just had my intake off to do the gaskets.

1987 LB9 305 TPI

everything's back together, but it wont start... and when i try, theres a kind of backfire out of the cruise control vacuum port on the plenum. I have no cruise control and that port has always been open.

i'm talking about the port on the left in this picture:



any ideas why it's doing this or why it wont start? (i assume they're related)

im hoping to get this fixed soon, as the car is my daily driver.

 

Make sure the pump is priming and you have fuel pressure.

I would bet though that it is timing related......ie. You put the distributor in at the wrong position or have some crossed plug wires. Check all thoise SEVERAL times. I know you can overlook it VERY easily

Hope that helps some

Oh yea. Put something over that open port/aka vacuum leak!!!


Chris

 

timing... i'm willing to give that a shot. thanks for the tip.

EDIT -> I just saw that my egr solenoid was unplugged.. the clip on the plug busted. would this cause my problem?

 

Probally wouldn't cause a no start situation. Plug up that vacum port, i'm sure it wasn't like that from the factory. Most likely you have the distributor 180 degrees off or plug wires messed up.

 

plug wires are cool.. hopefully its the latter.

we'll see thanks.

 

Ive been through this situation about 7 or 8 times. Its more than likely just as everyone else stated, timing. Say for instance you dropped the dist. exactly the way it came out, and the engine keeps turning - doesnt start, backfire, yadda yadda. Try turning the dist. a little, cant remember what direction it was in

If its still bothering you, bring #1 piston to TDC and go from there.

 

well i was pretty sure i dropped it in exactly as it came out.. but i may have made a mistake

i've since tried playing with its position.. but it seems only to rest in one of 2 spots... where it is now, or 180° from there. all the other positions, it drops in, but not all the way... it sits atop something that prevents it from sealing to the intake, so i can hardly leave it there and fire it up.

i really don't know what else to try. i thought for a while that maybe it was a ground issue with the egr solenoid, because i had it unbolted out of the way so i could get at the bolt holding the distributor in place.. but i grounded both that and the coil in each position (using a grounded wire) and got the same thing.

i've run out of my 3 day weekend and its back to work tomorrow.. so its another week of bumming rides for me. i guess next weekend i just have to go to trial and error again. i've never done adjusted the timing before, so if anyone can give me some tips, i'd appreciate it.

 

yes, it only goes in two ways because of the oil pump driveshaft. Look at the bottom of the distributor is has a flat head screwdriver shape to it and there is an opposite shape if you look down the distributor hole. Therefore it can only go on two ways. Put it in 180 degrees different than you have it now and try it. Or flip all the plug wires around like put #1 wire on #6 at the cap and follow the normal order from there 1,8,4,3,6,5,7,2 tha would be the same as flipping the dizzy.

 

yeah i did flip it 180° ...i had just assumed there were more positions for it to sit in... it didn't backfire at first, but it didn't start up.

 

Its amazing at how a slight turn of the distributor cap will cause the engine to not start up. After my cam swap, I had to take the intake off numerous times for problems that kept popping up everytime I ran the motor. Each time I had the distributor taken out, I always dropped it back in exactly the way it was. Sometimes it would backfire and some smoke would come out of the port you mentioned and sometimes it would just keep cranking with no start.

All I did was rotate the dist. counter-clockwise a little at a time and crank it until the engine finally started up.

 

but the dist. doesn't rotate a little... only 180°. unless you mean... like.. 1/36th of an inch at a time.. in which case.. maybe.

 

I saying once the distributor is set in, then you turn the distributor cap/top/thingy

Just like how you set the base timing in other words. HTH

 

exactly what he said

 

oh.

i gotcha now.

 

Keep us updated...

 

well im working at it again.

i tried a few positions, rotating the cap... it fired up once but stalled immediately thereafter.

approximately how much of a turn should i be performing for it to make a difference? i did about 6 different spots until i ran out of slack from where the ignition wires hold it.

am i right in assuming that the "hot spot" is in the same approximate place it was before? i know the plugs that plug into the side of the cap (at the base) were sticking straight out perpendicularly from the motor. (if the firewall is 12 oclock, they pointed to 3 oclock)

i appreciate any help

 

i think u r confusing your self.i would start over.bring the #1 cylinder up to tdc on the compression stroke.now drop the distributor in and set the rotor to point at the #1 contact on the cap that will get u close enough to fire it up.i just went through this on my car, i was fumbling around with it for a half hour so i just started over and it worked.let us know how it goes...

 

heh i'd have to know something in the first place to confuse myself. im flying blind here.

mechanic buddy stopped by, couldn't get it going. hes gonna fix it tomorrow. id like to do it myself, but i need my car.

 

theSteve, i'm not bashing u i just know what u r going through cause i was in the same boat. i couldn't get mine to drop in the right spot so i said the hell with it and started over.this board above all else is to learn something.the r no dumb questions!!!i always hated people that would talk down to you if u didn't know the answer to something.anyway let us know how it goes. good luck.....

 

heh thanks

 

Try moving all the spark plug wires over by one, mabye that will give you more slack to turn the distributor.

 

well yeah.. i got my mechanic over to do it.. you know.. the correct way. this guess work isn't really getting me anywhere.

guess i had to start somewhere tho i'll let you know how we make out tonight.

 

so yeah.. my mechanic got her going.

said it was mostly distributor related, and a wire i had forgotten to hook up.

he was nice enough to say that it was easily and commonly overlooked so that i wouldn't feel like a complete moron.

he asked for 50 bucks for his time... i thought that was pretty reasonable -- what does that come out to in USD... 3 bucks?