817eduardoflores

okay i will read it right away. And the engine might be of 86 i know for a fact is that its 85 or later thats all i dont know the exaxt year i found this out when trying to buy gasket for a 84 which is the year of the car and they found the correct gaskets under an 85

Here are some engine pics

817eduardoflores

Bypassed and set the base timing at 20btdc as stated on the page i was referred to its not the best weather out here right now so ive been goin in and out the house. Still nothing.

76olds

From the pics I see your distributor is way to advanced, giving you the pinging/rattling noise and fuel spurts out the car,
I think you need to turn your distributor clock wise, it seems way too far advanced unless you have re-curved your distributor. If the weights and springs are still factory, turn the distributor back a little to start, then tell us if it starts and runs on its own at that point.

Eric

817eduardoflores

[QUOTE=76olds;996422]From the pics I see your distributor is way to advanced, giving you the pinging/rattling noise and fuel spurts out the car,
I think you need to turn your distributor counter clock wise, it seems way too far advanced unless you have re-curved your distributor. If the weights and springs are still factory, turn the distributor back a little to start, then tell us if it starts and runs on its own at that point.

Eric[/QUOT
I have the dist out right now and will be swaping in the spare tomorrow.

76olds

Is the distributor location in the picture in the same location as when you were trying to start it up after installing the engine.
The pictures are confusing since nothing is hooked up to begin the startup.
Do you have a recent picture of it in the car now ? I still think the issue is pinging due to to much advance thou.

Eric

817eduardoflores

Yes those pictures are from this morning and now with my timing at 20btdc after doin the bypass to set base timing.
Where should the dist. Be facing?
what i did when i first installed it was set it tdc #1 cylinder dropped the dist. Then where it was pointing made that my #1 and continued the firing order from there. But i will start all that from scratch since i have the dist. Out now.

76olds

Did you not have the lower rad hose hooked up with coolant in the system etc?


When you get back to it, I would crank the engine over until #1 piston is at the top of the compression stroke.
Then put the new distributor in with the rotor facing #1, the same as you did with your chevys.
Then you should be close.
To me it looks as thou the distributor needs to be turned back clockwise, I made a mistake in my last post I believe saying CCC.
You need to position the distributor more parallel to start with, your tach/bat wires should be more parrelel with your master cylinder say. Then begin advancing from their.

817eduardoflores

I will recheck the rotation of the distributor and re wire it.. and i have water i the system now. I didnt bother at first since i know it wont run for more than a minute so its not goin to get hot on me ..barely warming up.
But i filled up the system now since ima be working on it now. i had drained out the water out the system last time i messed with it since it was getting to freezing temperatures and did not have coolant in it.

76olds

003.JPG





I would start trying to get it started with the distributor similar to this position, with rotor facing #1

I hope this helps
Eric

817eduardoflores

Okay ill see if i can make it line up and drop in close to that

76olds

Either way once you put the new distributor in leave the hold down bolta little loose so you can move the distributor till is runs smooth without wanting to stall, then put your timing light on it and either advance or retard it. To me the pictures show the distributor is too far advance giving you that hard pinging noise when you were on the throttle.

817eduardoflores

I dont know but thag mighy have something tk dk with it where it doesnt let the engin breath causing the pressure to shoot back up the intake.. hmm i dont know i could probabky disconnect the pipes that connect to my headers.
How did yours react what were the symptoms with it being clogged?

oldcutlass

It really does not matter that the distributor is not pointing in the normal stock position, what matters is if its wired right. The distributor does not care which is #1. I would run the timing at the stock 15* BTDC setting and then later after you get it running bump it up a bit if you want.

76olds

Eric is rite, but it looks like your #4 spark plug wire is at the end of its travel. You really need to re-stab it so you can make some better timing adjustments.

76olds

Im trying to figure out if your plug wires are correct as 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 , to me it looks like they are not in the proper place. Although it appears as thou you distributor is re-tarded to much, yet the symptoms with pinging are saying different. But my eyes aren't very good these days.
I hope Oldcutlass can make more sense of it and put you on the rite track here.

817eduardoflores

817eduardoflores

Another rainy day for me here in texas fellas. I apologize but im having to postpone any further update for the moment. All of yall been great help thanks.

oldcutlass

Know the feeling...

MDchanic

Wow. Long thread.

My observations:

• Choke is working properly.

• Engine starts quickly and smoothly.

• When running, engine is running smoothly.

• When stalling, engine cuts out within a couple of seconds. Backfire indicates presence of a weak spark as engine is dying.


So, I would exclude the carburetor, exclude the valve timing, and mostly exclude the ignition timing (make sure it's set to factory specs).

My theory: Ignition module.
(Or possibly some other ignition component of that era that I am unaware of, as I have no experience with the '80s cars).


Good luck!


- Eric

76olds

Long thread yes, Well, I paged ya back at post 16 haha.

76olds

It looks to me like the #5 plug wire is going to #7 and 7-5 in the 4th engine pic.

oldcutlass

I don't normally chime in on later model stuff either. He was stuck, I figured I might be able to limp through it. I agree on leaning towards the ignition, we are waiting on the rain to stop, he has another distributor.

817eduardoflores

I now have another distributer on there with diffrent ignition control module that was in it allready.set my timin to 16 btdc factory is 20 oldscutlass suggested 15 i can only see a mark for 16 so i set it at 16 made sure everything was wired correctly again in the correct rotation of the rotor.same symptoms are there. Im leaning more towards compression orthe engine not breathing correctly because of the backpressure that i am getting. I will be disconnecting the exhaust pipes from my headers when i get home so that i can rule out a clogged cat. what do you guys think? Have yall had any clogged cat experience in the past?

817eduardoflores

Would a clogged cat have symptoms to what im getting.. possibly?

76olds

I had a clogged cat in my 86 cutlass supreme back in the day, It was down on power and the smell was awful, I didn't see the issues you have, just the smell and loss of power.
That's weird, are you sure the plug wires are good, getting good spark on all 8 cylinders? How did it run before you changed all the gaskets and did the heads? What else did you do?

oldcutlass

I'm at a loss, I PM'd Joe P to read through your thread. He has a lot of experience with the later model cars.

817eduardoflores

Im absolutely defeated guys. This thing has kicked my butt.

Disconnected the exhaust pipe really hoping that would be my problem but not s difrence whats so ever.

I over heated the car one day on my way to college. Never noticed the temperature since i was in a hurry runninf late. I had been driving the car for almost 2 years prior to that. Well atleast every weekend and some aternoons. So after that i towed the car home and parked it. The next day i turned it on for about 5 minutes just to make surenit still would run snd i didnt cause major damage. Ran okay. So i turned it off.. so when i decided change out the head gaskets i just went ahead and got the kit and redid all the gaskets. And i sent the heads to get rebuilt to a local machine shop. Heres all i did to it.

Changed out all the gaskets of course. I had the engine stripped down to the block alone.
I didnt mess with anything internal on it at all like oil pump bearings or cam all that stayed the way it was exept my timing chaim and sprocket. Other than that nothing else in the block nor the pistons or anything. Unfortunately my phone that has all those pictures of everything i did broke. I got my heads installed them i left the lifters alone. And continued reassembling it putting the rocker arms at 25ft as it said on my manual torque specs.
Put my #1 cylinder on tdc stabbed in my dist and wired it up the wires i bought new and my spark plugs as well i never tried running the engine before i put it back in the car either.

I dont know what to do now. Nothing that we had tried made any diffrence.

817eduardoflores

Oldcutlass thanks hopefully he'll take a look at it

76olds

I'm wondering if its a cam problem, how many miles are on the engine? Its not popping out the carb yet but....

MDchanic

Have you checked to confirm whether you have a strong spark immediately after it stalls?

- Eric

817eduardoflores

Do i just putt out my wire and ground it. Or how are you saying MD

MDchanic

Place a plug wire in such a way that it can't move, and is about ¾" from ground, then crank.
You should have a strong, bright blue-white spark (NOT orange or yellow).

Alternatively, you can use a tester, which plugs into the wire and clips to ground, and has an adjustable gap.

Also check the spark at a time when you expect that it's going to start, so you can compare the two sparks.

- Eric

817eduardoflores

Yeah Could be something internal id hate to dissaseme it all over again.. but if i cant find the problem i just might have to. Either that or start testing the spare engine i have. And i couldnt tell you the milege i doubt the the miles are true on the dash

817eduardoflores

76olds

Let us know when you try what Mdchanic (Eric) suggested, we know your getting fuel, vacuum you mentioned is good, fuel pressure is good. See if you have a good spark. Its worth a shot.

Eric H

MDchanic

Note: Depending on the type of spark plug bots you have, you may need to stick a screwdriver all the way into the spark plug boot, and then position one point on the screwdriver about ¾" from ground (and the rest of it farther away).

- Eric

817eduardoflores

Took the booth off the wire so the connecting end would be bare. I definately got orange spark the further i moved it away the dimmer the orsnge turned and turned blud s thin blue spsrk but about 1/2 inxh away or so from ground its strong orange.

MDchanic

HEI should give you a darned good spark even an inch away (or close to it).

- Eric

oldcutlass

I wonder if on this distributor he can run a jumper from the battery+ to the batt terminal to bypass the ignition system?

gs72

Have you tried running it with the vac line disconnected from the egr valve?
Also, the egr valve could have some carbon chunks lodged in the pintle valve sticking it open. Might be worth a look. If you do find carbon stuck in the valve, start the engine with the egr valve off to blow out any remaining loose carbon in the intake.