Dwell Angle, Timing, and CHT sensor questions, Timing way off (well above 27 Deg) but runs...??? Options

[GregAmy]

Yuuuuup.

And you're using an adjustable timing light on the flywheel TDC mark to set the timing? Sounds solid to me. - GA

[Dave_Darling]

1: The distributor rotor is pointing toward the #1 plug wire in the cap.
2: The notch in the Flywheel is at the 12 o'clock position.
3: Remove the #1 spark plug and confirm the piston is at the top.

Does this sound like I have it covered?

No. The piston will be at the top of the cylinder both at TDC and at 180 out from TDC. To make sure you're not 180 out, you need to check the position of the rocker arms. For TDC#1, both rocker arms will have some slack in them. (Assuming solid lifters and stock pushrods.)

--DD

[NJ914]

1: The distributor rotor is pointing toward the #1 plug wire in the cap.
2: The notch in the Flywheel is at the 12 o'clock position.
3: Remove the #1 spark plug and confirm the piston is at the top.

Does this sound like I have it covered?

No. The piston will be at the top of the cylinder both at TDC and at 180 out from TDC. To make sure you're not 180 out, you need to check the position of the rocker arms. For TDC#1, both rocker arms will have some slack in them. (Assuming solid lifters and stock pushrods.)

--DD

Had some time over the holidays to do some more investigation. The first go round I rotated the dist. rotor toward the #1 plug, removed plug #1 and confirmed the piston was at the top of the cylinder. BUT, the Flywheel notch was not visible at the 12 o'clock position. I rotated the engine 180 degress and then had the rotor pointing toward #1 plug, piston at the top, and flywheel notch visible at 12 o'clock. It sucks not having a TDC mark on the fan. I went ahead and put a black mark on this position for the future.

Felt confident I was at #1 TDC, so I went ahead and removed the exhaust, heat exchangers, etc.. (76 2.0 can't access valves without removing) and opened up the valve covers. Checked valve clearance on all 4 cylinders. Found the following:

#1: Intake closed. Exhaust 0.008"
#2: Intake closed. Exhaust 0.009"
#3: Intake 0.006" Exhaust 0.008"
#4: Intake 0.002" Exhaust 0.008"

Checked them twice. Based on these findings I'm surprised it ran at all.

Adjusted all Intakes to 0.006" and Exhausts to 0.008". Checked them twice.

Reassembling the exhaust now and praying this will solve the problem.

[NJ914]

1: The distributor rotor is pointing toward the #1 plug wire in the cap.
2: The notch in the Flywheel is at the 12 o'clock position.
3: Remove the #1 spark plug and confirm the piston is at the top.

Does this sound like I have it covered?

No. The piston will be at the top of the cylinder both at TDC and at 180 out from TDC. To make sure you're not 180 out, you need to check the position of the rocker arms. For TDC#1, both rocker arms will have some slack in them. (Assuming solid lifters and stock pushrods.)

--DD

Had some time over the holidays to do some more investigation. The first go round I rotated the dist. rotor toward the #1 plug, removed plug #1 and confirmed the piston was at the top of the cylinder. BUT, the Flywheel notch was not visible at the 12 o'clock position. I rotated the engine 180 degress and then had the rotor pointing toward #1 plug, piston at the top, and flywheel notch visible at 12 o'clock. It sucks not having a TDC mark on the fan. I went ahead and put a black mark on this position for the future.

Felt confident I was at #1 TDC, so I went ahead and removed the exhaust, heat exchangers, etc.. (76 2.0 can't access valves without removing) and opened up the valve covers. Checked valve clearance on all 4 cylinders. Found the following:

#1: Intake closed. Exhaust 0.008"
#2: Intake closed. Exhaust 0.009"
#3: Intake 0.006" Exhaust 0.008"
#4: Intake 0.002" Exhaust 0.008"

Checked them twice. Based on these findings I'm surprised it ran at all.

Adjusted all Intakes to 0.006" and Exhausts to 0.008". Checked them twice.

Reassembling the exhaust now and praying this will solve the problem.

Finished putting everything back together yesterday and attempted a start.
No Joy!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

Would only run (and not well) with the timing advanced into the high 20's low 30's.
Wondering if the TPS could be a problem? Running out of ideas...
Is it possible for TDC to not be in alignment with the notch in the flywheel?

[emerygt350]

TPS doesn't even need to be hooked up and the car will run fine.

Ignore any of the markings etc. If you have #1 at TDC and you have rotor pointing to the caps '#1' contact, and that wire is going to the #1 cylinder (and your other wires are in the correct order) the engine should run (maybe not efficiently, but it will run). If it does not run at that point, and you are actually getting spark to all cylinders, and your trigger points are working, there must be something else going on. Maybe somebody took your block apart when you were not looking and changed the cam timing.

Does it run well on ether? Yes? than perhaps you have fueling issue/trigger points/bad injector connections etc. There are so many threads it is hard to remember if we covered this already.

If I were you, I would take a deep breath, grab a chopstick, put the car in 5th, hold the chopstick in the sparkplug hole of #1, roll the car till #1 is at TDC. Pop the cap and see where the rotor is pointing. The rotor should point at the 1 spark plug contact site, or it should be 180 out (at the 3). If that is all good I would try running it on ether. Does it run? does it run great?

[StarBear]

Aarghhh. Looking for a great ending!

[NJ914]

TPS doesn't even need to be hooked up and the car will run fine.

Ignore any of the markings etc. If you have #1 at TDC and you have rotor pointing to the caps '#1' contact, and that wire is going to the #1 cylinder (and your other wires are in the correct order) the engine should run (maybe not efficiently, but it will run). If it does not run at that point, and you are actually getting spark to all cylinders, and your trigger points are working, there must be something else going on. Maybe somebody took your block apart when you were not looking and changed the cam timing.

Does it run well on ether? Yes? than perhaps you have fueling issue/trigger points/bad injector connections etc. There are so many threads it is hard to remember if we covered this already.

If I were you, I would take a deep breath, grab a chopstick, put the car in 5th, hold the chopstick in the sparkplug hole of #1, roll the car till #1 is at TDC. Pop the cap and see where the rotor is pointing. The rotor should point at the 1 spark plug contact site, or it should be 180 out (at the 3). If that is all good I would try running it on ether. Does it run? does it run great?

Going to do exactly that!! At least it will tell me if the flywheel notch lines up with #1 TDC. If it does, then it's not the valves. If it doesn't, I get to take everything back apart and do it all over again... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)