fast65

Well I just finished building my stroker 347 for the '65, I dropped it in this weekend, hooked up everything and then she wouldn't start up. I did everything by the book, I checked my clearances 3 or 4 times, degreed the cam, primed the oil pump, have my timing dead on, plugs are gapped at 34, etc. I have spark, and I have fuel up to the carb but for some reason the bowls aren't filling, although it still won't start even by pouring some fuel down the carb. It turns over but it's kind of slow. Do you guys have any suggestions on what I might check next? Thanks in advance.

kalli

i guess 'doesn't start up' means it cranks but doesn't run

if you have fuel and spark then I'd say the spark sparks at the wrong time.
you sure you have timing bang on? correct firing order, anticlockwise, distributor not 180 degrees out?, the spark itself strong enough?

urban_cowboy

If your bowls are not filling, then that is your first problem. Your second is you cannot just poor fuel into the venturies because the fuel needs to atomize to burn. Wet fuel does not burn. By pooring in fuel, you are simply flooding the engine.

Have you adjusted your bowl fuel level? What is your fuel pressure to the carb? You need full fuel bowls and 6-7psi of fuel pressure at the carb with the engine running.

fast65

kalli: yeah it will crank but will not run. I'm sure I have the timing on and the firing order correct, I've checked it a few times already.

urban: no I haven't, how do I adjust the levels? I honestly have no idea what my fuel pressure is up to my carb.

urban_cowboy

What type of carb do you have? What type of fuel pump do you have (mechanical or electric)? Did you manually fill the fuel bowls before trying to start (fill them through the vent tubes for both bowls)?

If you have an electric fuel pump, the bowls should fill when the pump is turned on. You can then set the fuel bowl level by removing the fuel bowl sight plug on the side of the bowl and adjusting the float set screw on top of the bowl. You want to just see fuel at the bottom of the sight hole, but not have fuel flowing out of the sight hole.

With a mechanical fuel pump, fuel does not flow unless the engine is turning because it is pumped via a spinning cam shaft. For that, you really need the engine to run before you begin the fuel bowl level adjustment. In that case, you need to manually fill the bowls by pouring fuel into the vent tubes and then try to get it is run. You may can check the fuel bowl level by having someone continually crank the motor, but that would be a pain.

Good luck and let us know some more specifics (see questions above).

kalli

no point in adjusting levels when you don't have any fuel pressure.

how do you know you don't fill the bowls? what carb exactly is it?
when you remove aircleaner and look into the carb, open choke butterflies then open throttle plate fully, do you actually see petrol spilling down?

the more I think about it I believe:
- your fuel pump doesn't work
- you have swapped the lines on fuel pump (swapped inlet with outlet)
- your camshaft doesn't have an excenter for agitating the fuelpump

if swapping the lines at pump doiesn't help get a fuel resitant bottle and feed the petrol directly in there (after pump/yopu can remove the line at carb) and crank the engine. does it squirt petrol ?

Kalli

kalli

hehe Urban :-) same time. i actually never head a problem with a mechanical pump to fill a dry carb with just cranking

fast65

It's an Edelbrock Performer carb (600 cfm), I've got a mechanical fuel pump and when I took the fuel line off the back of the carb fuel was flowing from the fuel pup when I cranked the engine. I did put a little fuel into the bowls and it still didn't start.

fakesnakes

Spark and fuel goes boom...no exceptions!

Was there any combustion at all? If you put fuel in the bowl and it didn't even pop once, you have a spark problem. Clip your timing light to the secondary coil wire, crank and see if it lights, if so move to the spark plug wires and try each one.

urban_cowboy

What initial timing do you have the dizzy set for? You should probably start at around 6* initial advance until you get it started.

Pull the sight plugs and fill the bowls until fuel runs out the ports. That will insure you have fuel to start with.

Fake is right. Air, Fuel, and Spark make boom.