[MickyT]

I've got a 1970 Ford Torino GT with a 351 Cleveland 4V paired with a FMX cuise-o-matic transmission. Over the winter I overhauled the whole drivetrain, re-did the brakes, removed, stripped and re-sealed the engine. Now I have it all back in the car, sealed, mounted, oiled and full of all required fluids, fresh gas in the tank. Car was running (poorly) before the work was performed. The only part of the engine that is not OEM anymore is the Edelbrock Performer Series carb. Everything is torque'd, new fuel lines from pump to engine, new vacuum lines, all ports plugged or fitting with lines accordingly.

I have been trying to get it running since getting it all back together, I set the engine to TDC #1 on compression, then re-installed the distributor so the rotor was aimed at spark plug lead for #1. These are the symptoms I am currently having (still not running), it will do 1 of 3 things everytime I crank it over:

1) Fire up and skyrocket rpm, I shut it off once it starts revving like that.
2) Crank, catch, fail and keep cranking with intermittent firing here and there.
3) Crank, catch, fail and shoot flames out the carb.

I have checked all vacuum lines and they are good, I have checked that spark is strong from coil to distributor and from distributor to #1 spark plug that is good. I have been told to check for a vacuum leak, but cannot find one.

Sorry for the long spiel, just want to get all the details and symptoms in. Any and all help is appreciated. As well, should timing be 8-12* initial or 12-15* initial?

 

[MickyT]

Any ideas at all?

 

[3x2]

Initial timing should be set at 6 BTDC. Make sure you plug the vacuum advance hose before you set the timing. What kind of dist. are you running? Single points dist. should be set at .017 gap.

 

[galax-z]

back off fast idle speed screw and idle speed speed screw. see if will srart and run slow.

 

[MickyT]

It's OEM single points distributor. I found my main problem of a tank worth of bad fuel, so drained it all out, cleaned the tank and put half a tank worth of premium in. Starts and runs. However, at idle, timing is approximately 32 degrees BTDC. I cannot rotate the distributor far enough to get it anywhere near correct timing. I have vacuum advance disconnected and plugged. The closest I can get for timing is 15 degrees and that had the vacuum advance port on the distributor pointing directly to the driver side front wheel (which it touches the fuel line in that position). Could the distributor be 180 out? The car seems to run fine otherwise.