I just purchased my first Corvette, a 85 with a dart 400 block and a keisler tko600 transmission. After buying it I found out the rod bearings were bad, I just finished up replacing them and the main bearings. After I put everything together I went to start it and it would crank fine but wouldn't fire. It also doesn't engage the fuel pump at all, I tested the pump using the aldl with no problems. At this point I'm thinking it has to do with the ignition system because i tried spraying starting fluid in it and it didn't do anything.The car is running a msd box that seems to be hooked up right(it ran great before(minus rod knock)) however I am questioning 2 wires. They both come out of the factory harness, one pink with a white connector, one yellow with a brown connector. These wires connect to the the wires from the three prong connector that goes directly into the distributor(not the one on the coil). Right now I have the red wire from the msd/distributor going to the pink wire with white connector from factory harness and the brown wire from msd to the yellow wire with brown connector. Does this sound right? I read that the yellow wire with brown connector from factory harness is the tach filter and not needed if running the msd, is this true? Something else interesting that I noticed is that if I try to read the engine codes nothing happens, the sys light just stays lit like it would if the ignition was on acc. Does this point towards a issue with the ecm? Maybe a bad ground?I've been troubleshooting all weekend to no avail, so any help is greatly appreciated.Thanks so much,Vr4demon

 

I have not used the MSD setup before but the "does not run after taking apart and putting together" is usually something left unplugged or ungrounded.

 

Well I got good news and I got bad news. Good news is, after a lot of diagnostic work I found that my ecm fuse was bad. It looked completely fine but after swapping it with another one the sys light finally is on with the key. However the pump still wouldn't prime. I left the car unplugged over night and charged up the battery, Came back and put the key in and the pump primed and the engine fired. I'm gonna see how it runs and if I have the issue again i will be sure to update y'all.
Now the bad news, the fuel pump primed and started spraying fuel out of multiple injectors near the top. So I replaced all the o rings and pintle caps. After re priming the system it still leaked from multiple injectors. I removed all the injectors and tried installing them on the rail first, it held pressure when I blew into it, but after installation I had the same issue. At this point I've taken the fuel rail off at least 6 times to fix it but no matter what I do it still leaks. Im not running the injector clips because I read its better without them and they are damn near impossible to get on the Ford injectors I have. This shouldn't cause any issues right? The other thing I was thinking about is that it has a tpis mini ram. My experience with the other tpis products I have has been not great to say the least, which makes me question the quality of the fuel rails. Has anyone had problems with them leaking?
If anyone has a idea of what's causing this problem please let me know, I would love to get it running finally And bring it to some meets this summer.
Thanks so much,
Vr4demon

 

Ametaur here and you lost me at Ford injectors but what is your fuel pressure and are the injectors clogged?

 

I know I was confused when I saw Ford on them too. Turns out most of the old style injectors from Ford are compatible with the GM stuff, only difference is they are a little shorter. Right now it won't build any fuel pressure, it all leaks from the injectors. I got a set of genuine gm o rings on the way to see if maybe the o rings that I got from rock auto are what's causing my issue. As for today I'm gonna try to get the clips to fit on the fuel rail and see if that changes anything.

 

did you put something on the O rings before install? it not you may have nicked one installing them dry. Are there any visible damage point (cracks)?

 

Clips definitely will help if they have a provision for it. I don’t believe my Bosch IIIs do. I think the trick is to prevent the fuel pressure from pushing the injector down into the intake. Mines is double o-ringed for now but I’d prefer something more solid restricting the movement.

 

I was originally using oil on the orings and the seemed to go on pretty easy. However I took the rail of yesterday and a few of them were a little distorted. I replaced them with the old ones and used permatex o ring lube on all of them, it worked great, slid right on and no leaks.However now I got another problem, the car won't run, it will only start for a second, sputter and then die. I gave it some throttle and it did rev up but I didn't want to do that for long. The timing was set around 9 degrees, I haven't been able to get a good reading with a timing light yet, im going to try to today. I can hear the injectors clicking, and I've got a good amount of fuel pressure, I just put 5 gallons of fresh gas and a thing of iso heet in the tank. I've got spark on all cylinders. I've checked all my sensor plugs and they are plugged in. There is 2 plugs by left of the distributor that are unplugged, but they were unplugged when I got the car. I also got the plug by the battery for the spark advance unplugged to time it. I think the wires on the distributor and msd are good because I get a good tach reading. I've had no issues with blowing the ecm fuse again, or not priming the fuel pump. But I do still have the issue of not being able to read the codes. The wires are there but when I cross the top 2 right terminal and turn the key nothing happens. The sys light just stays on like usual no blinking. I'm very stumped by this because it will fire and run with some throttle, which means the ecm has to be doing something. But then why cant I scan it? I'm gonna try wiring the diag port directly to the battery ground to see if maybe I have a weird problem with the ground in the harness. Other than that or a bad wire to the ecm I don't know what it could be. I also don't know if that is contributing to the no idle condition or if I have a separate problem there. I'm hoping if I'm able to scan the codes it can lead me in the right direction to fix the no idle issue. Please let me know if y'all have any other ideas on why I cant scan the car.

 

I would get the Ford O-rings for Ford injectors. There could be a slight variation between Mfgrs.

 

Over the years I've had this happen several times. The last time was with the Holley 76 # short injectors in my F.A.S.T. intake and rails with injector hats. I ended up pulling a bunch of O rings off several different sets of injectors I had laying around. Out of frustration I tried them all. The last set I put on was from GM 36 # Flex fuel injectors. They sealed great. Honestly I never pulled it back apart to put anything else in. The issue is really compounded when you have an aftermarket fuel rail and short injectors with hats. So when you start swapping aftermarket parts sometimes you need to experiment until you find what works. Also if the Ford injectors are a little shorter you may need injector hats to make them fit. On the F.A.S.T. intake I had to grind the rail mounts down a little to slightly lower the fuel rail to get a better seal. Also a little 30 weight motor oil on the O rings can help them go in without damaging them.

 

The GM o rings seem to work fine, I think that the angle of the fuel rail on the tpis mini ram made it hard to get the gaskets on evenly. That o ring lube from permatex seemed to work a lot better than motor oil, Ive been testing the car yesterday and today and so far no leaks at all!