440 Engine Build - Trouble shoot start up

[beanhead]

When you said,

.... old distributor is a no go

....does that mean you tried it again and the engine still won't fire? Or does it mean you're not planning on using it going forward, so you didn't try it to rule out the MSD?
It seems pretty cut-n-dried to me....the issue is with the new distributor and/or any wiring changes you may have made to accommodate it. If you didn't do anything to any wiring and just swapped the distributor, either it's faulty or it's not set up right.

 

[Brian Kennell]

When you said,

....does that mean you tried it again and the engine still won't fire? Or does it mean you're not planning on using it going forward, so you didn't try it to rule out the MSD?
It seems pretty cut-n-dried to me....the issue is with the new distributor and/or any wiring changes you may have made to accommodate it. If you didn't do anything to any wiring and just swapped the distributor, either it's faulty or it's not set up right.

Once the engine was dropped back in, the original 440 distributor was in the motor and utilized throughout everything i was trouble shooting. I only added the MSD distributor after the fact as a means of verifying that the distributor was not the problem. I did the same thing with the coil. So the engine does not fire with either distributors at the moment.

 

[Daves69]

.......So the engine does not fire with either distributors at the moment.

Let's see. You have spark at every plug. You have fuel getting to the cylinders. You have compression. And still no start.
Myself, I'd start all over. Aftermarket distributors can confuse one on the order if you are trying to wire per the stock setup.

 

[Brian Kennell]

Go back to square one. Back to basics. Meaning, making sure your cam/crank are in synch (as stated, #1 on compression stroke to fire #1 in distributor). Proceed from there. I followed the MEF method : mechanical, electrical,fuel. Systems in that order.

Well, I went back to square one literally and found the rookie error.... She's all back together and fired up on the first try, appreciate the advice....

 

[WileE]

Glad to hear that. "MEF" baby, 50 years of making mistakes has taught me that.

 

[beanhead]

So in your original post, when you said

I built this engine, dropped it in, and it started up fairly easily on initial startup. That being said, the rear main did not seal...
View attachment 1082861

Cam timing must have been okay the first time for it to fire up and run. Then you pulled it and fixed the seal leak but no where did I see it mentioned that you did something that could have changed the cam timing to the position you found it to be in your picture... might have saved two pages of guessing..DVWs advice back in post #12 covered it...
I'm glad that you got it figured out and got it running though.

 

[Brian Kennell]

So in your original post, when you said

Cam timing must have been okay the first time for it to fire up and run. Then you pulled it and fixed the seal leak but no where did I see it mentioned that you did something that could have changed the cam timing to the position you found it to be in your picture... might have saved two pages of guessing..DVWs advice back in post #12 covered it...
I'm glad that you got it figured out and got it running though.

Yes, apparently cam was fine on first go-round. When i tore it down for the rear main and reassembled, i must have been complacent and not lined up the timing chain gear marks, yes a decent fuk up. wouldn't have thought this was the issue but ran out of items to trouble shoot... lesson learned and all that

 

[Don Frelier]

Hope you didn't bend a valve...

 

[Brian Kennell]

Hope you didn't bend a valve...

Yes, good point and a concern as well. Before I set lash, I did a leak down test on all cylinders and everything seemed to check out OK.