You ever get to the point with a project that it's not even fun to work on it anymore, just to have a simple thing change that? I have a 351W in my 57 F100 that's been giving me problems with the ignition system. i couldn't get it to run smoothly no mater what I did and I was really getting to the point of unloading the thing and calling it quits. Well, Sunday night I came across a little info on the net that suggested that I might have the wrong firing order. I had no idea there were two firing orders on a 351W. A 302, yes but not a 351W. Long story short, I swapped four wires and she runs like a champ now. Suddenly there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I finished up a patch panel install last night. Will be cleaning it out this week (it's been in the garage for over two years) and hopefully putting it back on the road by the end of October.
yeah buddy that has happened to me a few times. i start at one then for some reason i just get where i dont care.when it seems to become a job then im tired of it.we just spent the last 2 yrs building my wife a ot 67 impala. i got to where i hated that car..lol but i stayed at it because it was for her and now we are DONE well almost, ah hell it is never done.now on to something else.but atleast she got to drive it to the redneck rumble and back. so that made it all worthwhile...
Yea you sometimes just have to grind through the rough jobs. If it were easy everybody would be doing it.
Bud of mine bought a nice '50 Ford F1 pickup with a Nailhead Buick in it. Had a miss that the scope couldn't find... They pulled the valve covers, checked compression wet & dry...checked firing order 4 or 5 times... I finally opened the Motors Manual, guess what: Buick for a couple of years had firing order as 1-8-7-3-6-5-4-2. (instead of the 1-8-4-3) I kid you not, it took all of 5 hours to revert to "the Book"! (told 'em that when they started...LOL)
Yeah, I yelled out in excitement and my neighbor stuck her head around the corner to see if I was OK.
It's also cool to discover that what was a major issue, turns out to be something simple. I lost a u-joint last Saturday and without looking, figured I'd need a new driveshaft. Turned out all I needed was new u-joints and an hour to replace. Saved my mind $200.
Sorry, but I don't believe there was ever any firing order for the 351W except this one 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8. Doesn't mean that there wasn't some literature or manuals printed that were wrong, but I am 99.99999% sure that there was Never a 351W with another firing order and Ford Racing agrees with that. Sounds like it was set up wrong from the get go.
Probably had a 302 cam in it. I remember doing that swap in a buddys Mustang back in the stone age. I've had problem jobs that have driven me crazy. The ones I like the best are the ones that wake you up in the middle of the night and you finally relalize whats wrong with it. More than once I've got up at 3-4 in the morning to go out and fix something.
Yep, I had an HEI distibutor come from the factory with the gear pinned on the shaft 180 degrees out. It would start, but ran like dirt. Kept thinking "we must be off a tooth". I finally yanked the distributor out and compared the roll pin vs. teeth location (it's not the same BTW, in line with a tooth one way-between 2 teeth the other way) to the old distributor and after a minute and a half of choice words, rotated it 180, shoved it in and it started right the hell up. I'll never put a new distributor in without checking that again!
there are not two firing orders for a 351w...but I think he meant that he didnt know that the 351w had the "oddball" firing order..the same as the roller 302s. Im lucky just have F.E.s and old 302s (15426378)
Just to confuse the Ford firing order thing...The mid 90's 302's used that "Windsor" firing order.......As I learned with a 95 crate motor........ 4TTRUK
No, I meant my 351W seems to run with 15426378 not 13726548. I know it has an aftermarket cam in it. It must be for a 302 then. At any rate, she runs like a scalded dog now.
Then it does NOT have a 351W cam in it - it has a 260-302 style cam in it! It is not uncommon to see this with aftermarket cams, but Ford never built a 351W with the 154... firing order
I'm confused. Given that a gear is only a gear, all the teeth are the same. How can the gear be pinned 180 degrees out? Especially since the distributor housing rotates enough to adjust away any misalignment between gear teeth and rotor contacts? I bought a new distributor that required me to drill and pin the gear on. It didn't matter where I put the gear, or where I put the pin. We know the distributor can be installed 180 out, but that just means the plug will spark in the exhaust stroke instead of the compression stroke. I had a similar state of confusion when a guy asked me if my 351 HEI distributor was for the "old" or the "new" firing order. Since when does a distributor care what the firing order is? I always thought (and still think) that is the job of the spark plug wires.
Fail, any other uneducated remarks? Or do we all just like to hide behind our monitors and make smart-*** comments to feel important?
It's the same as being a tooth off (except your half a tooth off). Are you saying that you, in all your automotive glory, can get an engine to run it's best when the distrubutor is off by a tooth? I don't think so... My point here is, no matter what you do, advance the timing, retard it, whatever else you can think of to do with it, it won't run right. Don't believe me, try it yourself, until then, well, I'm sure you've heard it before.
The distributor is designed to have rotational adjustment in it. The only thing being one tooth off will do is limit the travel by one tooth. Meaning, you'll have one tooth more travel on one end of the swing and one tooth less travel on the other. Think about it. If I put my distibutor in with the vacuum canister pointing directly straight ahead and the rotor pointing one tooth off from the #1 terminal, all I have to do to correct it is rotate the distributor to line the #1 terminal up to the rotor. So now the vacuum canister will not point straight ahead. One tooth off is an old wives tale. The entire setup is mechanical. As long as the rotor lines up correctly with the terminal on the cap just as the piston hits the right spot in the cylinder, you'll get the engine to run. Sounds like you just had the distributor in backwards to begin with, or like me had the firing order off.
sorry buddy but you can not be a half tooth off. it is impossible. think about it. really think about it.gear are cut to align perfectly. no matter were you but either one, the one on the dist. or thwe one on the cam, they will always mesh.they do not care where or at what degree..ive built sbc for 40yrs and more than a few high dollar racing engines. i just cant see it.
Let me put it this way. I understand what you're saying, that theoretically you can be a tooth off and still get it timed. But that's only if you have enough room to make that much adjustment. In my experience, there was not, so the gear needed to be rotated 180 degrees. Can we put this thing to rest now. The weekend is comming up and we both probably should be in the garage getting something done instead of bickering eh?
Guys, There's a big difference between being a tooth off on a timing chain and a tooth off on a distributor. The distributor is adjustable a lot more than a tooth's worth, so I still can't understand how reversing the roll pin can change the behavior of an engine. As for bickering, I'd like to think of it as learning, with at***ude.
Yep, Tfeverfred gets my vote for best avatar. He explains who it is in the avatar thread. and she is a pratty wild one!! Good for you on persevering and getting the answer to your problem. Building a car can be overwhelming at times.
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