My 1.7 914 ran good for 5 years now it won't even fire.I have a 009 distributor with pertronix, no points. I do have a hopped up engine so the guy told me. He could not remember precisely but larger pistons and the heads are not stock. The car was running fine but steadily got harder to start until it wouldn't. The compression is min 120 max 130. The carbs IDF 44 have new kits in and have been soaked. I checked the static timing with an ohm meter, turned distributor clockwise (neg battery and neg coil) until it registered voltage then dropped it, then counter clockwise until voltage registered again so I think I'm close. Spark plug wires are 1-4-3-2. checked em 50 times. Have good spark. Set the valves too TDC .006. What the heck am I missing, spent three days on this and i'm not getting anywhere. Can anybody help me, it's gettin very frustrating.

Set the motor at TDC for #1 (make absolutely double, triple sure it's not TDC #3) and check that the ignition rotor is pointing at the spark plug wire for #1. If you're getting spark and you know you're getting fuel (use a can of starting fluid to check this easily) then the timing is probably too far out of line to fine.

I'm not a air cooled guy but did do tune-up work for a living, if this were my car I would crank the engine over and pay attention to the cranking rhythm. you know what it should sound like, if so you likely have sound mechanical engine, well enough to fire..
Next I would make sure the ignition system was getting the associated voltages but pay close attention to the coil output, just because its sparking doesn't mean the output is sufficient to run an engine. Lets say it should be able to jump a big gap at the end of the plug wire, not just a little girlie spark (Pardon me Ladies)
I guess dumping fuel in the engine is the easiest thing to verify.
My money is on the ignition system, just a wild guess

Should I put the mallory with points back in and ditch the Pertronix. That's what the car came with. Tried dumpin fuel in didn't make any differance so I was thinkin the carbs are workin.

Does your old Mallory have replaceable springs? The 009 is a CRAP distributor.

It sounds like you just did a distributor swap. I bet your spark plug wires are out of sync, not out of order, but in the wrong places.

Check the basics...

Are you getting air (probably).

Are you getting fuel?

Are you getting spark?

Check for all...

easy dist check. take the dist cap off. there should be a little notch/line on the top edge of the dist body. pop the valve cover off, check for the valves on 1 to both be closed. the dist rotor should be pointed on or very near the little notch. if the rotor is way off you'll need to reinstall the dist.

k

OK thanks everyone I'm gonna put the Mallory back in. I had a Flame Thrower coil to go with the Pertronix and .009, could I leave that in or should I put the Bosch coil back in. They're both 3 ohm.

Kevin, that's true if the drive gear is installed correctly. And I'm not so sure the 009 line matches up with our motors anyway, and if the spark plug wires are one position off, then fiddling with the distributor won't make it work.

AFAIK, you can use either coil, but I'm a fan of the Bosch blue coil. You only need as much spark as it takes to ignite your mixture, adding more or longer spark to an already sufficient ignition system will do nothing.

OK tried the mallory, dist. spark looks good, not firing still. I've noticed when I turn the key on the green oil light does not light up all the time, it does sometime but when i crank it goes out. The only time it has a hint of starting is when this is on (green light) Could this problem be in the steering column

That is oil pressure. If the pressure stays up between trys, it may not come on.
When did the car last run properly?
What have you done to it since then?
Have you removed the spark plugs, cleaned & gapped them?
Are you smelling fuel from the exhaust pipe?

IT ran good last year, not so good this spring. Had an oil leak (covers) so I set the valves while I had hte covers off. I did it WRONG. Set 1 and 3 at the red timing mark. 2 and 4 were correct. It ran but not very good. They are set correctly now TDC no.1 on white mark compression stroke. Done the plugs 5 times. There could be a gas smell there can't really tell. What would that mean.

Gas smell says you are getting fuel into the cylinders. So if you have fuel, air and spark all you need is compression. Somewhere here is an excellent writeup on setting valve clearance. In classics I think. Yup, there she is.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=28758

hey Tom. Here's something I stumbled on that might help to see if you have something grossly wrong with the timing.

Take out the spark plug for #1 cylinder remove the Distributor cap and have someone crank it. You will hear when #1 is on the way up - no compression so the engine kinda surges. It will do it twice of course - once on the exhaust stroke and once on the compression. You really can't tell which without looking at the valves but it will tell you if you have the right starting point for the rotation. The rotor should be pointing toward the front left of the distributor when the engine surges - there is a score mark on the rim of the distributor. As long as that is where you are surging and that wire goes back to #1 you know that you are at least close. I found that the car will start anywhere between 0 and almost 30degrees tdc. If it looks ok try stopping it at #1 then pull the rocker cover off and confirm the valve are both closed on #1. Give it another kick over to the next surge and either the exhaust or the intake should be open depending on exactly where the engine stopped.

If the green light is out when the motor starts cranking, then your ignition system is shutting off during cranking. It's probably a broken electrical portion of the ignition switch. The green light always goes out after cranking for awhile (oil pressure eventually gets built up), but the the green light goes out immediately when you turn the key all the way, then there is a problem.

Got the car running finally, thanks for all the suggestions fella's.
Tom

Good to hear

now what was the fix?

I had the PCV lines all crimped and pushed out of the way so I could do the carbs and work on the engine. They were closed off completely, don't think she could breath. Kept fillin the crankcase with oil. Never ran better than it is now.
Tom