Ford 302 engine flow: Matching parts for street engine

In reply to Opti :

Would you just slap new heads on without checking piston to valve clearance too ? They "should" fit fine, right? 

All it cost to check is a little time.

In reply to MX_Brad :

Generally no, but that's two different things. I can tear a bunch of stuff up if I don't check for that.

What do I hurt if I don't degree a cam?

In reply to Opti :

Power.  And you are the final QC.  I have heard of cams accidentally manufactured 40-50 degrees off, and the person not realizing it until they bend valves while rolling the engine over to set the valvetrain.

A note on heads.  Edelbrock heads are decent but you GOTTA check valvespring installed heights.  And if it has the cruddy white Teflon valve seals, replace them before the heads go on the engine.  BTDT.

If you bend a bunch of valves because the cam is ground that far out of whack, which is rare, you should have caught that checking PTV clearance, which I always check.

I don't degree cams on mild setups anymore.

Again if it's something i really care about every hp on, I'll check it.

Any update on the install?

In reply to Opti :

It is ready to fire except I need two wore connectors and my stash was empty. Maybe this afternoon.

I have never degreed a cam unless I'm doing an adjustable timing set.  I do always check valve/piston clearance unless it's a totally known combination.

Nohome:  I've got my fingers crossed for you on this.  Hope it's a better situation all around.  

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

The smoking gun might very well be the timing. While I cant explain how it got messes up, my findings are that while I thought I had 14 degrees initial, it was more like 4 degrees.  Or I am wrong this time, but have triple checked since it was noticed. 

Looks like we have a monsoom rolling in for the bext 3 days, so probably not going toget out until friday or so.

So whats the verdict?

In reply to Opti :

Fired it up but the timing light refuses to acknowledge spark  on any plug leads, so no idea where timing is at. Can't adjust carb until timing is right. Light works fine on my other cars and a plug tester light in series shows that the plugs are firing.  ( So does the fact that the car is running)  After the last go round where I am convinced that timing was an issue, I don't trust anything. 

I give up. 

For now.

I have the Riley to get done before the snow flies.

Pete

In reply to NOHOME :

Did you check the coil wire?

NOHOME said:

In reply to Opti :

Fired it up but the timing light refuses to acknowledge spark  on any plug leads, so no idea where timing is at. Can't adjust carb until timing is right. Light works fine on my other cars and a plug tester light in series shows that the plugs are firing.  ( So does the fact that the car is running)  

I had a timing light recently that wouldn't show a spark on one (running) car but worked fine on another. The magnet for the inductive pickup had cracked and half had fallen out. On the car that didn't show a spark the clip must have been hanging at an angle so that the magnet half was not next to the wire. 

In reply to Racingsnake :

Thought of that. Tried different timing light. Same thing. 

The previous distributor ( HEI ) did the same thing but when I switched to MSD ignition all the timing lights worked right up to the point where the engine was tore down to swap the cam. Ignition was hardly touched except to pull the distributor out of the engine. This will turn out to be something silly. 

Try a different battery? 
We had one lady that kept coming back to the shop because her alternator wouldn't charge.  We put two new ones on, tested all of them, couldn't find the issue.  Her husband had put new terminals on the battery cables, looked like these but were some other brand.  The red and black paint was on the inside and the electrical connection was crap.  We took a wire brush to the terminals and that fixed it.  Could be something with your terminals interfering.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

got another timing light on the way. Hopefully a different model.  Car starts just fine, and charges, so doubt it is  a battery.

I can't imagine it being anything else than the timing light.  The car is running and the light isn't flashing = bad timing light OR he's putting he inductive pickup on top of some weird metal overbraid wiring protectors.  And I really doubt he would do that.

In reply to NOHOME :

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was more concerned with where you were clamping on the terminals 

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Ah...got ya. Battery is in the rear of the car ala Miata. The light is clamped to the output of the alternator. The light powers on but wont flash. Been some discussion as to the alternator power lead being a suitable power point for the light, but I can't think of why not?  Anyone?

Ive never had an issue clamping to the alternator 

Curious how this is going, so, bump.

This is really wired.  I've yet to see a 302 or pushrod 5.0 that doesn't run unless it had major issues.  I've done tear downs with paper thin mains, but they still ran.  

...

You know, if your spark is really weak, it might not register on a timing light.

It would also run really poorly, down on power, etc.

I think you may need to investigate your ignition system.  Worked until pulled apart could mean a ground was missed, or has a poor connection (thinking here of a wire frayed to a single strand at a ring terminal or something) or... who knows.

It runs fine as far as I can tell, but without a timing light there is no point in mucking with the carb so it sits.  I guess I could set the balancer to 14 degrees and rotate the dizzy until the plug fired, but have not done so yet.

I have a pretty aggressive schedule to get this Riley de-rusted and back on the road before it gets too cold to drive it back to Montreal  and I find tinwork much more satisfying than engine work, so that is where we are at now.

I saw this pop up again and got real excited. I'm eagerly awaiting results

In reply to Opti :

Might not be until next spring. Besides the Riley I got some travel to attend to so most of Octber is gone and then we are into the winter storage-time zone.