I just put my engine in my car and if I rev it a little or a lot it pops through the carb and shoots flames. I have ran the valves time and time again. Probably 7 or 8 times already. I only went 1/4 turn so they can't be too tight. Also, the timing is jumping around. I have put 2 different carbs on to make sure it's not the carb. One is a demon, the other a holley. Also, I have tried different pump cams. See sig. for the engine specs. Please help.

 

Your timing is way off, it's firing the plugs when the intake valve is open. Not good!! Start over, bring the #1 piston to tdc on the compression stroke and restab the distributor in. Make sure the distributor is pointing at the #1 plug wire also.

 

And check the distributor for excessive wear.

 

Is there way to put a dial indicator on it or something? I wouldn't know the tolerances. Do any of you know? A visual does show some wear but how much is normal?

 

could it be wrong vacume hose routing ??

or as ME Leigh said the timing is off try restabing the disributor again ......
you said you just put the engine in your car did you rebuild it ? or just buy it and install it ? if you rebuilt it did you install the timing gears correctly ? that can happen also

 

I built the engine. I lined the timing gears dot to dot.

 

if you had it set dot to dot when you put your dist in you need the rotor pointing to number six and not number one, if you installed it with the gears dot to dot to fire on number 1 your 180 out

 

:werd:
Yep, don't feel bad, it happens to everyone now and then, but it's hard on the new cam.

 

im sure it can happen easily knock on wood never had it happen to me ....

 

yep, loosen the distributor hold down clamp and raise the distributor about 2". ALl you need to do is clear the cam gear and the oil pump drive shaft. Once its free from those 2, rotate it 180° and restab it in there.

And i too, am guilty of falling for the heinous crime commited by the companies that make the timing sets and failing to inform use that dot to dot is NOT #1 firing.

 

Well, after beating my brains out trying to get the car to run right I gave up and put it on the trailer and headed to the national f-body event. I had tried everything. I had 2 distributors in and out and in and out. Flipped 180 and back. New cap, rotor, and coil. I even went as far as putting a new timing chain on because I thought the teeth may have been off or wrong or something. The f-body event was in Indianapolis this year and all the attendees stayed in the same hotel. When we arrived I started talking to people about the problem. Several were scratching their heads including Myron (owner of TPI specialties). After burning up one starter and putting on another one we noticed that the braided stainless steel covers on the accell plug wires were getting warm. That meant spark energy was being grounded out to the block. But how? We took a multimeter and checked continuity between the block and the tip of the spark plug. THERE WAS CONTINUITY! That should not be happening. How could this be? Well, the plugs were soaked from fuel and the spark energy was actually travelling through the liquid fuel and grounding out. So the only thing to do was to change plugs. I changed the plugs and it runs like a charm. The next day I took it off the trailer and with no tuning and a vacuum secondary carb it ran 12.40's. I plan to tune this until I can get really low 12's. By the way one of the guys helping me has been a mechanic for 30 years and says NEVER use accel spark plugs. They foul quickly. I learned my lesson. I now have autolites in at the moment. Thanks for the posts guys. I never would have guessed it was the plugs.

 

You can put in a $10,000 set of plugs, and the same thing will happen to them if hte braided covers keep leaching energy out of the ignition system. I've cleared up more than one driveability problem by removing those "high-tech" braided plug wire covers. Unless you're using XLP wires on 15KV AC circuits, with insulation bleeder shells, secondary insulation barrierrs, and insulation drain wires, you don't need any kind of metal covering on your HV wiring. Now, you have found one of the reasons why.

 

Braided covers are a heinous crime, why they were invented is beyond me.
Glad you figured it out though.