Alright so we got the fuel and brake lines done and decided to fire this beast up for the first time. Here comes the problems. Gooseneck leaks, no biggie. Intake manifold leaks in the back passenger corner, guess the dab of silicone didnt do the trick, but once the engine warmed up it didnt leak anymore and didnt leak anymore at all today so we'll see.

The problem is the engine doesnt exactly run good. It wont idle at all, even after warmed up. And it seems like with low rpms its missing but sounds a little better with higher rpms. The dwell is at about 19. And we didn't have access to a vacuum gauge but last night I took a squirt bottle and sprayed water all around the intake manifold to try and find a leak, but nothing.

I am going to try and get my hands on a compression tester to check the compression... i am afraid it may be a blown head gasket.... any ideas on what it could be or what to try?

The engine: 70's 302. Edelbrock 600 carb that ran perfect on the last car it was on. New plugs, wires, cap rotor, points all that. The engine was rebuilt by the previous owner, supposedly all new parts, we took the pan off before putting it in and saw that the piston crank and rods all looked new and their was still assembly lube all over.

I tried making a movie of it running but appearantly open headers overwelms the mic on a digital camera. Anyways since i have it i will post it if it helps anyone. http://www.auctionsbyhalz5.com/mustang/engine.3gp 3gp files open in quicktime.

Thanks guys.

 

I couldn't watch the video due to a corrupt error. Anyway, I'm sure it is a timing problem or maybe carburetion. Check for open vacuum ports on or around the carb and manifold. Check TDC and make sure the dist is not a tooth off.

 

Thx for the suggestions, heres what i learned today...

We checked the vacuum and it was at 6.... then we took the valve covers off and loosened the rockers and the vacuum got up to about 12...if we made the rockers any looser the rockers started coming off the pushrods.

We moved the distributor about 10 times and it looked right but nothing got any better. So we took the whole front of the engine apart to see the timing gear and chain and it was right on the money. We decided to take the cam out I guess more for giggles than anything since we were that far and it had some really weird scraping patterns on it... like the wear started on the edge of the lobe and was really skinny then at the top it was more centered and fatter, then back down.... looked just like a boomerang. Also more than one lobe had large chips taken out of it. Supposedly this cam had never been run in this engine before, the guy i bought the engine from said it was a used cam outta some other 302.

Anyways i bought a new cam from summit, .471 lift. I figured thats was a nice and round number, not 2 high not to low.... but really I am not sure if this is fixing the problem. Any ideas?

btw, the cam we took out was huge, my dad took it home to measure it and find out how big it was.... possible the valve springs weren't enough for that cam and the valves weren't closing? hence the vacuum and compression being low.... which reminds me i didn't mention the compression we checked the compression and all the cylinders were between 100-125....