Timing and Tuning Question

[Len]

O.K. Sean

Now you gotta give me that ride you promised me last summer in that bad boy!

From all the trials and tribulations you have encountered since you showed me your car last summer; boy you earned your stripes!!!!! As DavyZ said "enjoy" JUST DON'T BREAK ANYTHING!!!!!

Len

[pparaska]

quote:

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Originally posted by ellobo97:

Well everyone, I found the problem. The timing mark is 60 degrees off. I went and got a piston stop, and set it in there. It stopped when the tape was reading around 60

Sean

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Sean, it sounds like you're not using the piston stop correctly. It will stop the piston BEFORE it reaches TDC.

 

What you need to do is turn the crank in ONE DIRECTION (say counter clockwise) and bring the piston slowly up until it stops. Mark the balancer or degree wheel.

 

Now turn the engine the other way until the piston stops again. Mark the balancer or degree wheel.

 

Now, if you have degree marks at both places you marked, simply find the mark that's halfway between and that is your true TDC. If you don't have degree marks, you can take a flexible ruller, sewing tape, etc. and measure the distance around the outside of the balancer between the marks. Halfway between is true TDC.

 

The way it sounds like you did it will give you a much advanced TDC mark, because the piston doesn't get to TDC with piston stop installed.

 

Hope that helps,

[Guest Anonymous]

pparaska I didn't realize that. I"ll go check it out and fix it after my finals. She ran really good tonight when I was running her around town, but she was kinda hesitant at times. I'll go fix that and I bet she will run even better.

 

Len, I'll give you a ride anytime.

 

Sean

[eugene]

I think I have a similar problem. I intended to break in my motor finally, and didn't even get all the fluids topped off before my plug wires started melting. #'s 4,6,3,5 took the most abuse. I'm pulling everything back apart to work on clearance issues, driveline angles, etc. This is what I'm wondering: I'm using a later model 350 longblock, circa '91 with an early style edelbrock intake. I had to enlarge the two center bolt holes on each side of the intake to account for the different angle of entry for these four bolts. While no external vaccuum leaks were detected, I now wonder (after reading this post) if I have an internal leak. It looks like the intake should work. Has anyone here used this combination? Did I screw myself again by being a cheap bastard? It'll be a while before I'm in a position to fire it up again and do diagnostics, should I just go ahead and buy the right intake?

[Guest Anonymous]

The thing I have noticed on my car, is don't go the cheap route, she will find out and hate you. Mine always does

 

As for the latest on my car, finals are over, thank god, and well, the ankle is feeling better, and now that I can get up and walk around with the crutches realitively well, I worked on it today, man oh man, she purrs so nice. set the timing at 16 at 650. I can't wait to drive her tomorrow.

 

It turnes out that she, ie the balancer is 28 degrees off. Now she runs and idles so nice. I can't wait to tune her for vacuum and everything tomorrow bye for now guys, again thanks for everything.

 

Sean

[Modern Motorsports Ltd]

"The thing I have noticed on my car, is don't go the cheap route, she will find out and hate you. Mine always does "

 

yeah, mine always finds out toooo, my wall of pain is proof of it (did aluminum heads upgrade once and new pushrods were req'd etc, did all but rocker arms....3 mos. later I blew a pushrod thru a stamped rocker just coming off a cold idle, nice little hockey stick it resulted in)

 

So with your timing tab/balancer mark being 28 degrees out...any idea how it happened/is that way? Just wanting to be sure your balancer hasn't 'spun' at all as it can happen on some units and it's an indicator of potential failure of the piece (separation of outer metal ring from rubber isolator bonded to crank connection). No scare intended, just want to be sure your engine stays smooth and doesn't attempt a hammer toss with the balancer. Since it feels smooth I'd assume it's OK but wanted to be sure.

 

Glad your ankle's coming around so your fun factor can start increasing

 

Happy Holidays

[Guest mattrp]

Ok, I have had this problem exactly with my holley, and very much like it with a rochester (very similiar to the edelbrock). Basically, the reason for the glowing headers in only a couple of locations is gas leaking directly into the intake drop by drop but only in one spot. On the holley it was a blown power valve, which then resulted in gas flow which then ate holes in those little colored vacumm line plugs you put on the fittings of carbs when you arent using a line on them. Combine the air and tons of gas and you get an imposible to tune car.

 

The rochester on the other hand was a little more annoying because of the design. At least on the rochester the throttle plate attached to the bottom of the carb body with several large screws only accessible from the bottom. After a while (or a bad backfire) the gasket between the throttle plate and the carb body would wear and the screws loosen. Gas would begin to drip into the manifold and the idle would become choppy and it wouldnt tune anymore. Quick tightening of the screws (ie, yank the carb) fixed the problem.

 

You sound like you are having similiar gas leakage. Why not try turning on the fuel pump (everything else turned off) and propping the carb up off the motor. Actuate the throttle slightly to the idle position, if gas flows out the bottom, thats your problem.

 

I also had the remarked balancer issue, mine spun, but the overheating/tuning trouble can also stem from retarded timing (ie missing a tooth when installing the distributor, or a wire location when installing the wires).

 

Good luck,

Matt

[Guest Anonymous]

ok, well here is the next problem, seems like it is never ending, but oh well, I know it will slowly. I"m now at the point of working on getting the final tuning stages, you know, so that way she really runs like she is supposed to and not only a half ass job. Here are the specks as of about 6 hours ago.

 

TIMING - 9 degress, at 750 with vaccum line to dist. plugged, and unhooked. (SteveStreeter from the chevy talk told me to do it at 10) I wasn't able to do one at 2500 rpm's since I had to get on the road to come home.

 

Vaccum is at 35 cm Hg at idle, again at 750.

 

My idle screw, or the one on the passenger side of my carb is at 1.5 turns out

 

The other screw is at about the same.

 

Here are the problems I'm having.

 

1) At high rpms, high way speed, it seems to sputter and then kick in, but it's not the real hard, throw you back in your seat I would think.

 

2) IT sputters when getting on it from stops as well. It seems to do better when the second set of barrells open, but not a lot better.

 

Here is what I was thinking

 

1) What is a good setting for vaccum at idle? I got it about as high as it would go with out reving the idle up considerably.

 

2) Should, I follow the edlebrock carb book guide, and work on putting some bigger needles, etc, to run at it puts it two stages rich on the power mode/one stage lean on the cruise mode, if that is what I wanted to do.

 

3) I know someone on here said that the victor jr intake would make my car sluggish below three grand rpm's, but the car feels sluggish a lot of the time.

 

4) At a place that shall remain unnamed, a BMW pulled up beside me and wanted to race, so I slammed down the throttle, and caught him at 110 and pulled away at 130, but that was all my car would go, and she was only at 3500 rpm's. I know the sixth gear, and 3.93's should have something to do with that, but it should still go faster shouldn't it? I mean, so something is not presisly tuned correctly, is what I"m thinking

 

Sorry, this post is so long. Thanks for any info from anyone, you guys are always so great.

 

Sean