I had my original 305 rebuilt and just finished putting it back in. I went to start her up and all i get is the engine turning over. Not even a sputter from the engine. I checked for spark, and i'm getting a nice spark from all plugs. Next, i redid my valve lash and found that I had not done it right at all. So i broke out the manual and did it as instructed. My compression seemed to have gone up a bit after doing this. I think the valves were open a bit. I felt confident this fixed the problem, but the car still will not start. Next i checked that the distributer wasnt off. Its lining up right at number one on top dead center. So i tried to start her again and once again not even a sputter. I pulled a plug and there is no fuel on the plug at all. Its like the fuel is not getting into the cylinder at all. I have a mechanical pump and its working fine, I smell gas from the top of the carb to. What could be causing this no start problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

Distributor is probably 180 out.

 

Yesterday i checked the distributor and it seems to be clocked right. I will check again tonight, but is there anything else that could be causing me to not get gas into the cylinder? I have a computer controlled carb. Could the ecu or any of that be a problem?

 

You lined up the distributor rotor with #1 cylinder at TDC. Are you sure you are at TDC of the compression stroke?

Will it run on starting fluid? If yes it's obviously a fuel problem.

 

Even 180 out, there should be some sputtering if you're getting fuel. Look down the throttle bore of the carb while you stroke the throttle and watch for the accelerator pump squirt. It's possible that the fuel may have drained out of you fuel lines and you need to prime the fuel pump. You may need to remove the pump from the block and stroke it by hand until you get fuel shooting from the outlet.

 

yes as mentioned, try squirting a little fuel directly through the carb (or spray starter fluid). You should at least get some sputters. If not then your problem is either electrical or compression related.

 

Ok thanks for the replies. I'll buy some starter fluid tonight and see if i get any results.

 

OK, so i bought some starter fluid and squirted it into the manifold. Cranked her over and nothing happened. Just the same old cranking. The starter seemed to be having way to easy a time turning the engine over, so i stuck a compression tester on a couple of the cylinders. I am not getting ANY compression at all. The most i got was 20 psi on cylinder #1. What could be causing this? I know the short block and components are good. I bought the cylinder heads rebuilt off ebay. They are stock 305 heads and are supposed to be good, but you never know with ebay. What should be my next course of action?

 

I'd loosen the rockers 1 full turn. See if the compression comes back, did you soak the lifters in oil? That sometimes makes them hard to adjust the lash. They can act like a solid lifter that way.

 

Your valve lash is still bad. I had the EXACT same problem when I built my engine.

Make sure you set your valve lash when the rockers are in their full down position.
Tighten the rockers just to the point where the pushrods no longer move up and down.
Tighten the rockers 1/4 more for aluminum rollers, or 1/2 for stockers.

 

If this is a flat tappet motor, make SURE you didnt/dont wipe the cam... That'll cause you all flavors of issues and you'll have a hell of a time tracking them down... Loosen your valves all the way, readjust as many times as it takes to get ZERO LASH... I normally get them close and then with the engine running on the stand, adjust them to zero plus 1/4-1/3 turn... That should fix it... if not, check your cam to make sure you lined it with the crank correctly... the 383 I just built had "non-standard" markings on the crank gear so I screwed up the 1st time...

 

Ok thanks everyone. I'll give the adjustment another shot and post my results.

 

If it's a flat tappet cam, you need to add ZDDP to straight 30 or 40 weight oil for the first 1000 miles and perform a cam break in. I hope that the tappets and lobes were properly lubed when they were installed. Then as soon as you get it running, you need to run it at 2,800 rpm for 25 minutes. Of course making sure that it doesn't overheat.

Today's emissions friendly oil has almost no zinc because zinc is bad for catalytic converters. Zinc is a great lubricant and was a major part of keeping flat tappet engines alive when flat tappets were common from the OEs. Now almost no new car is made with flat cam followers. The best flat tappet cams are 40 year old technology. Today's roller cams will make more power and a better running engine, and are not so succeptable to lobe peel from poor lubrication. Aside from class racing where a flat tappet cam is required by rules, I can't think of a reason today why anyone would use one.

 

OK time for an update. I tried to redo the valve lash. It didn't help. So at this point i'm getting very frustrated. I'm hearing a hissing sound coming from around the intake, so i chose to just take off the intake to get a better view of what could be going wrong. I stuck my head down in the guts of the engine and slowly turned the engine over with my breaker bar. I hear the hissing of air escaping but i really cant tell where it is coming from. So next i tried to completely loosen the rockers to see if i get compression then. The spark plugs are still in and i can still turn the engine by hand pretty easily. The hissing got louder but that's about it. It sounds like it may be coming from the heads. Can someone please give me some insight as to what is going on with this engine. Its driving me crazy!!!!!!

 

gigady lol sorry it made me laugh.

Dont worry about the hissing its just compression bleeding off.


Adjusting Hydraulic Lifters On Small Block Chevrolet

This method is with the engine OFF and spark plugs removed for easier rotation.

Install all the hydraulic lifters and pushrods.

NOTE: New lifters do not have to be pre-lubed. Assembly lube should be put on the cam and the mating face of the lifters.

Install all the rockers and the adjusting nuts leaving them loose. Do not tighten the adjusting nuts before adjusting the valves. Make sure the pushrod is in the lifter and the rocker arm seat when making the adjustments.

Adjust one valve at a time.

Rotate the engine in the normal direction of rotation (clockwise looking from the front of the engine) until the exhaust lifter on the cylinder that you are adjusting just begins to move up. At this point adjust the intake valve on that cylinder to ‘0’ lash with no pre-load. Then tighten the adjusting nut ¼ to ½ additional turns.

Rotate the engine over again until the intake lifter has come to the full lift and then is almost all the way back down. At this point adjust the exhaust valve to ‘0’ lash and then tighten an additional ¼ to ½ turns.

Continue the above for each cylinder until all the valves have been adjusted.

NOTE: Rather than spinning the pushrod and attempting to get the correct ‘feel’, I suggest holding the pushrod between two fingers and lifting the pushrod up and down while slowly tightening the adjusting nut. When you reach the point where there is no up and down movement you will be at ‘0’ lash.

The problem with spinning the pushrod and attempting to get the correct ‘feel’ is that you can and will still be able to spin the pushrod even if you bottom out the lifter. This can cause you to over tighten the adjustment and can lead to bent and / or broken pushrods and valves.

Priming the oil system before starting the engine will fill the hydraulic lifters.


As far as oil what are you running? I always use rotella-t diesel oil.

When you get the lash set make sure the carb is squirting fuel when you hit the throttle or it will never start. If no fuel try and pour a tiny bit in the carb and try again. Like ASE said make sure as soon as you get it started bring the rpms up to 2,800-3,000, this is needed to get the crank to sling oil on the lobes. If you let it idle for too long it will wipe out the cam and lifters and you will have glitter in your oil.

 

hissing from compression working past your rings/valves as you rotate by hand like that is normal.

Who rebuilt your motor? are you sure the mechanical timing is right on?

 

I am running a break in oil i got from summit racing. The mechanical timing is right. I have the mark on the crank and cam lined up. I got curious as to if i was getting suction from the intake . I put tape on eat intake runner to see if they had suction. the passenger side cylinder head seemed to have plenty. The drivers side seemed to not be doing much of anything. Also the rockers were off for this test. Should i be getting this much suction when the valves are not supposed to be open at all??

 

You sound like you are starting to grasp at straws. Slow down, take a step back and think this through. With the valve lash adjusted per instructions posted here, crank the motor over and pay attention to which rockers are moving and how much. You may need to crank long enough to build oil pressure, but when yo do look for anything out of the ordinary. You should also be able to roughly verify your mechanical timing by comparing your rockers (both valves closed) and your timing marks. (a pencil or dowel inserted through the spark plug hole can help you verify TDC ).

Also, you did verify that each and every plug wire sparks, yes?

 

Verify that the TDC mark on the harmonic damper is correct for the timing tab on your timing cover.

If you have a 1 o'clock TDC mark and a timing tab for a 12 o'clock damper or vice verse then what ever timing you have set the motor to is off and it will not start.

 

He needs to first get the lash set before we start on the timing. Get the lash set and report back

 

You are right. I need to think about this for a bit. Luckily I am having my roof replaced and wolnt be able to work on the car till the weekend. I will check for tdc at that point and see if my balancer is off a bit. Does anyone have any tips or tricks on how to check for tdc?

 

Verifying #1 TDC is fairly easy with the valve cover off. The timing pointer will align with the TDC notch in the balancer on both #1 TDC and #6 TDC since it's a 4 stroke engine with two crank rotations per 4 strokes. When the engine is on #1 TDC, the cam ;lobes for #1 are on their base circles and the pushrods will not move as the crank is rotated back and forth. If the crank is on #6 TDC, the valves on #1 will be at the point of overlap between the exhaust and intake strokes, there fore the valves for #1 will move as the crank is turned.

Therefore, as you turn the crank around to to line up the TDC notch with the deepest "V" in the timing mark, watch the valves of #1 cylinder. As the piston comes up to #1 TDC, the valves will be still. The exhaust valve on #6 will be moving. Now you know that you are on #1 TDC.

 

Turn the engine till the dampner mark lines up w/ zero mark. Then try removing the dampner bolt carefully & look at the keyway w/ a mirror. The keyway looks like its at 2 o'clock. The #1 piston should be very close to TDC.

 

Kinda simple idea but have you checked all your fuses?

 

He has spark and fuel, the missing ingredient is compression.

 

Yep all the electronics check out. Im gonna go throught all the head bolts and intake bolts to make sure they are all set to the right torque. Now that the intake is off, i am getting suction from the intake valves so hopefully it comes down to that instead of somthing worse.

 

ok time for a small update. I pulled off the valve covers again and pulled off the intake to make sure the lifters were actually in their down position. So after redoing the valve adjustments again, the engine will still not start. It sounds better when its turning over, but something is still not right. I'm going to take the balancer off and take the timing cover off to double check that the lines are actually matched up on the crank and cam. They should be lined up on tdc right? Cause im almost positive that's how i set it when the engine was built.

 

They point to each other on #6 TDC. Then, one rotation of the crank is #1 TDC and both marks will be at 12 o'clock. Once you have verified cam timing, verify compression. Then, take a look at your spark plugs. I have had a few occasions where spark plugs became fuel/oil fouled on a new engine startup and and even though I could verify fuel and spark, the plugs will not fire and the engine will not start. Make sure that the injectors are actually spraying fuel. You may want to pull the injectors out of their bungs to watch them while you crank the motor.

The laws of physics dictate that if you have compression, fuel and spark, the engine has to run.

Another factor that I have run into that caused a no start in one instance is a clogged exhaust. A severely restricted exhaust will prevent the engine starting. Is it possible that coolant may have run into the exhaust when the engine was torn down? A little won't hurt but alot could have filled your exhaust. Disconnect the exhaust at the manifolds and use a big wet/dry shop vac to draw through the exhaust and verify good flow.

 

Small update. I think the mark on my balancer is off. I had my finger over #1 spark hole and waited for the strong rush of air. I waited untill it was done pushing, meaning the piston was at tdc, and the timing mark on the balancer was not there. I am going to stick a piece of wire in the cylinder to find tdc and set my distributor using that method. Anyone ever hear of the markings being wrong on a balancer? Its raining right now in Cali so i wolnt be able to try till this weekend. My exhaust is new, and only connected up to the converter, so its not filled with water.

 

There are a few different options as far as placement of the timing tab. Many vans had the timing tab on the bottom left corner of the timing cover and the mark on the balancer would line up there at #1 TDC. There is another option common to trucks which would put the mark at 12 0'clock on #1TDC. The V8s used in the third gen F-bodies have their timing tabs placed so that the mark is at 2 o'clock on #1TDC. Because the crankshaft keyway lines up with the #1 crank arm, the keyway should point towards 2 o'clock at #1TDC since #1 cyl is at 2 o'clock from the crank centerline. Ex-ex-fire told you this before. Compare the position of the balancer's timing mark to the position of the keyway, they should line up if your engine and your timing tab are original to the car.

 

It been a while, but i figured out the problem. Finally got the tool to remove the balancer. Cost alot, but i didnt want another autozone rental to break off in the crank. I was sure i had the dots lined up on the timing marks, but sure enough i took the cover off the timing chain, and the marks were way off. I linned them back up, and what do you know, i have compression. I feel dumb, but im still learning. Now the only problem is the messed up threads in the crankshaft. The cheap autozone rental i used the first time messed up the threads when the darn tool broke off in the end of the crank. I was able to remove what was left of the tool and install the bolt, but the threads were definetly weakened. While using my new good intall tool, the threads let go. Now im trying to repair them. If i cant get it to work, i will just repair it with a helicoil. Thanks for all the help, and hopefully this engine will start soon.

 

striped crank ouch. helicoil is a good idea but seeing as you have to retap the hole a larger size anyway for it, why not just skip the last step in the process and use a larger bolt?

 

The first option I would try is to look for another bolt of sufficent grade, one size up that you can tap the crank for.

If an insert becomes the only option I would recommend a time-cert or keycert over a strandard helicoil. You are taking about a rotating assembly and you sure as hell dont want that falling off. I had a buddy have a balancer come off at high RPM. It really made a mess of things.

 

I was a little worried about the helicoil being strong enough also. After taking your advice, and doing some research on the timesert line, i decided to go with them. I really like the ease of installation and the strength. Ill let you know how it works when it shows up.

 

Finaly installed the timesert insert and it worked great. I would highly recomend this product for anyone with a stripped bolt. Installed in less than a half an hour. Then i reset the distributor to tdc while i had the timing cover off to make sure it was right. After i got everything reinstalled on the engine, i tried to start her. She turned over nice, and then started up for a few seconds. I kept on trying but i could only get it started for a few seconds at a time. It doesnt seem to be idleing right. Can anyone give me some advice on how to get her to start and idle smoothly so i can break in the cam? I cant even touch the gas or the car will immediatly stall out.