FivePointOhh

ok some may remember my prior thread about the 77 T bird. well early sunday we wheeled the big sumbich in a garage and i start tinker with it.

what happened was she drove it back in 2001 and it died one day and it wouldnt restart, she had been driving the car without issue when she got it back in 1996 till 2001. when it died her husband at the time tried to rebuild the top end to fix it and add a little power. he tore the block down and had the engine rebearinged at a shop and when he got it back he reused the cam and bought a new summit intake dual plane and holley 4 barrel carb. he never got it started, the customer and him got divorced so its been sitting for 7 years without starting.

so i messed with it on sunday. first thing i did was pulled valve covers, pulled dizzy, primed the oiling system(primes just fine) walked the motor around to TDC#1 cylinder compression stroke, restabbed dizzy since it wasnt done right the first time by the ex husband. buttoned everything back down and i tried to start it to see what would happen. battery was dead obviously. swapped it out and it cranks.

spins just fine and it sputters/backfires with no start.(im putting a tiny bit of starting fluid in the carb while doing this) i checked the choke on the carb, set the jets or whatever to a "default" as the write up says...its like 2-2.5 turns backed out(i got a write up online for a holley carb off some website) and it still has the same symptom, backfires with no start not even for a moment.

i even had the customer crank it for me while i turned the dizzy to see if if it would start. nothing. i rechecked my TDC on #1 compression stroke, checked firing order, i verified spark, obviously have fuel since im putting it in the carb. it backfires so i assume there is some compression(i dont have a compression tester.)

so the only thing i can think of is either compression issues or the cam was installed incorrectly. what do you guys think?i have to drive kinda far out into the boonies to get there so im limited on resources so i'd like to go there with some reassurance as to what you think i should look at doing next.

Gary H

Almost sounds like an ignition problem. Or firing order. Which one did you use? Check for spark?

Chaoss84GT50

+1 on the ignition issue, did you pull and check all the plugs? regap them and see if that helps.

FivePointOhh

plugs are properly gapped and "look" good. they dont look fouled or anything. i have good spark, i did verify on every spark plug just in case it might have been a few that didnt work and some did...but they are seem to work just fine. nice blue spark. maybe something else wrong with the ignition besides spark plugs/coil? maybe dizzy is f'd up? when i pulled it, everything looked completely fine.

kweb288

is it getting enough air/fuel? maybe that throttle posision is incorrect???? just a thought

FivePointOhh

that very well may by but i even flipped the throttle all the away back to see if it'd even fire. no dice.

i was thinkin the cam was done incorrectly to the point that the cam events are all sorts of F'd up. if the ex husband cant stab a dizzy in correctly how can he install a stock cam dot to dot? lol!!

kweb288

haha good point! did he even put gaskets on?

There's oil in it right? maybe he didnt even put a timing chain on it!!!!!!! lol

FivePointOhh

yea headgaskets are there. i can see them. it does have oil, i primed the oiling system. i just want it to start then i'll worry about new/proper fluids later. but the system did prime. and the rockers do move thats how i knew what stroke i was on when i set TDC to restab the dizzy.

mustangsneverdie

is it a points dizzy?

IlDuce

timing right?