[Gach]

What name brand?

[Shockwave78]

Crower 66056x3

[Stan Weiss]

I believe you did a cranking compression test on 4 cylinder. With the new nuts installed can you do a cranking compression test on all 8 cylinders?

Does anyone you know have the tools to do a leak down test on all 8 cylinders?

With the car sitting parked with no load on the engine will it free rev or does it act like it does when on your road test?

Stan

[Gach]

Originally Posted by Shockwave78

Crower 66056x3

What did they say to torque them to ?

[Shockwave78]

Crower said half a turn of preload, thats what i did. I can do a cranking compression test on all 8 tomorrow, I don't know anyone that has leak down equipment. When the car is sitting, it revs fine. I have checked the mechanical advance weights and springs, they are a bit sticky but intact, so I'll clean them up tommorow. I'm also going to check the vacuum advance tomorrow by disconnecting and plugging the lines and taking it for a drive to see if anything changes.

[Gach]

Haft turn sounds like allot. I’m not saying there wrong. I’m thinking when you said you back off the nuts it pick up on compression. Try doing this, adjust so theres no slack in the push rod then go 1/4 turn. You’ll know because they’ll be real noisy. As soon as you start it up. Here’s a possibility if you used the same push rods you had before the new cam. its a possibility their a tad to long and are still holding valves open a tiny bit. Just trying to eliminate that possibility.

[Scarebird]

Why not a leakdown test? for more informative.

[Cliff R]

Three things need to happen here.

First, you need to verify the intake open point to make sure the cam isn't retarded. A little to late now (without a LOT of work) to set it all up with a degree wheel and piston stop to find TDC. Just remove the drivers side valve cover and slowly rotate the engine until the #1 intake valve starts to open. If you have the means put a dial indicator on it and stop at .050" tappet lift. Glance down and see where the timing mark is on the harmonic balancer. Reference the cam card and see if it's close to the listed specs. Of course this assumes that the balancer was checked during the build and hasn't slipped some.

Next, rebuild the carb with high performance parts and tune it for the added power, I can help with that. A stock carb is WAY too lean with the huge DB rods in it to make any power with the cam upgrade.

Remove the distibutor, drive out the roll pin, remove the gear, pull the shaft out of it and clean, polish and lubricate all the parts in the mechanical advance mechanism. I would also weld in a positive stop for the advance in case you install lighter springs to get the timing curve in a little sooner.

A larger cam without a corresponding increase in static compression is going to loose some vacuum at idle, power right off idle, and shift power up in the RPM range. Typically when this happens the engine will want more idle fuel, and more timing, and all in a tad earlier than it did with the stock cam.

I did see any mention of what head gasket was used but hopefully it was a Felpro at .039" thick and not something in the .050-.060" range which would just take more power out of it.

I'd also add here that I've used that cam in quite a few low compression 400 builds and it acts like a pretty "big" cam in them. It will make great power as well. The first engine in my Ventura was a low compression 400 with 6X-8 heads and it ran high 13's over 100 mph with that cam against a stock converter and 2.73 gears. It would rip the tires right off the rims on a full throttle blast from a standing start and took some work to get it to hook at the track on street tires.

If your nearly identical engine is a big "turd" you are missing a few things and need to figure them out. I doubt if it's how deep the pushrods are in the lifters. I ran the stock bottleneck studs on my heads but simply added adjustable 3/8" locknuts to them......hope this helps some......

[Shockwave78]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

Three things need to happen here.

First, you need to verify the intake open point to make sure the cam isn't retarded. A little to late now (without a LOT of work) to set it all up with a degree wheel and piston stop to find TDC. Just remove the drivers side valve cover and slowly rotate the engine until the #1 intake valve starts to open. If you have the means put a dial indicator on it and stop at .050" tappet lift. Glance down and see where the timing mark is on the harmonic balancer. Reference the cam card and see if it's close to the listed specs. Of course this assumes that the balancer was checked during the build and hasn't slipped some.

Next, rebuild the carb with high performance parts and tune it for the added power, I can help with that. A stock carb is WAY too lean with the huge DB rods in it to make any power with the cam upgrade.

Remove the distibutor, drive out the roll pin, remove the gear, pull the shaft out of it and clean, polish and lubricate all the parts in the mechanical advance mechanism. I would also weld in a positive stop for the advance in case you install lighter springs to get the timing curve in a little sooner.

A larger cam without a corresponding increase in static compression is going to loose some vacuum at idle, power right off idle, and shift power up in the RPM range. Typically when this happens the engine will want more idle fuel, and more timing, and all in a tad earlier than it did with the stock cam.

I did see any mention of what head gasket was used but hopefully it was a Felpro at .039" thick and not something in the .050-.060" range which would just take more power out of it.

I'd also add here that I've used that cam in quite a few low compression 400 builds and it acts like a pretty "big" cam in them. It will make great power as well. The first engine in my Ventura was a low compression 400 with 6X-8 heads and it ran high 13's over 100 mph with that cam against a stock converter and 2.73 gears. It would rip the tires right off the rims on a full throttle blast from a standing start and took some work to get it to hook at the track on street tires.

If your nearly identical engine is a big "turd" you are missing a few things and need to figure them out. I doubt if it's how deep the pushrods are in the lifters. I ran the stock bottleneck studs on my heads but simply added adjustable 3/8" locknuts to them......hope this helps some......

I will check the valve timing today, and the head gasket used has a compressed thickness of .045

[Gary H]

My bet on this is that the camshaft is retarded due to the timing chain gears being installed incorrectly. Over the years I have had multiple customers bring their cars in here with the same symptoms as your engine, very poor performance after a cam change and new multi- keyway timing chain install. In each case, the timing chain was installed incorrectly by lining up the mark on the keyway on the crank gear sprocket rather than the correct one. If it was my car, I would pull the timing cover and check to see that I had the timing chain installed properly.

[steve25]

Any time I have seen that condition you describe from someone’s carb the firing order was wrong.

[Stan Weiss]

This shows the lobe data for the Crane version of the 041 (I got the Cam DR data from Ken Crocie / HO Enterp.) The other is the Chevy 30 30 / Fuelie solid lifter cam. You can see how the TDC method will work for the 041 and not the Chevy.

Stan

[slowbird]

Anyone want to explain post 89? That seems like it could be pointing to an issue.

[steve25]

Slowbird yes it can be pointing to a issue.

The air flap will only open when there is air demand even though the second secondary throttle blades may be fully open.

Lack of normal air demand as rpms go up may be due to wrong cam timing as we have been discussing at nauseum here, or the firing order being wrong.

These are the only two things that I can see taking place which is assuming that since he has no valvetrain noise his cam and lifters are ok and opening and closing the valves with the lift that it’s designed with.

[Gach]

The very first thing I’d check is the cam, make sure it’s in at 109. Its best to Eliminate that as a possibility of being the issue.

[Shockwave78]

Originally Posted by Gach

The very first thing I’d check is the cam, make sure it’s in at 109. Its best to Eliminate that as a possibility of being the issue.

The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is check the cam timing as Cliff said. Spinning the engine until the #1 intake valve opens and checking the timing mark on the damper against the cam card specs. It seems an easy enough way to check that doesn't require any disassembly.

[Gach]

Originally Posted by Shockwave78

The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is check the cam timing as Cliff said. Spinning the engine until the #1 intake valve opens and checking the timing mark on the damper against the cam card specs. It seems an easy enough way to check that doesn't require any disassembly.

Oh yeah remember reading that.

[Shockwave78]

I was kind of hoping for a massive problem

[Gach]

Originally Posted by Shockwave78

I was kind of hoping for a massive problem

I hear you

[Gach]

Quick question, I know you said your initial timing is set at 18, so what is the total timing.