First fire up - timing jitters

[morgan]

Hey sportsfans. Well - the 440 is in, plumbed up, fluids etc. Oil pump is primed but I darent turn the key (bear with me)...

When I took the old one out I carefully set the engine to TDC on the timing marks, noted where the dizzy was set and which direction the rotor was pointing.

However, the new engine, when set to 'TDC' on the timing mark and oil shaft pointing to 'theoretical stock' it has the rotor pointing a completely different direction.

It seems odd to me that at TDC the new engine would [by default] have the oil shaft pointing a different direction. Surely both engines, at TDC MUST have the rotor arm pointing the same way ? Unless dizzys vary and the shaft/rotorarm dont align across manufacturers ?

Anyway - Here is a diagram of what I mean. I have 'set' the oil shaft/slot so that the rotor arm is pointing at #1 and the crank shows TDC. But I am scared to turn the key now !! I can set the timing once its running but on first fire up there are so many other things to look for (leaks etc) I'd like it SOMEWHERE in the ballpark from the off...

So closing question is "Crank shows TDC. Rotor arm roughly pointing at #1. Am I good to go ? "

[Dave999]

i don't know about v8s but you have 2 choices in my mind

1) pull out the drive that drives the pump and the dizzy and put it where you like....no idea if that is possible as i say no idea how this bit works on V8

2) what i'd do. make sure you are on the compression stroke and at TDC on No 1 not 180 degrees out pull it back and forth so its 8* before TDC
twist the dizzy so rotor kinda lines up with a cap tower

find out where the rotor points and make that no.1

plug as per firing order round the cap

good to go

all you need is the BIG SQUISH occuring in no.1 cylinder and a spark to light it hence if the lead length allows, you can vary which tower on your dizzy cap is actually no.1 in order to effect perfect set up

perfect set up involves nice timing and not having the vacuum can crash into anything as you twist the dizzy to get it bang on timed right

the only time you can't do this is on a points based dizzy where the dwell for one cylinder is different from the others lead number 1 has to be in OEM cap position 1....i'm talking air cooled flat fours which have retard set at the points cam in the dizzy for cylinder 3 or cylinder 4 depending on which one has its main cooling air blocked by the oil cooler, stops that cylinder being a ping monster when you ran them on 2 star fuel... and that depends on application.

on a US v8 that is water cooled and not running points you have no issue.

its hard to time them static with a dizzy that has no marks on the case rim and no points.

with points set balancer to X*BTDC and its a bulb and flying lead job i,e put the bulb in the feed to the points move the dizzy and when the bulb goes out that's sparky time cos the points opened and killed its earth

Dave

[morgan]

Dizzy was marked on ‘old’ engine so i know roughly where it should go. I just got confused as to why i needed to realign the oil-pump-shaft ( which the dizzy plugs into.)

The issue is simply that ( it seems) the oil pump shaft is at diff angle - i should have measured it before twirling for pressure...

So i am reading ‘tdc, fire #1’ - which is what i have set up... true ?

[TIB3300]

this may make you feel more confident ,,

[Blue]

Ok, the cam and therefore the distributor runs at half crank speed. So when the damper is set at the 0 timing mark it is either at TDC or 180 degrees out. At TDC both valves on No1 will be closed, so make sure that’s the case. No1 on the distributor can be anywhere you like, it depends on where the oil pump drive is sitting. If you want No1 in a certain position, once you have the damper set correctly at TDC, use a big flat screwdriver in the oil pump drive and unscrew it from the cam and move it round a tooth until No1 on the distributor is where you want it to be. I hope that makes sense, call me if it doesn’t and I’ll talk you through it.

[morgan]

It does. Thanks.

I think its where i want it. If 180 out will it hurt anything ?

[Blue]

No but it won’t start it will cough back through the carb....