zs&tas

Hey so the story is, the car was fine, went to do oil change then it decided it didn't want to start, found dead pick up coil. Got whole new dizzy and new spark plugs ( the cooler pre 88) was running the hotter post 88. Now it starts but had bad lifter noise and didn't run well, I've had it apart and back together , found two "soft" lifters, I can push the push rod down easily. It will run at very light throttle, it does not stall , but it stutters / misses like crazy Def at anything over 2k on a little load.
is the lifter causing this issue? Would a lifter like to go around an oil change ? I thought it was noisey before the oil change so I don't think so.
Car was timed at 11° . ICM ECM whatever advances timing when reved , so this seems to work . I've gone from a .045 to .035 spark gap. Same issue . Maybe the coils not as strong as it was ? . I'm a bit lost now tbh.
It was fine before the oil change ?

zs&tas

Hi so the little garage I use said they Def see things fail straight after oil changes , fresh oil highlighting issues , my friend has a 20thou mile 305 tpi in his shed , I'm guna steel lifters from , actually we're guna rebuild mine using his so I'm still matched up.

zs&tas

Bottom is my 2.8 lifter, top is friends 305 lifter. Seemingly identical.

maroe624

Sputtering is usually caused by a bad ignition control module. I use to have the same problem. Since your pick up coil failed I'm pretty sure you ICM is bad as well. Oh but you said you got a brand new dizzy?

zs&tas

Yeah it's all brand new and seems to act as it should when watching with the timing light.
think I may have had a couple of lifters that need cleaning out rather than rebuilding , just taking them all apart now to make sure there's no gunk in there

zs&tas

So all the lifters have been cleaned out , I did find two small bits of metal in two lifters but apart from that no damage , glad I did it now and there all clean.

Also found out what my missfire prob is , the rotor in the dizzy wasn't on properly , not sure how that happened , and it's started to eat the inside of the cap !

Going to get it all back together now , hoping for a quieter top end and a smooth running motor fingers crossed

zs&tas

Ok so had major issues here , engines back together , lifters are quiet now , that's good. Timed at 11.5° now. Runs ok now is drivable . Still have occasional part throttle cruising miss ? Not all the time and fine if I stomp on the gas ............ Not sure why though ? Not sure what to do now ?
I've got two broken upper intakes now too , both broke nr the throttle body . Which sucks !
might try disconnect maf, check fuel pressure, maybe a new coil ?

zs&tas

You know what , I ditched the brand new cap and rotor that came with the new dizzy, put the one year old one on , just drove 20 fantastic miss free miles in the sun roof off with my 8 year old , can't believe it, so glad it's back !

maroe624

Sweet, good to hear you got it running. Was probably just a bad cap and rotor. I just bought a red 88 2.8 5 speed few days ago for 500 bucks. Turns on but runs a bit rough, seems like it's not getting any fuel. But today I sprayed some starting fluid and it ran good for a few mins without stalling. I checked for fuel pump prime but I cant hear a dam thing, It still has original pump im guessing. Its a 3 owner car me being the 3rd. All stock never been modified, everything is were it's supposed to be.Pretty sweet cant wait to get it running. I'll post some pics later on.

zs&tas

Thanks , I could not see any difference between the caps , but it worked . Cool cheap find you got , sounds awesome . Over here that would have been 1500 easy !

maroe624

Check it out bro. Today I took it out for a wash and to make sure all the gears are good. And sure enough everything is good. Just needs a little TLC. I have all four rims just need new tires. My next paycheck I will be fixing it up little by little. To begin with, Oil change. Next I need to swap out the trans mount. Still has original fluid filled mount so I need to get that and the crossmember. Also has brown/rusty coolant. Do you know of a good way to flush the block.? I'm planning on buying a new radiator. Didn't overheat on my test run. Those are the major things for now.

zs&tas

Hey, looks like a good start man. She's clean enough eh . Only thing I've ever done to flush is connect up to a hose pipe from the house , parked over a drain and just ran clean water through it from top to bottom for a bit , watch the **** fall out !

zs&tas

Oh yeah those fluid mounts are horrid , mine was in bad shape , used to make the hole car pogo down the road lol. Had a solid V8 trans mount now for years , so much better. And cheap !