Everything is one year old under the hood, Engine,hei,carb,starter, well everything. The battery will go dead after 4 weeks of sitting and is new. I keep on charging it up and the engine turns over great. Carb is a Speed Demon 650, electric choke and is working.
Here is what happens now.
When I turn the key to start the engine, it fires for 1 second and then stops and sounds like there is no fire. Then I smell gas and seems like its flooded. The starter works great. If I wait for 2 hrs and try again it will do the same thing, fire for 1 sec and then flood. The choke is closed. It does have gas in carb, sight glass levels are where they should be.
The car has run great before, never a problem and now this.
What is a good test to fix?
Any ideas would be great.

Thanks,

Check the Ing switch, Dist gets 12 volts in the start Pos to start. When you let off start is the HEI still getting 12 volts from the Ing post?

I replaced a guy's HEI module that would do exactly as you described. It would get one to two sparks and then nothing (pulled a plug and held it to ground while he cranked engine over). Put in another used module and it is still working fine.

The fine wires in the HEI pickup sometimes break after years of flexing from the vacuum advance moving the wires a small amount thousands of times each time you drive. The wires can break inside the insulation where it can't be seen, but will sometimes make contact again for a while when the module is replaced. Try removing the vacuum advance hose and try starting the car. You can also do a continuity test on the pickup and wiggling the wires to see if there is a break in them. The strangest distributor problem I ever saw was a broken roll pin through the distibutor shaft and gear. Pickups are cheap. So are roll pins. Change the pickup, the module, and the roll pin.

Thanks on the tips, graemlins/thumbsup.gif im gonna work on it this weekend. I will post back what I find.

Rick, Advance Auto will check out your module for free.

If it's bad a GM 990 module or a NAPA TP45 (not the TP45 with some letters after the 45) are the best to get. From what I've read there's little or nothing to be gained from the super duper aftermarket modules.

Dielectric silicone grease should be between the bottom of the module and the housing to prevent overheating.

Are you sure the distributor is getting the full 12 volts? That seems to be a problem for a lot of guys when they switch from points. Not using the old resister wire that comes out from below the master cylinder are you - that could be a problem.

Hey Glenn, hows your M.G coming. I'm getting the 12 volts from my fuse box, its on the ignition pin. Yesterday did some tests and here is what happened.
One side of my coil plug in, the clip on one side is broke. I pushed it up in there and tryed to start. Same old thing happened, fired for a sec and then nothing, it just turns over. So then I pulled a plug wire and installed a new plug in it and watched for fire. A friend turned over the engine and it was sparking nice, but engine didn't fire. So then I took off the air filter and had him pump the gas and it was flowing threw the barrels good. The choke was closed and had him turn over the engine and it fired right up, runs great and all I really did was take off the air cleaner and fiddle with the coil wire plug.
I am going to see what happens today. Them coils are like 40.00 dollars and didn't want to replace because of a broken clip, but that might be the problem, hell I forgot it was broken until all this. Also the air cleaner may be keeping the choke from opening all the way.
I will test and see before I try to start today.

Any ideas?
Thanks again,
Rick S

Rick,
I ran a bunch of searches before switching to an HEI last spring.

Ignitionman (distibutor guru who doesn't post here any more) highly recommended the MSD #8202 Blaster 2 coil for use with stock HEI ignitions. The main reason is that it takes the coil out of the cap and mounts it remotely, which lowers temperatures within the cap by 35-45 degrees, which helps to extend the life of electrical components within the cap. He also said it produces good voltage. If your coil's working, I wouldn't worry about, but if you need one I think Summit has them for about 30.

I just checked about 8 or 10 HEI threads I'd saved, and they've all been deleted. I'm really getting sick of this - kind of defeats the purpose of the search engine, but I digress...

I'll try to find one and post it with the edit button.

Found something - check out what Ignitionman has to say on both pages:

http://www.chevelles.com/cgi-bin/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=005212

After scanning that, I'm not sure if you'll also need the different cap he mentions.

Since you're a member, you could also run a all forums search for "TP45" - something might come up.

I wouldn't buy a coil unless you really need one, but if you do I-man thinks MSD a good option.

Good luck - might be the choke and/or that little wire afterall...

MG - took it out yesterday after it finally started, been a month or two. Might take it to Charles City county today, but it's pretty cloudy and the top is in the dining room (what can I say?) - definately going to drive it tomorrow, temperatures are supposed to hit the 60's. Still haven't gotten the 3.4 running yet - been busy with other stuff.

Since it's a new year, I resolve to start printing out threads I want to keep. ;)

Originally posted by Glenn1018:

I just checked about 8 or 10 HEI threads I'd saved, and they've all been deleted. I'm really getting sick of this - kind of defeats the purpose of the search engine, but I digress...

Since it's a new year, I resolve to start printing out threads I want to keep. ;) Actually very little has been deleted from Electrical in the last year and a half. I just haven't had the time to go through it and clean it up like I'm supposed to do. Yeah, I hate to do a mass delete based on age so I end up re-reading everything and keeping the very best.
Now I know the server belches once in awhile and things disappear that I know no one has touched. Beats me what happens.
Dave Ray has his own website and it's easy to contact him if one needs to.
Also with intermittent HEI modules, they can test good at the auto parts store but not work each time in a car.
Well, I've got a washer to fix this morning. Hate working on appliances.

John,
I'm pretty sure most the HEI threads I saved were in Chevelle Tech/2000/2001/2002 and Performance forums. TH350 and vinyl top threads I saved disappeared too - no big deal, I'll get over it. I thought a lot of them were good references.

FWIW, I think you're easily in the top 5 useful contributors of this site, and would like to thank you for hanging around and helping.

Originally posted by Glenn1018:
John,
I'm pretty sure most the HEI threads I saved were in Chevelle Tech/2000/2001/2002 and Performance forums. TH350 and vinyl top threads I saved disappeared too - no big deal, I'll get over it. I thought a lot of them were good references.

I won't say who accidently deleted a bunch of stuff from Chevelle Tech 2003 a while back but his initials are Dean redface.gif graemlins/clonk.gif graemlins/clonk.gif

Dean,
No problem, I need to start keeping info on paper. I'd hate to be one of those who has to read every thread in just one forum.

Rick,
Any luck?