I think you will find that the compression will be somewhat lower than it should be considering the mileage on the engine, but isn’t causing your problem. I think you will find that the disty position is your problem.
what would you expect the psi to come out to with that many miles? i know over 100 is healthy, but i’m not sure what to expect on this block.
I’m not really sure what you will find but if I have to guess I will say between 125 to 160 lbs.
will do, thank you sir
Are you sure the cam in this engine does not use the 302 HO firing order? I assume you are using 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8… But you don’t know the history of this engine, do you?
Many 302 replacement cams are ground with the 302HO and 351W firing order of 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8 and you may have one.
Check to make sure #3 is compressing after #1 instead of #5. If #5 is compressing, the engine has an HO ground firing order.
yessir, ive set it up with both firing orders with no luck on either. good idea though, thank you
I don’t know which way the rotor turns inside the disty. Whatever way it does turn have you tried moving the plug wires one position in that direction? Is there a possibility the connections are one position off on the cap?
i’m sure it’s possible, however the cap has some numbers on it to line up the wires and they’re lined up in that order
Hook an old school xenon timing light to #1 spark plug wire and aim it at the crank pulley while cranking the engine. Do the flashes show the mark on the pulley at the timing mark scale?
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You know… when you have the distributor out… but still hooked up to the vehicle electrically you can pull a plug or two… hook the wires up…ground the plugs and spin the distributor shaft with your hand just to see if she generates spark. I do this sometimes…because, well, I can… but not entirely necessary, just a little fun.
I doubt your distributor died on you just from pulling it out and reinstalling… Much more likely is that one of the electrical plugs was damaged during disassembly and or handling of those Not often touched connections. Look into your electrical plugs…both sides and see if you can spot anything. Also look at the wires outer insulator…oftentimes you can actually see where a wire is broken inside of its casing.
Methinks your issue lies somewhere with the electrical plugs to the distributor…or the wires going to the plugs. Especially if more than one distributor gives the same result of no start.
Check to see if you have spark at all…either with the method I listed above, or any other method that works, doesn’t matter. Then have a good look at those plugs that go to the distributor. You should be able to decode those wires to see what they supply and test accordingly. If you do all of these things I bet you will find the issue.
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i can not find the mark on the harmonic balancer. i’ve lightly sanded the entire thing to clean and found no mark, and i have no timing pointer on the body. ill see what i can do, but that’s a good idea. thank you
good idea, will try for sure. thank you