Fired up my new 350 tonight. Had a few issues:

poured gas into carb float bowl, until turning throttle would squirt fuel. Car fired right up, then died after a second or two. Poured in more gas, fired up, ran for a few seconds then died.
This is when I noticed the passenger side front two intake manifold bolts were weeping coolant. Seems like from the bolt itself...?
Shut 'er down for the night. Tore off in the intake in record time. I'm pretty sure I had the thermostat in upside down, dumb mistake. Should I be able to see the temp #, or the funny valve looking part from the top?

I have a non-cc q-jet, edelbrock performer RPM spreadbore intake manifold. I used 1"long socket capscrews with SS AN washers to hold the intake down. I used sealant on all bolts.

-could the upside down t-stat cause the leak ?

in the process of removing the intake, I disconnected the fuel line from pump to carb, it proceeded to leak all over the place, so i'm assuming the fuel pump was pushing fuel into the carb.....

main question: what would cause the motor to die right away? fuel, air, spark....

 

I don't think that there is any way to put the thermostat in the wrong way. If it was installed up side down, the thermostat would sit too high, and the housing would not sit flush with the manifold(at least that was the case with my particular thermostat+housing)

The first two bolts on the intake(on either side) bolt in to the head where the water passages are and are adjacent to the intake runner. there could be a few things that might make it seep coolant there...

1. The intake bolts weren't fully tight.
2. The intake gasket is defective, ie. did not seal around the water passage
3. If the engine block deck was milled, or the cylinder head mating surface was milled, and the intake manifold was not angle milled to compensate, then that could create an uneven surface for the gasket.
4. Is it possible that either the intake or cylinder head could be cracked/warped???

You didn't mention that you found any water/coolant in the lifter valley. Take a look down the intake runner and see if there is any water in the cylinder. If not, then chance are the head is fine. Cheapest and easiest thing would to be to install some type of sealant on the intake bolt threads and see if it still seeps out. I have heard that aluminum is porous, and can cause seepage in the coolant system, so if you are using aluminum heads/intake you can also try to add a bottle of radiator stop leak to essentially *fill in* the area that are porous. Just trying to think of anything that might help you out. Hopefully I did.

 

I have a big chrome waterneck, so I think I can do it backwards easily....
should I be able to read the opening temp, or see the funky valve part, when it's in right?

I think it would be loose intake bolts then. I used socket capscrews and just used a hex key to tighten them all. I'm going to get a 5/16" allen, 3/8" drive socket and use my torque wrench, on the ones I can get at, with this.

The gasket definately sealed around the water passages, I had to scrape and tear the gasket off there, and everywhere else it just lifted off easily....

block was milled .010" and heads were milled a few thou to get flat. Not enough to make a difference I wouldn't think.

I did think that the intake might be porous, or at least leaking from a very thin spot, right in the area where that bolt was leaking... hmm, maybe i'll try some stop leak.

It did weep out before I started the motor though, so I don't think excess pressure is to blame.

a bit of coolant was in the lifter valley, hard to say if that was from when I lifted up in intake and it dumped out the rest of it's contents...


any thoughts on the no run condition?

 

Intake bolts aren't supposed to go into water, the holes have a thick boss behind them and are supposed to be blind; but sometimes they do anyway, especially if they've had to be repaired.

Use some thread sealer on the intake bolts.

1" is too short for intake bolts. They're supposed to be 1¼". You're risking stripping the bolt holes.

The no-run condition sounds like a fuel pump issue. If it's a mechanical pump, make sure there's fuel reaching it (like, take off the suction hose, and pressurize the tank GENTLY with compressed air, and make sure fuel comes out); make sure there's not an extra fuel pump drive rod laying in your parts box; check the bolt you put into the upper smog pump bracket hole, that it's not so long that it binds up the fuel pump rod.

 

MY intake bolts all bled oil/water, i pulled them out and gooped them with RTV and they have been good since.

As for the Tstat, mine sits with the big 'actuator' piece down inside the intake.

And like sofa said, sounds like fuel pumps a no go. or you forgot to put gas in the tank

 

Alright, I can grab 1 1/4" long bolts, no biggie.

fuel, that's what I thought. But when I removed the intake manifold I removed the hardline from the carb to fuel pump, and it spewed gas. So I think the fuel pump is pumping.
I'm doing the break in with open headers (need to drive car to exhaust shop to get y-pipe modified), so it's hard to tell, but the dist may have been off...? I'll have to put it back in now, so I guess I can be very careful again.

 

hmm, put the distributor back in, I tried turning the motor over with a wrench, while feeling for the puff of air. It seemed weak (couldn't get my finger over the hole well, while I was rotating the motor...) .... maybe I still had it 180* out? I'm not really leaning that direction...

Got the intake manifold gasket on right, not leaking at all there. Tried to crank over the motor, and it seems to try to run at like 100RPM (yes, one hundred). It'll just barely run, then die.

boy this is getting frustrating.

It also leaked gas like crazy from the carb, my dip**** brother was watching the motor as I turned it over, and couldn't tell where it was leaking from. Looked like the fuel inlet. I removed the filter (in case it was plugged and backing up). Same thing. I think maybe we added wayyyy too much gas to the carb to get it to fire, and it flooded? Makes sense?

Any clues hints tips or tricks would be very much appreciated. It looks like i'll be making a quick post in the carb forum asking if I have a good baseline for settings, then re-stabbing the dist and trying again.

 

... ok, got it to fire up, ran it at 2krpm for 20 minutes, to break in the cam. Then went up to 2500rpm for a minute, then 3000RPM for a minute, then realized the alt belt was on wayy too loose to maintain any higher safely, so I brought it back down and tried to get an idle.... No chance there. 30* timing would almost hold an idle.
Changed the oil (was kinda milky, think that's just all the funky lubes, cam lube, clevite bearing guard, arp bolt lube, GM EOS...?)


I swapped to manifold vacuum, and tried again today, no dice....
I've got my idle mixture screws out 6 turns now, doesn't want to stay running. hmmm, think i've got enough cam and motor to need to modify my carb? (any q-jet gurus around?)

 

I'd change that oil and see if it still has that milky stuff in it. I hope not

 

yea, with the new oil in it, it looks clean and fresh, however it hasn't been fired yet, so....
I just drilled out my idle mixture screw holes, and i'll jump up a few jet sizes, and see if I can keep it running tonight, fine tune it, and drive it around. Then check the oil again....

when running it (break in), at 3000RPM, it was puffing blue out the breather. I've got a breather in the passenger side valve cover, and PCV hooked to carb on drivers side. Think that's just due to rings not yet seated? (I sure hope it is...)