[elohssa]

Hey guy's I've got a bit of a stumper and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice. I just got finished installing a comp 51-232-3 cam in a 74 formula 400. I installed the cam straight up and I aligned the crank and cam gear marks at 12:00 and 12:00 (no I did not degree it). I put in a new set of melling JB-951 lifters and the timing set is a new edelbrock unit. After setting the distributor at #1 tdc I gave the engine a try but couldnt get it to start (wouldnt even fire), Checked for fuel and spark and both were good. I noticed the engine was turning over faster and free'er than I thought it should and it sounded weird like it was turning over with the plugs out, so I decided to do a compression check and to my horror I had 0 psi on the gauge on all 3 of the cylinders I checked. So I pop off a valve cover and spin the engine over and all the valves are moving as you would expect. So then I popped the distributor cap off and turned the engine by hand watching for valve actuation in relation to the TDC mark on the balancer and the rotor position and everything appeared to be happening when it was supposed to both valves on #1 closed at the top of compression stroke and the exhaust valve open 360 degrees later just like it all should be So now I am getting very confused I figure the only thing that could cause all cylinders to have 0psi compression is if the valves are staying open, but what could cause that? Now keep in mind this is all stock rockers,studs, pushrods etc and I didnt adjust the valves for zero lash I just torqued the nuts to 22ftlbs as per stock spec but still If the cam is on the base circle the valves should be closed shouldn't they? So after contemplating this for awhile I set the engine up at #1 tdc compression stroke again (both valves closed) and I loosened off the #1 intake and exhaust rockers, What I noticed is that as I was loosening off the nuts the valve springs were decompressing and when I tightened them down again every turn of the nut was compressing the spring. Shouldn't hydralic lifters compress somewhat before the valve spring does? The way this is acting it looks as if there are solid lifters in there would this cause the problem? I am looking at the boxes the lifters cam in right now and they say melling JB-951 which is I believe supposed to be a hydraulic lifter. I admit I didnt look at them very carefully when I put them in though as they were obviously new and in the proper boxes. Sorry for the long winded post but I am really stumped.