85 IROCNROLL

Ok here i go. I have this 85 camaro that is not original. It has a 350 out of a truck but they put all the tuned port on the car during the swap. Now when i got the car a few months ago it ran but not good. Sounded good at idle but as soon as you tried to rev it it would bog out and then rev. Never died. I drove this car down the road and it seemed to be lacking alot of power. So i decided to give it a tune up. This is where everything went bad. So i put a new cap and rotor on as well as plugs and wires. Car wouldnt start. All kinds of back firing though. So i went through and made sure all the wires were on right. Got the firing order and tried moving them over one direction and then the other with no result. ( except for the gun shot out of the exhaust) Found out my ignition module was bad so i replaced it, again with no result. My pick up coil was reading 1650 ohms so i replaced it with one that reads 850 ohms, still no result. Got the engine at top dead center with the striker pointing at the 6:30 position pointing at the #1 plug wire. No result!! I have tried to move it to the 5:30 position and 7:30 position and the best i get is a gun shot with a lot of back fire. WILL NOT START AT ALL!!! I have never had this problem before and i am stumped. I have read through the forums and have tried everything. Well not everything or the car would have atleast started lol. Sorry for the long post. Any ideas or help would greatly be appreciated. Thanks

85 IROCNROLL

And one more thing, when i got this car the guy told me it was the original engine but insisted it had a 350 in it because it was a iroc. I know f bodies and i tried to explain to him they didnt put 350's in irocs until 87. So i was buying parts for a 305 tuned port. Could the wires be the problem? I wouldnt think so but i really dont know.

redtruck18

To me it sounds like bad timing. Pull the distributer, find tdc on piston #1, re insert the distributer. Get it started, attach the timing light to your battery, and clip the clamp onto #1 spark plug wire, start the engine, and adjust as usuall.

85 IROCNROLL

Thats the problem, i have tried to do that and the car will not start. Just pops and cracks a lot. Are you saying pull the distributer first, then find tdc?

redtruck18

you dont have to pull the distributer to find TDC, remove #1 spark plug, put your finger OVER (NOT IN) the hole, have somebody "bump" the ignition, dont start the car, just turn it off and on real quick till you feel it start blowing, now take a coat hanger, bend it so it'll fit and touch the piston top, use a breaker bar to slowly rotate the crankshaft (via the balancer on the front) till the hanger reaches its highest point. This is TDC. Now lift the distributer, and put it back in at its factory setting, with the piston at TDC i believe (dont quote me here) the number 1 spark plug wire at the distributer should point at #1 plug hole. Get it close. Also, double check your wires at BOTH ends. make sure you didnt mix up the order. Once you get here you should be timed very close to TDC. Now, bolt everything down and reconect all parts. Leave your HEI distributer a little loose, tight enough to where its fairly difficult to turn, but loose enough to where you can turn it. Connect your timing light. Once again, there are 3 wires coming out of the timing light, a red metal clamp (like seen on jumper cables) a black metal clamp (like seen on jumper cables) and a black clamp sort of device. Connect the red to your positive (RED) terminal at the battery, the black to your negative terminal at battery, and take the black clamp looking thing and put your number one spark plug WIRE into the little U cut into the clamp and close it. This reads the spark using magnetism and whenever it senses a spark it will cause the light to light up, which should coincide with a the largest timing mark on your harmonic balancer. Turn your engine on(it better start now, and dont forget to turn the timing light on)What you're looking for right now is that light to light up every time that mark rolls around. I find this is easist to do in the dark since you can see the mark and only the mark and be sure the light is shining at the same time. Generally its best to be advanced (rotate the HEI distributer CLOCKWISE) but tune it to where it sounds and seems to run best, just dont over do it. Timing controls spark, spark is usually best a few degrees prior to TDC. To the best of my knowledge this is because of the momentum of the pistons and gives you a better "stroke".

If after all that trouble it still wont even start..... maybe replace spark plugs, go ahead and do wires while you're at it. If that still fails, i dont know... if it were me, by that point id have somebody take a peek. Fresh eyes tend to catch things that even the pro's can overlook if they've been staring at it long enough and stumped for too long.

85 IROCNROLL

Alright man. I will go and try it again and will let you know how it goes. I have already replaced everything so there really isnt a good reason for it not to run now. thanks again

Gumby

180* out

rgarcia63

If you haven't done this yet. make it easier by first rotating it so that the distributor rotor is pointing where you want it before you pull the distributor so that you don't have to worry about lining up the oil pump shaft when you stab it in at the #1 compression stroke TDC.

85 IROCNROLL

When you say 180 degrees off are you talking about the rotor being a 180 degrees out or the distributor itself?

Gumby

the dizzy itself, it does happen and it will run but like crap.

redtruck18

check my picture for help, i threw it in my sig. you can see where my#1 plug @the dizzy is pretty much across (facing away) from the #1 plug hole. (this is not how it will stay.

85 IROCNROLL

Finally got it started. Found out that my marks on my harmonic balancer are way off so i was never at tdc. Took a sharpy and stuck it in the #1 cylinder until i got it just right. Took a few times and then put my striker at the 5:30 position (facing the #1 cylinder) and it fired right up. What a relief. I have been working on this for 3 weeks. It all started with a simple tune up i have done a 100 times lol. I appreciate everybodys help. I dont know what i would do somtimes without these forums. They are great LOL.

Gumby

Id look into that, why is the balancer wrong, is it just the wrong one, could be a sign of other things done wrong with it by a PO.

85 IROCNROLL

Yeah the engine came out of a truck and they took everything off the 305 it did have in it and put it on this 350. I am thinking they could have put it on wrong or maybe the timing chain jumped. Dont know right now but still happy its running.