78 cutlass W-31 build

[ELCAM]

Curious why the spark plug wires are all moved one tower clockwise. Not really an issue on a chevy perhaps, but on the olds the vacuum can runs into the heater hose stuff before you can get the timing right.

On my 350 olds the wires are like this:

On my car the vacuum can is closer to the firewall so there is room to set the timing.

 

[Clutch]

Guess what...
No it's not fixed have you lost your mind it still belongs to me. Lol just more insanity. It's back apart and back under a tarp because it's raining again. It did however get a chance to drive 2 other people insane today my neighbor Steve was over he's and old school bracket racer ran his 65 satellite at E-town for many years and my brother. I tore it down and we put a degree wheel on it lol I think I'm brother may now need more therapy than ever before. Some of those olds guys probably know my brother and quite a few probably don't like him. Most people don't know we are brothers because we look nothing alike and don't have the same last name. Anyway Tony was here and verified as did Steve I've done everything correctly. The degree wheel said it's off 37° installed straight up. That said I just ordered another new intake gasket and I'm going to do a cam swap to see if it's the cam or the timing set. And here's a picture of my brother racking his brain.

Until more parts come in that's all for now. I'm still not getting my hopes up

 

[Clutch]

Curious why the spark plug wires are all moved one tower clockwise. Not really an issue on a chevy perhaps, but on the olds the vacuum can runs into the heater hose stuff before you can get the timing right.

On my 350 olds the wires are like this:
View attachment 223112

On my car the vacuum can is closer to the firewall so there is room to set the timing.

My #1 is in the back passenger side closest to the glove compartment

 

[olds307 and 403]

I would bet the timing set is out to lunch. Maybe the cam as well, that is way out. Avoid any Comp Cams timing sets, supposedly way out to lunch for Olds V8's. Yeah, 37 degrees out will make it run terribly. The Cloyes Billet 9 way timing set is expensive but usually accurate and allows a lot of adjustments. To make you feel better, I just called the second machine shop, fixing the first shops **** up. They did the internal balancing and honed the rods for floating pistons on my Olds 350. They did it quickly and looked good. They said a month to fix the side clearance issue and rod bearings contacting the journals. Here we are 11 months later. Supposedly they are doing 20 engines a month for the oil field. Good times running these old motors. The current knocking 403 somehow stretched and wasted rod bearings instantly just bumping the compression 1 to 1. I replaced them but oil pressure still sucks and glitter and again, the rods must be stretched. Only 150 to 160 psi, so nothing ridiculous but enough to instantly destroy this motor apparently.

 

[DRIVEN]

37 degrees? I'm surprised it ran at all.

 

[Clutch]

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to fix the problem but I'm definitely not buying more parts for it enough is enough if it takes an entire day with a degree wheel to do it I'll make my own timing marks/dots on the gears and send it.

 

[Clutch]

Ok I think I got thies... My brother and my neighbor were over again tonight the first thing I did was slide in a different cam this one

Then with the 9 position rollmaster timing set we tried to degree it in. With it in the 6°A position it was still 10.° retard and I jumped as tooth to try to get closer no good after several tries.

.so I decided let's try the other set I have from SA gear. Well we went in straight up on the crank and advanced the cam by jumping a tooth on the cam gear. We measured 3 times and came up 112 112.5 and 113 on a 112 center line... Soon as I get home tomorrow I'm hopefully going to assemble it for the last time. What this means is I received 3 timing sets that were . marked wrong and the cam was ground wrong. Now the only question is did we do it right? Well place your bets I guess???

 

[old80cs]

🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

 

[Clutch]

No fire in the hole yet but it's on its way back together.

It was getting dark and my phone is on its last leg so the colors are way off but you get the idea. Valves are adjusted again and I even dropped in the distributor before I tarped it up for the night. Tomorrow I'll do a compression test before I go any further that should tell me if I took a step in the right direction.

 

[scoti]

Fingers crossed for you man!