I am trying to finish installing a new cam in my 88 TA 5.7 tpi. I am almost done. my car cranks, but doesn't start. I replaced the distributor and the coil and still no spark. I have a few vacuum hoses that are not hooked up yet because I forgot where they go. Could this keep it from starting?.....Regardless I still need to get these hoses hooked up. I have included a pic of what I am talking about. I have tried to highlight the hose routing and have color coded the connectors. If anyone in the Dayton, OH area would be willing to offer some on-site help, I would greatly appreciate it! Yellow - I think this goes into the purple connector. The hoses run behind and around the distributor. Purple - connector next to the connector the fuel pressure guage hose is running to Blue - EGR valve Green + Brown - plastic connector White - I think a hose runs from this to the back of the engine compartment,....but where? Orange - hose that runs to green connector Red - hose that runs to brown connector and to smog pump

Looks like the yellow one is from the hvac controls, plugs into purple vaccum port... I'll just get you the diagram for the rest, i forget where the rest go, it's been a while, heh.



By the way, i like how you covered evrything up with convulted tubing, cleans up the engine bay nicely. Also there is a hard plastic line that is part of the hvac that connects to the heater valve. It might of broken off during everything. Also vaccum leaks could cause it not start.

The dual hose fitting goes to the EGR soleniod. ( The two green ones) Your EGR soleniod should be right between the Coil and the Distributo. The red end goes to the 1/4 vac fitting under the Throttle body (driverside). Yes the yellow one would be for the Hvac controls. The orange one would go to the EGR valve itself under the plenum. I think that should fix you up???

But no most Vac leaks would not keep you from starting the car, I had a major vac leak, and mine started fine all the time. Chances are being that you just did a cam change, that either the distributor has not been put back in properly or.. the valve lash is way out of wack.

why aren't the pictures available?

Very old post, but I hope this may help you. It helped me.

bdle:

The pictures weren't available because this was from 6 years ago. But here is the picture that I posted.



Cruzin Kaz:

That would have helped me out back then, but I have since fixed that problem.


After learning that the vacuum hoses couln't keep the car from starting, I decided to check other things. I found that I was getting no spark from the distributor. I replaced the ignition module under the distributor and that didn't fix it. So, I went out and bought a new distributor and the car still didn't start. So I started again looking at other things. About a month later I ran out of things it could be and decided to exhange that new distributor for a different new one and the car fired right up.

As far as the vacuum hoses though, I never did find out where they all went. There wasn't any place for some of them to go. So I just left them unhooked.

My car ran slower with the new cam and suffered from an oil leak and cracked radiator due to my lack of abilities at the time. This eventually caused my engine to lock up a few months later. While removing the engine, I found a connection block for those vacuum hoses stuffed at the back of the engine behind the lower manifold and distributor.