Okay, so, I just put a 350 4 bolt in my 84 Z28. It was rebuilt when I bought, and never started since the rebuild. Well, we got it done and it was time to start her up to adjust timing etc. Well, after it was running for about 2 minutes, if that, the passenger side header started glowing red. It was around the #2 and #6 cylinders(the header tubes). Me and my buddy have only one idea. The valve lash isn't right, thus causing the exhaust valves to stay open. Is this the case? Any ideas?
Thanks in advance for the help
Lowell

 

Hi,

You might want to check your AFR after the motor loosings
up a bit.

Once you get it dialed in and a few miles on it , then pull the
plugs on those tubes and check them out for lean or rich
condition.

Take a while to color the plugs unless your running real rich.
Cam and timing issues can also cause burning in the headers
so not only lean would cause that.

Didn't state Inj or carbed.

jaykar

 

I can imagine how hot they would get if you actually put a load on the engine...

I do know that some header manufacturers state NOT to run headers on a rebuilt engine until it is broken in for X number of minutes because of the higher engine temperatures during the intial break-in.

I know if you have a clogged Cat it can cause excessive heat as well.

 

EFI OR CARB?

clogged cat, bad valve lash, possibly damaged valves.

EFI can be bad injectors

jsut a few thoughts.

 

Oops. Sorry guys. It's carbed. My buddy and I got to tuning it, and it turned out to be the valve lash. It was off by a bit. But it seems to be doing good now. I've actually driven the car and the headers no longer glow. Had me way worried. I really appreciate the input. Still got some fine tuning to do, but runs pretty good. Thanks again guys
Lowell

 

Timing also can do that to, My distributor bolt cam loose and turned to 14 degrees retarded, during my dyno pulls they would glow cherry red. Checked and reset the timing and instantly fixed, also gained 73 hp out of it to.

 

Yeah, there were a few things we fixed/adjusted. Timing and valve lash mainly. Luckily, we fixed the problem before I actually drove it around. My timing tab is wrong for some reason. So, it's acutally like 978 degrees advanced, but it runs a whole lot better. Lol. Runs cooler too. Thanks for the input