Timing Troubles (in the right forum this time)

[Dano78]

I'm at a bit of a loss here and I need you guys' help to make sure I'm not missing anything. Working with a '77 2.8L with approx 47K (or 74K can't remember for sure) Here's the problem:
This V6 Ghia I'm working on, I can't sem to get it to 'fire' correctly. It turns over fine and it will pop through the carb and every so often a pop out the exhaust. I've got good spark and I fool with the dist. as I'm turning it over. It just won't run, or even really do anything. I'm not much of a duraspark expert. I can get it hooked up but troubleshooting the duraspark is my weakness. New cap, rotor, good wires, new clean, correctly gapped plugs.
Then I thought hmmmm, maybe the valves are too tight but I really didn't want to remove all the smog crap...again... to pull the valvecovers but rather I managed to snake my compression tester and tested all 6 cyls.
#1 - 150
#2 - 145
#3 - 145
#4 - 155
#5 - 150
#6 - 145
Now I'm figuring that if the valves were too tight, I'd get much worse compression figures than that. Checked EGR valve, it's closing. Checked any and all other ports i knew were open, all plugged. I've changed out the coil and the DS control module and no changes. I'm feeding fuel into the carb with a small dripper bottle so I know I'm not flooding it out and that it is getting fuel. It just seems like the spark is occuring at the wrong time. I've brought #1 to TDC twice now and it's right where it should be in relation to the dist. cap. Checked firing order and rotation twice aswell. I'm just at wits end here and wondering if I'm missing anything else?
Signs are pointing to 'engine out of time' but I'm really reluctant to having to pull the front of the engine apart. Seeing as I have good compression, it's hard to think the cam is that far off time.... I dunno. Any input? Ideas? Thoughts? I just can't believe this thing is kickin my arse.

 

[dmoody]

I had a friend who was doing the exact same thing... it would backfire through the carb and the exhaust exactly as you described. I managed to finally convince him that he was making the spark plug fire at the end of the exhaust/beginning of the intake stroke. Anyhow to make a long story short I turned the distributor 180 degrees and badda bing, badda bang it started :--)

d

 

[Wart]

1-4-2-5-3-6

Distributer turns clockwise.

I set base timing by pulling the plugs (and putting the plugs back into the wires) and spinning the engine while using the timing light.

What your describing is classic out of time/jumped timing.

Does this engine have the factory gear set still in it?

 

[Dano78]

dmoody- I haven't tried 180ing the distrubutor yet. I'll have to give that a shot,for kicks.

Mark- Yeah went over the firing about 3-4 times and again this morning. It is very possible that it could still have that p.o.s. plastic lined cam gear still in there and I've been dreading that as it's crossed my mind too. The engine, I pulled out of a customers car for a V8 swap. IIRC the car read 74K on the odometer but dad thinks he saw 47K (car was in REALLY nice shape and completely un-molested) The engine was really clean with only small leaks on the valve covers. Anyhow- yeah Iagree, I keep thinking the same thing, Mark. I had the engine on the stand over a week ago, and it should have been one of the things I checked before stuffing it in. (should practice what i preach, right?! ) Just got into a bit of a hurry, and it's looking like I'm gonna have to tear down the front again. However, the distrib spins and the valvetrain works perfectly without skipping a beat. And wouldn't the compression tell a tale if the engine is out of time? This engine being a 100% gear drive and if it jumps time, there should be major breakage on the cam gear and the valvetrain and dist would spin with a hesitation if any spin at all. The few V6s I've torn down that had the broken plastic gear usually are missing a good size chunk. So I dunno...

I just want to cover all my bases before I have to teardown. These parts stores just don't carry this stuff anymore and it seems as if the parts would be gold plated at the time you order them.
Anyhow- i just want to make sure it's not an ignition problem (Duraspark) before i start burrying myself deeper into this car dollarwise.

 

[eaglecap]

Sounds like your timing gear lost a few teeth to me. Rotate the engine to where it says TDC, pull the plug on #1 put a small probe on the cylinder top and then manually turn the engine in the correct direction. You should be able to tell by the probes movement if it is really in time or not. If not........

 

[Dano78]

Eagle- Actually I was about to do just that when i was yarding out all the plugs to try what Mark suggested. As I was doing that I got to thinking about how turning the dist. 180 would actually work and thinking of the firing order and all that. I grabbed a different book (a Glenn's shop manual) out of the house this morning to look up vacuum diagrams. Because I was thinking of the 180 reversion of the timing I flipped to the timing part of the book to look over the sequence and i noticed something..... Something wasn't right. The diagram of the plug wire positions on the dist in the Glenn's book was different from the Haynes book I had been using. I thought "Oh God... you must be kidding me..." Low and behold, the Haynes manual had printed the firing order wrong in the distributor diagram. All this time I had been using some other firing order. I would have never guessed to check another book, as Haynes manuals have always been pretty good about continuity.
Sooooo needless to say PROBLEM SOLVED!! It runs! I feel like an idiot. I just knew in the back of my mind it had to be something stupid that i had overlooked.

Anyhow, thanks guys for guiding me tward the light.... (inadvertantly anyways )

BTW- that Haynes manual with the typo is #231 Ford Mustang II '74-'78 Copyright 1982 and is on page 91 in Figure 4.8

 

[Putter]

Are you saying the 1-4-2-5-3-6 is wrong?
What does the Glens book show?
I am looking in my 231 book and wanted to correct it in case I ever ran into what you are describing but I don't see an error in the diagram unless you are saying the whole thing is wrong.
Or is it just that the picture of the distributor needs to be rotated? If so where should #1 be?
Thanks in advance. My car is not here so I can't run out and check what I have.

 

[Wart]

Interesting.

My 1980 Motor manual puts #1 on the left side rear, the 76 Chiltons puts #1 on the right side rear.

 

[Blue Thunder]

Nice books.

 

[Dano78]

Are you saying the 1-4-2-5-3-6 is wrong?
What does the Glens book show?
I am looking in my 231 book and wanted to correct it in case I ever ran into what you are describing but I don't see an error in the diagram unless you are saying the whole thing is wrong.
Or is it just that the picture of the distributor needs to be rotated? If so where should #1 be?
Thanks in advance. My car is not here so I can't run out and check what I have.

The firing order, as written, at the bottom of the figure: 1-4-2-5-3-6 is correct. However, if you look at the diagram of the distributor cap just above that, it waayyyy wrong. The distributor rotation and the the position of #1 is right, you'll just have to re-number the rest of the positions for it to be correct. It currently shows it as 1-5-3-6-2-4. how thay came up with that is beyond me, but it is incorrect.
I, being an idiot, took it for granted that the printed out firing order matched the diagram of the dist. cap. Only did I notice the discrepancy when i looked at another dist. diagram in the Glenn's book.

Yeah I see that the continuity of these books are left to be desired. But they are better than nothing at all.