Alright, call me a newbie, but...
I purchased a crate goodwrench 350 and have had nothing but problems. As soon as I got everything set up, after multiple things had been troubleshot, I'm still having problems. The car will only run if the timing is at 35* BTDC. I tried setting it to 8*, mind you initial w/o vacuum advance.
My question is i'm getting ready to check the camshaft to see if it might be a tooth or two off, what's the best way to go about doing this? And if it is a tooth off, how should I go about turning it to make it proper?
I would appreciate any help

 

Sounds to me like you have a balancer for a 1:30 timing tab, but you have a 12:30 timing mark on your balancer. There's probably nothing wrong behind the timing cover; you just used the wrong balancer, such that its timing mark doesn't match the cover you used.

 

I wish that were the case, and I guess it's a possibility. But whenever I attempt to run the car, giving it any throttle at all makes it completely bog down.

 

So what balancer and timing cover have you got?? Have you checked to see if the timing marks actually line up when the #1 piston is at TDC?

It's a little early to be worrying about "bogging down", whatever that means, until you determine if your ignition timing is within 30 degrees of where it's suppodes to be.

Or, you could just set the timing to where the car runs its best, and ignore the mark because it's obviously a bunch of mismatched parts; that would also be a great place to start. Advance it until it starts to ping, then back it off a few degrees, see if it runs any better.

 

I just put an 8" harmonic balancer on there... but apparently it's the wrong one because the main pulley sticks out about 1/4" further than when the 6 and 3/4" one was installed...
I've taken the *stock* timing cover off and checked the cam already, everything is ship shape.. so you may be correct in assuming that the timing tab and balancer were incorrect, because I have yet to have the car running with this 8" balancer. Battery died on me yesterday and by that time it was dark out.. so I haven't had a chance to fool with it yet. But the tab that I had on with the 6 and 3/4" balancer was the one supplied with the motor for that size balancer...
Currently I have a edelbrock 600 cfm performer carb, edelbrock performer intake and HEI non CC distributor with delco plugs.
When i put the timing advance analyzer on it, the mark was coming around at 35*, so ... i guess right now it's all back to assembling the engine and getting it running properly to check if this new 8" balancer will do the trick.
Any ideas about the pulley?

 

Balancers are all the same as far as pulley location; from the one that wasn't even a balancer but was just a pulley flange on the 265 and 283, to the 8" 350 one.

It's not on all the way.

I think that once you get a balancer and a timing mark that match, ...... well, your marks will match.

Personally I don't give a rip about a timing mark anyway, I don't use them for anything; except when I live in a state such as CA that checks it as part of emissions inspection. At the moment I no longer live there so I'm back to not caring about it. I fail to see what the big deal about a mark is, especially in a non-computer modified engine application.

 

ok... ... but that still doesn't resolve my problem. I did tune it by ear with the other balancer on there and when I gave the car any kind of gas there wasn't really any acceleration...
I could hear the engine get real loud and deep, but it just didn't sound right.. at full throttle i'd venture to say a stock honda civic could smoke me...

 

Keep advancing it (turn dist body counter-clockwise) until you hear it ping under acceleration at moderate speed in high gear when fully warmed up, then back it off. That'll at least get you close.

If the mark doesn't make sense, ignore it. Tune it to where the engine runs right. I can guarantee you that the engine doesn't lean out and look at the mark and make a decision to run good or not based on that mark; the only thing that really matters is when the spark occurs, not what the mark reads.

Don't expect miracles out of it. It's still basically a 180 HP 70s smogger motor, by part numbers, regardless of the "ratings" that it carries as a "crate motor". Twiddling the distributor around isn't going to raise the compression, give the heads any flow, improve the pitiful "929" cam, etc. etc.

 

lol, I hear ya. I really appreciate the help. I guess I shouldn't have bought that POS in the first place, but I'd at least like to get it running. I figured it would at least have more ***** than my 305 with 207,000 miles on it... so far doesn't seem to be the case.

 

Well it's not completely hopeless or anything, just be realistic. At least it has room for improvement. It's not hard to pretty much max out a 305 and still be left wanting more.

 

Yea, my next upgrades will be heads, a cam, and some headers... I figure it'll help out quite a bit.
But can't do that for a while, money is a very limiting factor especially when attending college. I'm just hoping that this thing will run correctly. The thing that baffles me is that the person that put the harmonic balancer said it was on all the way... it didn't appear to be...
Now what's got me worried is all the metal shavings I saw in the balancer and all over the threads in the crank

 

Well for anyone who cares,
I'll update the situation.
Put the harmonic balancer on today. The idiots that I let work on the car apparently didn't even know how to do that right. . . how sad.
Lesson learned: Do not let the college auto class work on your car. Came back with a loose *** harmonic balancer and my power steering belt missing (how'd that happen?)
Only had time to do that and put the water pump back on, but I should have everything assembled tomorrow and have the car running