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As a really general observation in this situation you have a "pig in a poke" or whatever it's called right? It has never ran since you bought it because it was non-running and left in an advanced state of dumpster fire by the last guy who touched it.
You should back up, way way up, and start from the beginning. Check everything. As in Every Thing. Basics. Start with a compression test. Pull the valve covers and check that the valve timing or camshaft phasing is in the ballpark. Spark plug wires in the correct firing order? You'd be surprised how often this kind of stuff gets buggered up. Distributor & rotor stabbed in 180° out?
Yep it sure is a dumpster fire. Last time it ran was the 90s I think.
You are right today I'm going to go over everything. I'm sure it's something stupid that I've missed.
If it had fuel and spark and the distributor was anywhere , only half the plug wires hooked up and they were on the wrong plugs it's still going to do something.
.It doesn't take great spark to get an engine to try this is strange. what distributor is in it now you said you have several ?
I'm still thinking coil for lack of a better idea, is the coil in it now a resistor or non resistor type ?
It really is strange! Closest thing I've had to it firing up were some Loud backfires through the headers.
I've had my ds2 distributor in it for a while and when I was tired of the engine not running I got an HEI distributor so that's what's in it now. The coil was made specifically for the distributor I'm running and it doesn't use a resistor but I can try out some of my other coils. I think I'm gonna put the ds2 system back in because that's what most of the guys on here know the best
If you're getting backfires then that is something, I was under the impression it was totally dead.
In that case you do need to check everything again starting with bringing #1 on TDC compression then checking where your rotor is pointing in relation to you #1 plug wire.
If it didn't run on the durashart and it doesn't with the HEI chances are your HEI is fine. but changing it back isn't going to hurt. I assume you remembered Ford has a stupid numbering system on the cylinders . not that it would matter as long as you used the standard #1 and the standard firing order. you just can't mix them.
I would stick with the dist. you got the back fire out the header from as it is showing some sign of life.
This is a 302 motor that you rebuilt or had rebuilt?
Even if not know there is a firing order change between the normal & H.O. motors because of the cam.
I have seen it posted that motors run but not great till the order was changed.
You may want to look into this firing order and for S & G's do the swap, think it is only 2 plug wires, and see if that helps or hurts.
Also back fire out the header I would try and advance the timing a little and see what that does.
Dave ----
I had an old friend who is on a race team and they rebuild crazy fast engines for their races so I invited him over to see if maybe he could see anything crazy obvious with my engine but after a couple hours of checking everything we were both stumped. Timing was dead on, I was doubting myself so I pulled the front of the engine off to check the timing gears and chain but they were perfectly fine,I had my carb tuned way from where it was supposed to be and I was flooding my plugs so he fixed that for me but after a new set of plugs nothing changed. After a couple hours of cranking it for a while, we were getting a few more pops through the exhaust and now I'm getting some fireballs through the exhaust here and there but she still didn't fire up once!
I got some photos of the spark that I'm getting so I'll upload those but he said even with an orange spark she should fire off at least a little bit.
All of the spark tester photos I had gapped at random to see how far the spark could reach. My plugs are gapped at .044
Just checked compression on all cylinders and they were all at least 95 and above about a month or two ago but now I come back and cylinder #1 has 80 psi and cylinder #5 has 70 psi. All of the other cylinders have around 110 or 115 psi. This might be a stupid question but would that be why it's not running? I don't know a whole lot about what low compression does. Could it be my piston rings? Or would this be a gasket of some sort? They both were way above 80 and 70 psi last time I checked them
Are you checking the compression with the throttle wide open ? not that it really matters at this point the engine will run on what you have. compression isn't the cause.
That spark should run. so it comes back to fuel maybe, if you pour a couple tablespoons down the carb it still won't try ?
Could you be off 180 degrees and you're firing on the exhaust stroke ? how did you align your timing gear bosses ? if this is the case you can move your plug wires to correspond .
Are you checking the compression with the throttle wide open ? not that it really matters at this point the engine will run on what you have. compression isn't the cause.
That spark should run. so it comes back to fuel maybe, if you pour a couple tablespoons down the carb it still won't try ?
Could you be off 180 degrees and you're firing on the exhaust stroke ? how did you align your timing gear bosses ? if this is the case you can move your plug wires to correspond .
I was just pumping the throttle while checking the compression
Yessir I've poured gas down the carb and it doesn't try at all. starting fluid too
I've put the distributor at TDC and tried it 180 degrees out and once I did that I started getting puffs of air/fuel mixture through the carb. For the timing gears I found TDC and made sure the dot on the crankshaft gear was at 12:00 and the dot on the camshaft gear pointed 6:00 so they both pointed at each other
I would stick with the dist. you got the back fire out the header from as it is showing some sign of life.
This is a 302 motor that you rebuilt or had rebuilt?
Even if not know there is a firing order change between the normal & H.O. motors because of the cam.
I have seen it posted that motors run but not great till the order was changed.
You may want to look into this firing order and for S & G's do the swap, think it is only 2 plug wires, and see if that helps or hurts.
Also back fire out the header I would try and advance the timing a little and see what that does.
Dave ----
This one is a 351M that I took out and put new gaskets and rings on
It does randomly backfire and send fireballs through the headers. my buddy who builds engines said I should just crank it until it wakes up even though he's never seen an engine not want to start for no apparent reason
This is really messed up. with fuel and spark it has to do something even if it's bad. when you get to this point it's time to start trying things that you really shouldn't have to try. we know by your compression the valves are working and the runners are open.
I would pour a good shot of gas down the carb and while someone cranks it I's turn the timing up and down as far as I can get it both ways and see what it does. it will have to do something . if that doesn't work I'd change out the ignition. this isn't rocket science there has to be an easy explanation but you're not going to know it until you start eliminating possibilities whether it seems logical or not.
Thats the way I usually do mine , I have a timing light but rarely ever use it when first setting up a new rebuild , close to 10*BTC is a good starting point as in the write up
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