if it will start the lifters will pump up then come back and adjust.
Good luck

 

Alright Buckethead, something else to consider, I feel your aggravation but there is no down and dirty way to deal with this. You had indicated that the engine would sputter and spit back thru the carburetor, is it still doing that??? If not, After you have checked as much as you know to check, consider the electrical system. My thought would be to hot-wire the car, run a hot jumper from the battery to the positive side of the distributor. with this wire in place the coil is "hot" be prepared to disconnect while you are performing other checks, AND when you turn the key, if it is getting fuel, YOU WILL HAVE SPARK.
And to respond to a previous post, the crankshaft turns twice for a single turn of the camshaft, this means there are 2 "TWO" Top Dead Center positions on the harmonic balancer. That's what they mean when you hear, "the distributor is 180 out", it's lined up on the second rotation mark rather than the first one.
It sounds like the cam timing is correct, the valves are doing their thing, it must be between the distributor and the electrical....keep after it, keep posting..
gonzo

 

 

Alright, finally got some fire out of her tonight, she ran for about 2 -3 secs then died. Backed off valves, but think i need to back off a little more, compression is still marginal suspect lifters rose and started leaving valves open. Here is the weird thing, I can't think of the name of the part but it is mounted next to the carb on the passenger side and has a triangle mounting plate. I know it is a diaphram, but not sure what it is called. Anyway I forgot to install it after putting on my valve covers. But that is when it started was loud but it did start after turning off and installing part it would not fire. Any ideas as to why? How many turns on the carb screws is standard i have them at about 2 1/2 turns out. is that too much but with the extra air from the part not being on could that be making the air/fuel mixture better for combustion?

 

Personally, I doubt your idle screws will stop the car starting....unless they're cranked down closed...what carb do you have? You seem to be on the edge, sounds to me....if you can get her to start and remain running for a bit, your valve adjustments will show good or bad once the car is warm....here's how we used to do this...theory was if the rockers were clattering, you knew they were working, loose to start things off, this way you don't have a valve hangin' open...warm up, then adjust each valve down until it just stops clattering...get it to operating temp...if some clatter surfaces, slight tighten again...
It may not be Forum textbook procedure, but back in the day...it worked...
Oh, if the car starts with that part disconnected leave it off...you can address it later once you know what the culprit really is...
Good luck

 

FIRE<FIRE<FIRE we have ignition. got her running today valve adjustments were the key. Appreciate all the input. Next questions gurus of the 350 world. At idle and up to about 1500 the car runs rough, this was the reason i tore her down and rebuilt except for pulling the pistons which looked good in the block. My original intake had about three small cracks which my machine shop discovered when i took my heads in to be redone. So i figured that was probably the reason she idled poorly and a little off idle also because the cracks affected vacum and fuel air mixture more at low revs than high. Unfortunately, i bought stock used manifold off ebay and the idling problem still exists. I suspect this manifold also has some problems. After spending the afternoon tinkering and coming to conclusion that it is not going to get any better i decided to buy some vacum caps and plug off all vacum except distributor and see what happens. The car did smooth out some so i suspect there is another culprit in the whole scheme of things but there was still some missing at idle and off could a crack in the manifold cause this in a certain cylinder as the engine cycles thru causing the poor idling. I can also feel as i move up in rpms if i really pay attention and listen to the exhaust. Could it be one cylinder is getting a poor fuel mixture because it is pulling in extra air.

 

Hey! Glad it fired finally....
Hmmmm...a crack in the intake? Again? On a different intake? That would be mighty coincidental....You are torqueing the intake in the right sequence to 30 foot pounds on each bolt....right?
Personally, it soumds like a vacuum hose is cracked someplace with your vac cap experiment...I'd further investigate in that area...you never did say what carb...original, new or used?

 

The only thing about the intake manifold is that it is used and there are a couple of spots in question that we didn't notice until we installed it. There is what looks like a spot weld, definitely not factory, and there is a ding in another area which we could not tell if it went all the way through and created a pin hole. Somebody has done somrthing with it and taking it off a supposedly running vehicle to sell makes you wonder why. It was in poor looking condition when i got it and the EGR holes were completely clogged. I plan on tinkering some more but probably will just buy new edelbrock so i now that is not a problem.