly off from number one not allowed to the car to start even though it has spark????

[GregD]

I had a similar issue while attempting to start my 240 after being rebuilt.  My problem turned out to be the oil pump shaft being slightly out of alignment.  Being 1 or two teeth out of alignment can make a world of difference.  Attached picture shows proper alignment.

Good luck. 

[Shawninvancouver]

So what did you do. ? Just rotate dizzy? Move the plug order? Move oil pump?  I need the simple way butbigthink oil pump is fine. My main question is if my distributor is slightly out of alignment or I can just loosen the screw and rotate the distributor a slight bed. Would that make it difference to if the car will start or not is possible to not start even though I’m getting spark.???

[Zed Head]

51 minutes ago, Shawninvancouver said:

My main question is if my distributor is slightly out of alignment or I can just loosen the screw and rotate the distributor a slight bed. Would that make it difference to if the car will start or not is possible to not start even though I’m getting spark.???

Yes.

It's common to rotate the distributor while trying to start an engine with new parts, to get the ignition timing close enough to start.  Unfortunately it's usually done by people with experience who understand ignition timing.  

Another thing that's often done is to watch the points as you slowly rotate the engine by hand to see where the timing mark on the damper pulley is when the points open.  Spark happens when the points open.  Rotate the distributor so that the points open at about 10 degress advance, and make sure that the rotor is pointing at the #1 cylinder electrode.  This will get the igntion timing close enough to where the engine should start and run.  Then you can set the timing correctly using a timing light after the engine is running.

Spark plug wire order is 1-5-3-6-2-4, in counterclockwise rotation.

 

[Zed Head]

To put the second part above in to useful terms -

Rotate the engine until the timing mark is at 10 degrees on the damper pulley, on the compression stroke.  Then loosen the distributor clamp and rotate the distributor until the points are just about to open.  Make sure that the rotor is pointing at the #1 position of the distributor cap.  Clamp it down and try to start.

[Shawninvancouver]

OK, so I guess I was wrong then to think that once I saw spark on every cylinder in the spark plug tester that my spark was proper, and that should have started the engine so technically, even though I saw spark in the spark plug tester that does not mean that the engine would start is that correct? I still need to align the distributor so that the points were about to open and that the rotor arrow was pointing at spark plug number one. In my case, not being an expert, would it be the best way just to slightly rotate the distributor and keep trying to start the car and see if I get it close enough to start And if someone has a second, maybe they can explain to me why if I am seeing spark and have fuel in the engine, it would not start or even backfire or misfire or do something, but I was not getting any sign of even close to starting Is that based on the fact that the distributor was out of alignment thanks again

should I loosen the distributor mounting bracket and rotate it like the arrows in the photo?

Edited May 16 by Shawninvancouver