Hi. I need your help.

I have had the intake out out my car for three weeks and put it together today.
I'm having serious problems though and at first I thought it was an air leak somewhere but I just started it up again and noticed the tach was fluctuating a lot. It was reading maybe 1000 but often jump to 1200-1400 and back. When I was checking the timing earlier it was also fluctuating a bit back and forth.

The symptoms are kind of rough idle but not too bad. Missing on one or to cylinders at higher RPMs. Seriously backfiring when I open the throttle. Spitting out the carb when I turn it of.
Well it actually idles OK.

I noticed earlier when pouring fuel directly into the carb that it ran out of the side between the carb and the intake. Is that a problem?? I've put new gaskets on the carb/intake and intake/heads.

Another question:
On the decal in the engine it says to disconnect the four wire lead to the distributer when setting the timing but if doing so it will hardly start, sounds really strange and dies quickly. Why is this??

The car is an El Camino 305 from '87.

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\Henrik
'76 Volvo 244GL
'87 El Camino 305

Henrik, It sounds to me like you don't have the plug wires on the correct cylinders and you will have to unplug the four wire connector to set the timing correctly. Recheck the wires, the firing order is 18436572

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Leo Paugh
Maryland Chevelle Club #017
A.C.E.S.#3731
progress has little to do with speed, but lots to do with direction.
Maryland Chevelle Club (http://www.chevelles.net/mcc/mcc.htm)

Hi Chev64,
thanks I'll double check the wires.

Anyway, after my last post, I had a look at it again and found the #1 plug wire hanging loose. It's kind of embarrassing saying that it idles well when I forgot to put a plug wire in :))

Well, at the same time I advanced the timing quite a bit and that helped a lot. I set the idle speed to 900 in park and 600 in D.
Everything looked good for a minute or so but then it when crazy. It went up to 2100 RPM and when I turned it off it dieseled on. I let it cool for helf an hour, started it again and the same thing happened. I tried to retard the timing again but nothing helped.

This is really strange!! What can I check now??
I can't check the plugs because my plug socket wont fit (it's a 13/16"). I think it can't get into the hole around the plug??

I would set the timing to no more that 10 degrees advanced with the timing connector disconnected and then go from there. I think that the engine went into closed loop with the computer controlling the timing and the computer advanced it a good bit more and that made the RPMs go way up.

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Leo Paugh
Maryland Chevelle Club #017
A.C.E.S.#3731
progress has little to do with speed, but lots to do with direction.
Maryland Chevelle Club (http://www.chevelles.net/mcc/mcc.htm)

If the idle speed went way up, sounds like you have a serious vacuum leak - carb to intake or intake to engine.

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Steve Strasemeier (70SS 396, Fathom Blue/White Stripes)
My 70SS (http://www.members.home.com/txss/sshome.htm)

That's what I tink too, I just can't figure out why it happened after running for a while.

Anyway, I think I need to pull everything again because it has emptied the coolant reservoir and when I loosened the rad cap it blew of and threw about a liter of coolant all over me. Maybe I'm not too good at changing intake gaskets??
What do you think would happen if coolant was leaking into the intake?? Would it react like this??

BTW: I got the plugs out. Left side were black and right side where totally black.

Hi,
I've decided to start all over and have ordered some Fel-Pro gaskets.
I hope it's not a stupid question but the rear port and the two small ports for the EGR-valve are blocked off. I'm supposed to cut the open, right??

Guess you are talking about the back water jacket holes that come out of the head. Look at your manifold and you will see there is no crossover in it for water. So don't cut the gaskets. Don't know what emission requirements are there, but I'd snatch the EGR off the manifold, make a plate to block it and put vacumn caps everywhere it went on the carb.

Ok, I changed the gaskets again but I found out that I probably didn't have to http://www.chevelles.com/forum/frown.gif

About the dissapearing coolant I think it just needed some time to "drink" what I put in the expansion tank.

About the going crazy thing: After I put it together yesterday, I went for a test drive. It still wouldn't idle lower than 1200-1400 but it was driving well.
I took the carb off again to tighten the intake bolts, put the carb back on and startet it up. I went crazy again. Wouldn't go below 2400 no matter what I did.
I was thinking that there must have been some detail I overlooked when I found out the fast idle cam was stuck http://www.chevelles.com/forum/frown.gif

Anyway, I can drive it now but I just can't get the idle down. I've checked everything?!?

Hey, I would check my camn if I were you, not more than a week ago I got a new carb and manifold and put it on. My car ran fine before I put it on but ran crappy when i did. I thought it was the carb right off the bat but after trying 2 other carbs I decided that wasnt it. I could advance the timing to 19 degrees and it wouldnt pop as much but then it would knock a little. The problem I was having was that every time I gave it gas at all it popped and backfired through the carb. Well I took off the manifold and one of my lifters was flat on the exhaust valve. Took out the cam and the whole lobe was round. The lifter probably stopped spinning in the bore. Well im in the process of putting a new cam in and i know that will do the trick. So I would check that right away before it gets worse and burns your valve if that IS the problem..

Hi,
I'm pretty sure that's not it because the car runs GREAT http://www.chevelles.com/forum/biggrin.gif

It runs so good I'm thinking it must be because the TV can't fully close. I talked to my mechanic yesterday and asked him if an exhaust test would tell if it was a leak in a gasket or the throttle just wouldn't close, but he said no http://www.chevelles.com/forum/confused.gif

Is that true?? I thought that a too lean mixture would show in the exhaust??