went to fire up the LT1 today, and nothing went right......

i've never put together an LT1 until now, so i am really confused. its a 96 LT1.

when i went to start it, it didnt want to fire very well, and when it started it only would run for a second or two, ran very very rough, and at only a few rpm's. like the timing is way off. the spark plug wires are right, thats the first thing i checked.

can anyone shed some light on this?

i am 99.9% sure the distributer is installed right. how can i tell?

 

If it bolted down and the mounting ears didn't break off, you installed it right. Its only the early ones that can be issuistic. This may sound stupid, but double check all your plugs to be sure they're tight (not much clearance for a plug socket on a stock LT1 head). You didn't say, but is this motor stock? Did you change the cam? You could have the timing set a tooth off (no timing adjustment on an Opti), or possibly have the rockers adjusted too tight. Check the plug wires again just to be sure. Its possible you could have a bad vaccum leak also...a poorly sealed intake manifold, or maybe a cracked or unplugged hose.

 

the engine is completly stock.

the opti can only go on one way in 96? i actually ground down an old spark plug socket so it would fit in the head better. i hope its just a vaccum leak some place


thanks

 

THe opti can go on three ways, I installed one incorrectly once and it sounds like you just did yourself. On the back of the opti on a 96, thier are three cavities, and one cavity has a smaller cavity inside of it, this is where the dowel pin on the camshaft needs to sit on and if you have that correctly it will be in 100% correct timing. You probably did what I did the first time and slipped the opti on one of the other two cavities. Good luck and don't forget about vats.

 

so yours would start and then spit and spudder at about 50 rpms for a second or two?

Vats? what do i have to do with that?


i would rather have put the opti on wrong then have an intake leak, since the intake is a few hours of work when the opti is a lot shorter job

 

Yes, vats is the ANTI Theft Security system, it will shut the injectors off if it senses the wrong key which you can't have. Unless you bypassed it, that may be the reason your car sputtered, I'd take care of that if your positive the opti is on correclty. You can either have it programmed out of the PCM or get a bypass module:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...sPageName=WDVW

Those come with a lifetime warranty.

 

How were you able to tighten the Opti down with it in the wrong cavity? I would have thought the mounting ears would break off before it tightened down.

 

Nope, dunno it was the stock cam and it tighten down fine without breaking it or anything. When I would start the engine it would turn over and backfire and that was all she wrote, it wouldn't stay on.

 

Same thing happened to me a while back, bolted down just fine but definitely was not in the right place.

 

Cant put the early ones on wrong, the splined shaft has a spot where its got a spline thats about 2 or 3 wide as a solid one, only lines up one way.

 

If its none of the above, couldn't it be a faulty fuel pump? just my 2cents...:lala:

 

no, it wouldnt run for 2 seconds then shut off. VATS is definitely involved.

 

the VATS wasnt an issue....

i tore it apart tonight, it was just the distributer one "groove" off, now the engine runs perfect

thanks

 

well...I was wrong. glad you got it fixed, that will definitely do it.

 

lol....i am kind of glad you were wrong though, because i dont know a damn thing about vats

for some reason the car runs a lot better when the timing is advanced 120*:lala:

thanks again

 

Yeah, also doesn't get a lot of power when its about 20* off

 

my car ran fine good idle.. for 2 secs then would die. Once I removed the egr (cause I didn't have it bolted up) , the vats and the ac from the pcm, I was fine. but mine never sputtered.. just start, run 2sec then die