Trying to fire a up a fresh, new, 292 Y block in my 55, 12 volt, negative ground. Getting plenty of gas - you could see it and smell it.

For years, I have been a points man, tuning and teching and so on. But I did install a new ACCEL points eliminator kit. I hooked everything up per instructions (I have an inline resistor before the coil). Only question I have is whether or not the coil is hooked up exactly right. I hooked the + leads to the BAT, and the - leads to the IGN terminals on the coil. Is this right? I assume so.

By the way, Fire from Heaven did fall - about 2 foot above the carb! wonderful sight in the twilight! And, some soot was blown out of the exhaust as a couple cylinders did fire. Just don't want to keep grinding on this thing being a new motor and all.

Is there a doctor in the house for this new Y?

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Daniel:

Online diagnosis is difficult with so little to go on.  The coil is wired right.  One thing you might check is something you almost never hear about, but is easily done.  Check to see that the spark plug wires are sequenced in the distributor cap in the counter clockwise direction.  You don't hear much about this because it is embarrasing to admit doing it.  Don't ask me how I know.

John

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

Daniel.  You've likely already doublechecked this, but it sounds like you could be potentially 180° out of phase on the distributor.  Verify that that the spark is occurring at the top of the compression stroke.  With the #1 spark plug out, bump the engine over until compression is felt coming from the spark plug hole and then slowly turn the engine over until the piston is almost at the top of the bore.  The TDC mark on the damper should also be within 10° of 0 on the timing indication.  At this point the distributor rotor should be pointing at the #1 spark plug wire in the cap.  If the rotor is pointing at #6 in the cap, then the distributor has been simply installed 180° out.  Just pull the distributor and turn the shaft so the rotor points to the #1 location in the cap instead.

Also double check the spark wiring itself to insure the correct firing order.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Hi Daniel,  If all else fails, and you are stumped on this, remove your front cover with water pump as a unit and check to see how your timing marks line up on the sprockets.  It is very possible the engine builder lined them up wrong (vertically up & down).   The y-block timing marks are horizontal to each other and you should have 12 pins of the chain between the marks on the sprockets.          Mike

     

I second Ted on this one - I did the same thing myself when I installed a new dist (fire balls and everything)!  I was so pissed because I couldn't figure it out that I almost sold the car.  Then after drawing out the cylinder stroke on paper it all became clear.............

John: Lake Forest, IL



'57 Fairlane 500 - Looking better every day.

Doctor, doctor, give me the news, I got a bad case of Y block blues...

and You fellas hit it I believe - Those wires are all in there CLOCKWISE!! Duh! Should have known that one - I do feel pretty dumb. Knew for sure that I had put the timing marks and chain right on the money, and that the dizzy was in their ready to fire on #1 at TDC.

Will check with Ted's advice just to make sure...

thanks a mil for showing my stupidity

Dan

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com