motor was just rebuilt, trans just rebuilt. ready to go have some fun and pffffft. i believe the car should have more get up and go...but heres my problems

to get the car to run well, i have to start the car with timing retarded, then advance it once the car is running otherwise its hard to start.

i believe its running rich because there is some black residue in the tail pipes, and if i hold my hand to the exhaust while its running....it feels moist? whats that all about?

can i get some suggestions? i was thinking the distributor might need recurved, or the distributor is bad?

 

surely one of you fellas can give me a hint...maybe you just missed this so im moving it back up.

 

Well, it might help to add a little info about the motor

Carb or EFI, if EFI TPI or TBI, cam, heads etc, you chose to build with.

 

my bad. duh.

ok its a carbed 350(77 block i believe)
crank is 20 under block is 40 over
flat top pistons with ~9.5 compression
882 stock heads reconditioned.
carb is a rochester that is mighty old and worn(4bbl), its getting rebuilt next pay check

weiand action plus intake

cam is supposedly oversized that came with engine when i bought it however i believe its a stock cam

how much of an increase would i see if i switched over to a Comp Cams XE268? i plan on sportsman II heads later on for another engine build, and was thinking that cam might work well with them?



[This message has been edited by zerogauge (edited June 09, 2001).]

 

That may be too much cam for the heads you have now. Might be best to wait and do them both (heads and cam) at the same time.

Do you have the vaccum advance hooked to ported or intake vacuum?

Might just be a sign of a tight motor, and a weak starter too?

 

starter is a new remanufactured starter(i guess i could return it and get another one though, lifetime warranty)
what do you mean by tight motor?

the vacuum advance is hooked upto the carb...


[This message has been edited by zerogauge (edited June 09, 2001).]

 

It's not uncommon for a freshly rebuilt motor to be difficult to spin over, clearances are the tightest.

Is that ported vacuum on the carb? i/e, that port only sees vacuum when the throttle is opened? Or when it's idling, do you have vacuum on that port all the time?

 

i believe it has vacuum all the time.....which would advance the timing and would be making the engine hard to turn over which is why i have to retard the timing?

i think you just turned on a light bulb in my head.....

thanks. ill try that first thing tomorrow


[EDIT] BUT would it be pulling vaccuum while i was starting it? i have no idea....

[This message has been edited by zerogauge (edited June 09, 2001).]

 

0 gauge,

Vac. advance works the opposite way. Your engine pulls no vacuum at WOT, where advance is at its highest. It pulls the most vacuum at idle, where your advance is based on dist. position.

------------------
-Jason M. 1991 Camaro Z28

 

thank you for clearing that up....so now im back to square 1

 

No, that's not the way vacuum advance works.

At idle (w/ vac advance hooked to ported vacuum) there should be no vacuum advance being brough in by the distributor.

When you begin to open the throttle blades in normal driving situations, vacuum is then ported to the vacuum advance cannister, pulling in and advancing the timing.

As you're driving along on the highway, you have three timing things happening...base timing, vacuum advance timing and mechanical timing.

When you open the throttle to WOT, you lose vacuum, and the adavnce being pulled in by the vacuum advance is now gone, and you're left with the base/initial timing and the mechanical timing.

The faster the distribiutor rotates, the more mechanical advance you get until the mech is maxed, at that point you're left with "total timing" which is the initial setting plus the mechanical max limit's.

As far as having intake vacuum hooked to the vac advance, the motor will pull some vacuum when turning over by the starter, not much, but maybe enough to pull some more advance in, that added to the initial/base, may cause the timing to be too far advanced to spin a fresh motor over, that coupled with a fairly high compression for a smog type camshaft causing high cyl pressures.

Now if there was a more performance minded cam installed, then the cranking cyl pressure should be lowered enough to compensate.

 

ok i have figured out that its the starter slipping off the flywheel. i have no shims on it now, and it still slips...how do i get the starter closer to the flywheel?

really sucks when you have a brand new engine in a car and you start it with a metal hitting metal noise....

 

Ah you lucky dog! You have a block with what we geezers affectionately know as

The Problem


Starting sometime in the early 70s, Chevy motors began appearing that simply would not start. The starters didn't engage their flywheel or flex plate correctly. These motors would make horrible grinding kind of noises, turn very slowly, and eat flex plates. Shimming them only made it worse. GM knew they had a problem on their hands by about 73, but apparently had no idea what was causing it; listings for a special starter for essentially non-existent applications started appearing in AC/Delco books, like for "71-73 Checker cab with 396 and Powerglide without A/C". All through the 70s, about 1/3 or 1/4 of all Chevy motors, SBs, BBs, and 6s, had this situation. They finally found it and fixed it sometime around 79 or 80. It was caused by a failure in some one of the 3 or 4 or so machines that gang-drills and taps the holes in all Chevy blocks, allowing the starter holes to wander farther and farther from the crank.

The starter you need is part # 4347. It locates the starter drive about 3/16" closer to the crank. It uses 2 different length bolts. Make sure you get real starter bolts; they have a special section that fits tightly like a dowel pin in the block and starter, to positively locate the starter. Using regular bolts will make The Problem worse. Call around to the real parts stores in your area (not Auto Zone or Pep Boys or any of that) and ask the counter man for that number (4347); if they have a clue what you're talking about, and don't try to sell you the "right starter for your car" which is what you've got and which will never work, they'll be able to help. It isn't cheap but it's guaranteed to cure it.

------------------
"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

called every parts store in town and none of them show a #4347 starter

can anyone else verify "The Problem" as being valid and not just myth?

Not to say i dont believe you but i think 1 out of 10 stores would know what i was talking about...i described the problem and they were like.... "ummmm"

 

Who knows...

I have had altogether too many motors over the years like this. I have a 74 Cparice convertible with a 454 that had it so bad that it broke the nose off of a 3510 when I first got it; in fact, I got it for too cheap precisely because it wouldn't start. It has had the same 4347 on it since about 1985 or so.

Here's another way you might get it...

http://www.carparts.com/parts/search...hstring1=4347s

------------------
"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

i just did a search on 4347S and one source says that starter is for a 67-76 6 cylinder

i guess i can try it though...

 

I tried carparts.com to give me a lookup for the application that it fit, but no dice... what you found sounds believable.

When you get it, make sure you get the right bolts for it, I believe you can get them just about anywhere in the Help line of little service items. It may move it over far enough that you'll need shims; have some on hand just in case.

One of my friends had a 76 4WD Blazer that did this; he went to an old mom & pop type parts store with that #, the guy got a twinkle in hs eye and said something like "So it grinds real bad huh?" When he put it on there he told me he couldn't believe how it worked, it sounded just like a normal car for the first time in its life (this was in about 1993) Another guy I knew had a 76 El Camino SS 350, same deal. He went through about 3 or 4 flex plates in the process.

I imagine most of the blocks that do that like yours have long since been melted down, since you sure can't build a usable motor out of them unless of course you know the magic part #, which most people have long forgotten or retired with.

BTW is your block a 3970010 casting? Those smog heads were pretty commonly found on that # of block, which is a decent block except for that and one other mfg flaw wherein one or more lifter bores doesn't point straight at the cam so they eat cams. In any case, get rid of the 882s at the earliest available opportunity, they were one of the main reasons that a mid-late 70s 350 was rated at between 165 and 180 HP.

Ever wonder how it was that imports gained so much market share so quickly in the late 70s? This sort of thing is part of the reason. It ranks right up there with the F*rd products that have steel fuel line except for one little 4" section, right in front of the carb, about an inch from the dist; the line bursts of course, as rubber line always does, and sprays fuel on the dist, and the car burns to the ground before the fire dept can even get there. F*rd used that design for at least 20 years that I know of. Such quality we used to have in the US of A.

------------------
"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

the block is 3970010
that casting number is for 69-80 chevy 350's
or a 1969 302 from the Z28 Camaro.

my block is a 350 from im guessing 72(or before) instead of 77. I went to autozone and told them to just start giving me starters...i tried the 3510, 3570MS and then finally the 3508S and wham, fires right up no grinding no crunching, just fired right up. and it just so happens the 3508S was cheaper so I even got 2 bucks back.

Thanks for the help.