So I'm bringing an 86 F150 302 speed density injected stepwise back to life, but having some distributor issues. The truck would start when I got it going with the old cap and rotor, but run like crap, so I replaced the plugs, wires, distributor cap, rotor, and coil. I plugged the wires all back into the same spots and it still ran like crap, so I looked up the firing order and it was all wrong. I put the wires in the correct position for a early 80's truck 302 and it smoothed right out but smoked like a diesel and was overfueling on the passenger side bank. I traced that issue back to a vacuum line issue, but now that I have that repaired the truck doesn't seem to want to start. It cranks over but catches in spots, and when it finally fired up it immediately died. I tried fooling around with a couple more plug wire configurations because I'm not 100% what year or model 302 is in the truck, and when it was the incorrect configuration the engine would spin over fine with no catching, but never fire up. Below are some pics of the distributor. Anyone got any ideas?

 

"I traced that issue back to a vacuum line issue"

Undo this fix, and see what happens.......

 

Additionally, it will not start if I have the #1 plug wire hooked up to the #1 spot and then go around from there.

 

Just because it is marked on the cap does not mean that is where #1 is at!
Pull #1 plug and with finger OVER hole, turn the motor over till you have air pushing your finger off the hole.
Now check the timing mark and set it at TDC not you can pop the dist. cap and see where the rotor is pointing. That is #1 and run the plug wire from there.


What do the plugs look like? Could the 1 bank be fouled and not firing?
Dave ----

 

Originally you should have the old 302 firing order. Only the HO mustang engines had the 351w firing order. But through the years if the camshaft was changed to a HO style, then that could have changed.

And then the dist could have been stabbed into the engine at the wrong spot, so the wire positions don't match the factory diagrams.

I see two choices; Put the wires back on where they work best, and then set the timing according to the factory procedure. Or

Start all over. Pull the sparkplugs out, turn the engine over by hand with your finger over sparkplug hole #1. When you are turning the engine and air tries to blow your finger off the sparkplug hole, slow down and bring the marks up till they line up to about 10 degrees BTDC. That is #1 firing position. Pull the dist cap and see where the rotor is pointed. It should point to #1 wire.

If your truck has the original camshaft, it's firing order is 15426378. If you hold your finger over #5 sparkplug hole and turn the engine 1/4 turn, you should feel air coming out of #5 if it has the old firing order.

If it has the HO firing order 1/4 turn will have air coming out of sparkplug hole #3. That firing order is 13726548.

Always while turning the engine by hand, the dist should turn counterclockwise looking down on it from the top.

 

Any thoughts on why it would turn over freely with the wrong configuration and not when they were in the 'correct' firing pattern?

 

If the distributor is stabbed catawampus, wires out of firing order, timing whacked out, etc, it's not going to like it.

 

Because the spark that is to push the piston down is happening when valves are open, no compression and it spins freely.
Dave ----

 

As FF2 and Franklin2 said find TDC on #1 and go from there. If this is the original engine my 1986 manual has the firing order indicated below. (which is the first firing order F2 mentioned) Hope you get it sorted out soon!

 

So possibly on topic possibly off topic, when I went to replace the spark plugs the stock style plugs would not fit in the heads. The plugs that came out were the same style as a 1996 explorer V8, but actually a bit longer. After cross referencing the part number on the plugs that came out of it I found that they were an 1986 only style plug. I went ahead and used the shorter explorer style plugs as this isn't a race engine, but that may be giving me fits as well. Anyone who knows more about ford smallblocks than myself have any thoughts on this?

 

I swapped in a 302 efi from a lincoln mark VII years ago. I stripped off all the fuel injection and swapped it to carb to go in my 1980 f150. It had those 86 only high swirl cylinder heads, and it did take a long reach plug.

Sounds like your engine has been messed with. Do you see a pattern here? Each time you look up the right thing for your truck and install it, it's different and runs worse and worse. You had better carefully observe how everything is put together and the part numbers, looks like your engine has some non-original parts and yes, short reach plugs in a long reach style head can cause problems.

 

Put it at TDC, put #1 on that spot, put the right plugs in, and it's running like new. Now to put a new floorpan in and get this thing back on the road!

 

So what was it that kept it from starting/running?
Dave ----