chevy 350 giving me trouble starting

SSunset

SSunset

Club Member
Chevy 350 early 80s crate motor, 240hp 9/1 compression nothing special.

HEI Distrubutor

Timing set at 10 degrees BTDC according to the mark on the balancer, lined up the tower with #1 spark plug to the rotor(which was point toward the #1 cylinder)


typical GM Firing order 18436572, double and triple checked them.

Brand new Edelbrock 600 cfm carb, plenty of fuel at the carb.

It has a vaccum advance on the distributor that I've plugged, and both ports for vaccum advance have caps on the carb. I have read it's easier to just plug them when trying to figure out initial startup.

Compression
D --------- P
1 110 2 - 120
3 100 4 - 120
5 90 6- 120
7 100 8 - 120

Confirmed spark is getting to the plug.
New plug wires, old ones had zero resistence new ones are ok.

Video of what it's doing when I try to start it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyuT1_PjaBE


I'm sure I'm missing something dumb, because this is my first attempt at old school technology.

HELP!
 
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Crank the idle screw up on teh carb and let it run. Sounds like it's wanting to catch, but i noticed you had no throttle input when cranking it and hear a whistle as it slows. Open teh idle or touch the gas while cranking see if it runs.
 
beertestr said:
Congrats. That's a cool project you have going there. What's your goal with it?
Click to expand...

Back story is:

It's a 1954 Corvette that my Grandfather bought back in 1961. He swapped in a v8 back shortly after buying the car for $300. This is the one he and my grandmother drove and drove a lot putting over 400,000 miles on it. He had over 30 corvettes and was the #5 founding member of the NCRS. Sadly this car sat for 10-15 years due to his failing health. My brother and I inherited the car last summer after he passed away. We are the only car guys in the family, our father was but he died 2.5 years ago. Our plan is to get it out on the road where in belongs. Once it's mechanically sound we will have the body work done and continue to drive the car. My Grandfather SOMEHOW had the thought to keep all the original parts so we do indeed have the original blue flame 6 and all the original parts.

thanks.
 
SSunset said:
So I'm a moron... The wire going to the distributor was only hot in the start position, not run. Fixed that and she fires right up. Haven't fiddled with the timing or carb to see if it'll smooth out yet.

Video, of course.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtL4XemaC-w
Click to expand...

Been following this story, glad to see it running. WHen i watched the first video it sounded normal, just like it didn't have enough steam to stay running, but wounded like it was firing fine. Nice find! Nice Ride! Good Luck.
 
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