Admittedly haven't read thru complete thread,but see the engine is a fresh rebuild and had some port work done. If it has sat for some time-or has been cranked over a fair bit with no start,fuel may have washed lubricant from rotor housings. I note you say engine cranks over fast... could be due to low compression from "dry" rotor housings. Would revisit your spark(pull plugs-see if wet-ground them in their respective wires) & crank engine to be sure adequate spark on all four,reinstall. Check that dist.installed correctly. Open throttle plates on carb wot and pour couple tablespoons of oil into each venturi. Turn engine by hand several revolutions to distribute oil and try to start. Advise your neighbors your house is not on fire as it will smoke a LOT when it starts. Often fresh rebuilds,more so with port work need this to help build compression for initial start. If still no start,may want to do a compression test. Be certain there are no more obstructions in exhaust,may want to disassemble exhaust further up and blow air thru or shine a light thru to be certain its clear.

 

GSLEforme: Good ideas. I put in some oil, no go. I am getting good spark on all plugs. Leading plugs are dry/slightly damp. Trailings look greasy (Assembly lube leftovers I presume). Neighbors are used to smoke, they're mostly gear heads. Unmuffled 455 in a boat is plenty loud.

So I did a bunch of reading, and according to internet experts, if you watch the 2nd rotor apex seal pass the trailing, and then the leaading, split the difference, and the front rotor will be on tdc. I did this, and now I get lots of backfires, but no run.

Also pulled cat, it's empty, well except for a little mouse surprise! Certainly explained the terrible smell.
Heh, irony, mice living inside of a cat. The cat is totally gutted, I wonder how the PO got through emissions?

So I'm stumped, I think it's still a timing issue, as I'm getting air and fuel and spark!

I also tried sticking a soft wire into the front housing, and seeing when it stuck out the most. I'm not sure this is the right way to find tdc though.

 

You're sure you got the timing gear on right?

I think its timing as well.

"Dieseling" will get it to start I can attest to that. If you use 2 stroke oil to compression start it the smoke clears up faster.

 

OK let's review, cause I'm probably missing something.

I put the front rotor, with the wire in the hole method, as close to tdc as I could figure. I moved the pulley again. then I pulled the dizzy, matched the mark on the shaft with the mark on the gear. Put that back together. Backfires. Lots.

Just to clarify, the front ignitor is the leading ignitor right? Otherwise I'd be firing my Leading coils on the trailing signal.

 

Well I went back out, and messed with it some more. Maybe not the greatest idea, but...

I tried the remove the 2 plugs form the scond rotor method. I marked the crank snout itself, rotated until I could see the apex in the leading hole, then bisected the distance (i.e. took out measuring tape and cut the distance in half.) Interstingly the pulley when aligned with the timing stub on the front cover, lines up almost perfectly with the leading timing mark. So I think I've got that right finally...?

It sounds like it wants to catch now, but it doesn't. Rotating distributor all the way advanced or retarded doesn't seem to matter. WTF?

 

Totally spaced doing a compression test before now, so I did.

Got between 75 and 80 psi on both housings. Now this is with a cold engine, with 0 miles and no oil added to the chambers. Holds pressure decently too, only saw the rate of 1-2 psi drop over 10-20 seconds. Manual says 86 psi is minimum, but I assume that's on a hot, worn in engine?

 

Away from home and reading on my phone, compression #s seem ok for unfired engine. Was there much rodent evidence in cat area? They are adventurous buggers and make nests places you wouldn't suspect. Two unrelated stories concerning motorcycles,one a Harley that wouldn't run right on top end. Discovered three cooked mice in rear pipe forward of a sharp bend-bike brought to me right from another shop that did a valve job chasing problem... another,a Yamaha YZ490 i'd done a rebuild on 2 weeks prior,ran great. Cust brought back with complaint much like yours,try to start... didn't waste much time before pulling exhaust. Muffler clear,expansion pipe not,couldn't blow much air at all thru. Bike starts on first kick w/out exhaust. Cust standing there,got his permission to cut open expansion pipe... three mice+babies,stuffing,seed corn. Header or manifold,sorry didn't read whole thread...maybe a closer look there? Maybe revisit your wiring for ignition. Yes,forward most position is leading igniter. Verify leading pickup wires are going to leading modules? There is fuel available at carb,has this been rebuilt,is there a steady stream/squirt from accel pump discharge nozzles when throttle linkage is operated? Choke operational? Last thought,your comment on advancing/retarding distributor making no difference-try switching pickup wires-/+ at dist. for leading ignition,see if makes a difference.

 

GSLSEforme: Yeah whole exhaust system had some sort of mouse influence. Intake and carb had some too. But the whole engine has been apart, carb rebuilt too and all mouse bits removed. I guess mice just like the insides of cars/bikes eh?

I went out this morning and did the compression test again. I don't think the starter is moving very fast. Battery is 850 cca, but it's unknown age. with the throttle held open I now get about 85-90 psi on both housings. If I hold the little schrader open on my tester I get 0 psig, so I don't think I can test each face with this thing, but the pulses sound even. Tried adding oil, through the Leading plug hole, and it had 0 affect on psig.

Quick summary:

Spark at leading plugs, good
Fuel in bowls, good
Restrictions in intake/exhaust, removed
Compression cold 85-90 psig, unrun-status
Compression cold with oil, 85-90 psig
Unsure of cranking speed, as ignition disconnected to test compress, likely below 250.

 

One problem with fresh rebuilds is sometimes they need to be spun a bit faster in order to start for the first time. This is usually when people would pull-start or push-start the car with another vehicle. But I realize this might not be practical for some, so I figured out a way to feed 24 volts (two batteries hooked in series) to the starter, but only the starter and solenoid. You do not want to feed this to the rest of the car. Only the starter and solenoid can be fed 24 volts. Do you understand?

It takes some creative wiring, kinda like DLIDFIS, so I'm sure you can probably figure it out. Having a remote starter button is a good idea. You know the pistol-grip style with the alligator clips at the ends. Kinda thick wire. Good luck getting it to fire.

 

Oh, good point gotta spin it really fast. Two batteries FTW.

Another point, you're definitely gonna want to roll this thing out of the garage before you fire it up. Its gonna smoke like a dozen Cuban cigars. After all the oil makes its way out of the engine and that smoke clears; you are gonna have all of the stuff in the exhaust burn off. It will be smoky for a while.

 

OK so another update! I got it to fire, sorta.

Here's some pics to show what I've done.

First I rotated the engine so that the missing lip portion of the flywheel was visible through the inspection port on the side.


Then I removed the pulley for the 23rd time, and lined it up with the marks. Didn't have to move it hardly at all, and everything lined up.


Went to start it, and it backfired.

Got to thinking, backfires are because you're firing on the intake stroke (In a 4-stroke engine I know, rotaries and all that). So I pulled the distributor and rotated the gear on it 180 out of sync with the nub on the side. Engine almost fires. Added a bit more advance and it fired!

Of course my timing marks now have no bearing on reality, so I moved the pulley and I'm off again, back to no fire at all.

Basically what I figure is that even with the lip of the flywheel lined up in the inspection port, the rotor itself could be in any one of 3 positions, right? if I just keep rotating it, will the rotor move into the right position?

 

After messing with the engine some more today, I found that if I turn the distributor clockwise it speeds up. It sounds like it's on the edge of firing, but won't catch.

I realize now that the front rotor can be in 1 of 3 positions relative to the eccentric shaft. using the lip-less area on the flywheel is pretty useless, unless you're lucky. So what to do?

I got a piece of stuff wire, and watched the apex seals come by the Leading hole. Then stuck the wire into the leading and trailing holes (Making sure the put wire through the little trailing hole). I did this many times until I was pretty sure I had the rotor in a position where leading and trailing were about as close to the housing wall as they were going to get. I ended up with about 55 mm sticking into the housing. Is that in the ballpark?

This is terribly frustrating! It's so close, but just won't run.

 

Aha! Learned something really important. With the aluminum cover off, you can se the pickups inside the distributor. AS I have now learned, RED is Negative! The Green is Positive! The J109's lie to you, ignore them!

I only just found this info out, it should be in more DLIDFI swap pages to prevent confusion.

Now that I've got the feeds to the igniters set up right, I'm getting fire through the carb (fire's supposed to come out the other end I think). Must be off on timing still.

 

ignition is terribly obnoxious. Without being there its hard to stab a distributer over the internet.

Sounds like you're on the right track.

Did you try a booster pack to give you extra cranking amps? if nothing else in parallel.


BTW when it does fire over its NOT gonna want to run. Its the nature of the beast. It will get easer to start and run the more heat cycles you go through.

 

No, haven't tried the booster pack yet. I did get the battery checked though, puts out 720 amps! So I assume that's pretty damn good. Engine moves fast, over 500, now that I have the tach lead on the trailing coil I can actually read it!

So what do you guys think of the whole front rotor being in different places thing? Am I way off on that? I think I might be because I tried rotating the engine over 3 times to the same spot and the depth I was able to stick my wire in was the same each time. i.e. I rotated the flywheel until the missing lip area was visible in the inspection port on the side of the block.

Oh totally forgot, guess what I scored today!

Only $150! they're for later, but they're super comfy.

Oh yeah also replaced my busted clutch line with a braided stainless one. But important to note, the fitting that goes into the slave isn't the typical M10x1 male, it's flat, not flared on the end.

One last thing, and I'll shut up for the night: If you're like me and don't always have help, go run out the HF tools and get a Mighty Vac, only $30. Makes all the bleeding really easy. Just be sure to Teflon the threads on the bleeders. And be careful not to loose the little nub that holds the pump handle to the piston! They fall out really easily; ask me how I know.

 

If you have a pedal depressor handy (aka a stick) you can bleed anything by yourself. Just pump the pedal up and jam the stick between the seat and the pedal. The cushion of the seat will act to press on the pedal. Loosen whatever screw you are trying to bleed and quickly tighten it back down. Repeat as necessary. I work in an auto shop and its sometimes hard to pull another flat rate mechanic off a job to get him to help, and I've done dozens of brake bleeds like this.

RX8 seats?

I'm serious about putting a booster on your car. 700, 1000cca battery nothing beats doubling the voltage, and even the extra amps, if you go parallel, will spin it faster. These things are the devil to start up sometimes; then again sometimes they just lick right up.

 

It started! Made a ton of smoke. And then died.

I was totally off about the trochroid position thing. I don't know what I was thinking. the trochroid's position is determined by the e-shaft, lmao, not the other way around. So I set the dizzy very carefully, and it fired right up!

Ran for all of about 30 glorious seconds with the exhaust dumping under the foot well. Sounds like I'm not getting fuel. I checked the fuel bowls, they're half full or so.

Basically when I go to start it, it sounds like a turbine spooling up, and eventually will catch after 20 seconds. If I use the choke, it slows and won't start. If I floor the gas a bit it won't start. It's an intermediate pedal position that seems to work. I may pop off the fuel line and do a pressure/rate check per the manual.

Leaks:

I'm getting a fuel leak from somewhere on the carb though. And of course the oil cooler is also leaking, bleh. May go to Russel fittings for the cooler. I tried tightening the male fitting that have the copper crush washers, but they're about as tight as I'm willing to take them without damaging the cooler.

Eh will work on it tomorrow, and order the new exhaust stuff, and some new line, I'm just super excited it actually starts.

 

Got the carb off today, to fix the leaks, and check everything inside of it is ok. Checked operation of the floats, they allow air through, and seal it off when closed. Leaks were from not tight enough base nuts, and screws, and main jet access nuts. basically everything lmao. All looks good inside carb, except the solenoid for the bowl vent! It seems to be stuck, like so:


Applying power to the vent seems to do nothing, doesn't click, or move. Is this a problem? I hear of other users with stuck bowl vents not getting fuel, or maybe too much depending.

Also did a fuel pump volume test, passed easily. Got 350cc+ in 15 seconds. Spec is 1400cc in 1 minute. Not sure about pressure, don't have the right tool to test that.

One other thing I noted, the bowl on the Secondary vacuum diaphragm side seems to be a bit lower in fuel level (slightly less than halfway mark on glass), despite having the same float drop and max height as the other side.


I'm probably barking up the wrong tree, but well I had to fix the leaks, and figured I'd check the easy stuff first.

 

I'd invest in a new ebay oil cooler with AN fittings. Best thing I've done to my car for piece of mind. Sure it doesn't have a oil thermostat capability, but I don't tear *** through my neighborhood anyway. BUT I don't have the slightest thought in my mind of high pressure oil leaks or collapsed ancient oil lines. Best $100 piece of mind I ever bought.

 

I wouldn't worry about the float level for now because your engine needs to actually run in order to check it. But as for the vent, it needs to be open while running. If yours is stuck closed, it will flood the carb.

I remove them from all the boost prepped carbs I do, and even the high performance NA ones (same thing, really). The solenoid was not even present on the older carbs that had a charcoal canister in the air cleaner lid. Kinda like in Qingdao's avatar picture.

 

Yeah I think I was getting ahead of myself with he float levels, just wanted to make note of it, so I'd remember later. Probably the same with the solenoid.

Did a few things tonight. Got some quality thermal paste, and put that under all 3 igniters. Had some there already, but wanted quality, like for CPU. Cheap insurance. Also ran separate grounds for each of the 3 igniters, through the mounting screws, to the body, in case the screws and aluminum plate weren't conducting well.

No real change, still own't really start without a ton of persuasion. Moving the pedal beyond just barely, makes the engine slow down. Same with choke.

I still think it's some sort of electrical issue, I'm just not sure what! Only reason why, is that it basically shuts off, not like it's starving for fuel. It's sudden.

For those who're running GM igniters, how do you have yours hooked to the distributor? I'm assuming Red is ground, per another member's build thread, but he may be wrong.

This is an awesome Paint drawing of what I've got going on. Of course there's a trailing and a second leading, but you get the idea. Speaking of which, I have double leads (for the second leading) in the same connectors at the distributor, would that cause the issues?

 

Don't know how I have mine hooked up... It matters? I think I've had it hooked up both ways. After all its just a switch; nothing special that I'm aware of.

Does the car stay running long enough to get warm? Or the bowls go dry instantly?

 

I think it matters. One side is the 'ground' other is hot. Something to do with wave shapes from the reluctor too. As far as I can figure it's not a switch, it's converting a magnetic signal into voltage, which triggers the coil, so it's a complicated little bit of electronics, that's why it gets hot! I'm not an electronics wizard though.

No it only runs 30 secs or so.
Bowls are full of fuel. It's not a fuel problem. Gotta be ignition right?

Just to get my head wrapped around it, does the dizzy spin at a 1-3 ratio to the crank?

 

A couple posts back i suggested looking at the polarity of pickup wiring and possibly switching positions at pickup connector on dist. You're chasing your tail a bit here.... The polarity of pickup sensor wiring is important. -side not a ground,+side not hot. Pickup coil is an ac voltage generator &generates a specific signal that oe J109 & now your HEI module uses to figure ignition coil dwell and to an extent ignition timing.
Hooking up backwards,spark is still produced but is weaker and on wrong end of signal switching causing ignition timing event to be 20 degrees or more retarded-regardless of correct physical distributor timing. This can be seen on an oscilloscope and a strobe timing light. Leading and trailing ignition both apply here,this may be the source of your no/difficult starting problems.
Correct color orientation of pickup wiring is simplest method to determine correct polarity,so...G terminal on HEI module gets red wire from pickup and W terminal gets green wire. B terminal of module is +ig.coil feed & C is -ig.coil feed. Suggest using ohmmeter to trace wiring from pickup to module/coil and rectify if incorrect. Are you losing ignition after 30 seconds,or running out of fuel? How old is fuel in tank of car? A pic from a recent DI conversion showing connections at module. Hope this helps.

 

Pickup coil airgap also more critical with HEI module than oe J109. Hei module is more finicky about a good signal to fire ig.coil than J109 at low rpm=especially at cranking speed. Believe airgap spec is .020"-.036". From experimentation have found .022" develops strongest/consistent switching from HEI module.