Dear George.

Are you sure you don't have a Briggs & Stratton Chinese clone in there.

Actualy it could be, but I am betting it is more like a dae-woo or a habatchi or something.

Oh No, the dreaed #6 block, you're in big trouble!

LOL..................

Just joking DeTom!

That #6 is actually a large C with a smaller F in the middle. The G F is more obvious, so I'm sure that's not the case.

DeTom, it is possible that the outer ring of your harmonic balancer has "walked". If so this is not good. First it would mean that your motor is out of balance. Second it would mean that the balancer's outer ring could fly off at any time, and do severe damage to your car, or the passengers in the passenger compartment.

Clean the balancer & pulley, then using yellow machinist's ink put aligned index marks on the balancer's center hub (or belt pulley) and the outer ring. Then watch to see if the marks move in relation to one another. This is why I always tell folks a 30 year old damper is a problem waiting to happen. Any Cleveland motor needs it damper rebuilt or replaced.

You do not need a timing pointer to set the distributor's static timing. The marks on the harmonic balancer are never accurate anyway.

With the engine idling & warmed up, all vacuum hoses connected as normal (I recommend ported vacuum to the outer canister only) twist the distributor slowly until you find the place where it idles the fastest. Intake manifold vacuum will also be the highest at this setting. Then lock it down, this is the ideal setting for this motor. This will be somewhere around 20 degres BTDC. Readjust your idle speed with the primary butterfly stop screw. Go to the local wrecking yard & pick up a 351C timing pointer. I see them occasionally on ebay too.

Your car will run better, accelerate stronger, drivability will improve, it will reduce the load on the cooling system, and fuel economy will improve. It will start just fine.

And you will owe me a beer, buddy.

I'll bet after you set the timing as I describe, and install a timing pointer from the auto salvage emporium, you'll find the setting at idle is around 20 degrees as I suggested. At that point you can breathe a sigh of relief. But keep an eye on those alignment marks just the same.

Tell your mechanic if he used an old balancer on your motor, I'm coming to straighten him out.

your friend on the DTBB

George, maybe it doesn't have the harmonic balancer? Maybe he left it off????

your lower pulley bolts to the balancer.

if you had no balancer, you'd have no alternator and no water pump.

we would have heard about this sooner.

George

Wheh. Thanks George I feel better now. I will let you know how it turns out tommorrow. You're my bud.

quote:

Originally posted by DeTom:
...You're my bud...

that you can rely on

quote:

Originally posted by DeTom:
I know you are gone for the weekend so I will wait until you get back, but I ran into some real strange stuff today. Remember how I asked about engine run on? And then we figured out it might be too retarded. Well I think that is probably right, but now I am screwed.
OK, let me explain. I finaly got the car started and as usual it runs like crap. So I go to look at the timng and there is no little mark like what used to be on my old engine. There are whole bunches of numbers but nothing to line the numbers up with. Besides the numbers was up on top where I clearly remember was not anywhere close to where the timening mark was on my old engine. So I took a risk and slowly turned the distributor clock wise. As I did so the engine started running better. The idle started ramping up. So I continued to turn the distributor and it was ideling at almost three grand. So I turned the idle back down to 1000 rpm whare it is supposed to be, and she sounded real sweet. But then I looked at the timing light again and the numbers where back where they would have been in the olden days, but still nothing to line them up with. I am betting that the numbers moved at least sixty degrees. I know, I know, it ain't possible, but I swear that is what happened. SO I shut the engine off and no diesiling. Now I am betting I go to start it tommorrow and I am betting it won't start cause I probably have too much advance dialed in. But I can tell you one thing, I am not taking the engine cover back off again since there ain't any timing mark to play with. I will just have to do it by ear I guess.
ANyway I looked exactly where you told me too and I do not have an American engine. I do not have an australian engine either. I am betting it isn't even a Ford. I am thinking it may be made in China or something like that because instead of Cf, or GF, it don't say nothing F. It just has a big old number six. Yeah I know, it sucks. But just shows you get what you pay for sometimes. Chineese block with no timing mark.

Do you have a timing light with an adjustable timing knob on the back? I'll confess, I had a similar problem and couldn't figure out for 30 minutes one time why my timing marks were no where in site, then I realized that some knocklehead (me) forgot to insure the knob was at zero. Good luck....

No sir John. My light just has a trigger to push to turn the light on and that's it. I swear I turned the ditributer a whole quarter turn. I was shocked how far the thing could be off and still run. I will never again arguee with someone abut eight degrees vs twelve. I now realize just how stupid such arguments are. I swear I moved the timing a full 30 degress, perhaps as much as sixty and it ran the whole time. OK, you guys can think what you want, but I know what I saw and did. I moved the distributer a full 1/4 turn. So you can start the UFO jokes now if you wish, but that is what happened and I am not changing my story just to stop the redicule. Go ahead, make fun of me, call me a kook. But my timing was off by sixty degreess.

DT, most of the D2AE-CA blocks that I have seen (alot) have a casting mark that is not readable.
Believe it or not there is also a Ford corporate logo there as well. I'll bet you can't read that either. The block casting number is above the starter.
If your distributor has a vacuum advance canister on it I'm pretty sure you can't be sixty degrees out because it won't turn that much. The canister will find an obstruction. 45 degrees out would be one cylinder out on the distributor cap and it would misfire at that point and certainly would not start.
I'm not even sure that it would run at 10 degrees ATDC or even start there.
Chances are you no more then 4 degrees ATDC.
The Cleveland likes much more initial advance then an engine like a 302. 12 degrees initial is alot for a 302. The 351c is much more responsive around 16-20 initial. (Boss 302 also)
The key here is to limit the distributor advance to 20 degrees. You could check what you have normally (forget about it on a Pantera) by removing the distributor cap and finding the square examination port in the points mounting plate. Rotate the distributor until you see a number in the window. You want to see the number 10. That would be the limit that the distributor is limited to mechanically. That would be 20 crankshaft degrees. That plus your intial setting would be your total. These days most engines will total 34 to 38 on that number. 36 is considered ideal.
If you are lower then 34 you are loosing power and fuel mileage.
If you see 12 in the window that would mean you have 24 degrees advance limit in the distributor.
That is the wrong distributor advace setting for a C. That better suits a 302/5.0 with a 12 degree initial advance setting.
We used to power time engines. We would drive the car up a hill and advance the distributor until the engine would ping just a hair and then back it off just a little and lock the distributor there.
The Pantera lends itself particularly well to this since you can drive it with the bulkhead cover off. Be careful about the shifts into 1 or 3 if you value your elbow. Don't wear loose fitting clothing either.
You should check the total advance with a timing light. Really you should have total advance at about 2500 on the tach. If you aren't getting it until 3000 the springs are too heavy and the advance is too slow.
If you have done all this and the engine pings then that is the gas octane. Many mechanics will tell you that a slight ping is textbook correct as well as being on the rough side at idle. Most customers don't agree.
If you are not getting total advance then the springs are not functioning properly, broken or stretched out and need to be replaced.
This is very common in distributors, particularly aftermarket units with very light "performance advance springs".
If you need to pull out the distributor to replace it, go to church or temple first, pray for patience or divine guidence, buy a lot of kava-kava, send the family away for the weekend, don't eat any very gasy foods the night before, take you cell phone with you in case you need to call 911 and make sure that the car is in a place where both doors can be opened at the same time and two paramedics can reach you, other then that don't worry about it, it's a piece of cake.

Thanks for the reply Doug. I think I might have just a touch too much advance dialed in now, but what a differance it makes. I do not have a vacuum advance. It is an Accell something or other ditributor and it doesn't even have points. It has a little led light inside and how it is supposed to work, I do not have clue one. She was a little hard to start but once I had her going it is like a differant car. It pulls more like the old one used to. All the way to six grand and acts like she wanted to just keep going from there. She was running like a winsor and giving up at 5 grand. She also ran a hell of a lot cooler, never even made it up to 90 degrees. And this was no matter how hard I drove her too. She responds better, pulls longer. Just about where I want her. She doesn't run on now after I shut her down. SHe even engine brakes better. But she is still right at 300 horse, not even close to 400. Feels better, but my ass is calibrated and I know the differance. I will take running on regular gas any day though. Especially with gas headed back up to three bucks a gallon now. My trip used half the amount of gas it did two weeks ago. SO all in all, I am well pleased.

Oh and George, thanks again man. You're a pip.

Check your total advance with the Accell DT. I replaced springs in that one twice.
If I told you they were garbage I'd be nice.
The Accell springs stretch out. You will set the idle properly but the distributor won't have anywhere to advance to if it is already at maximum travel because of stretched springs.
My Accell is no longer with us, I gave it a Viking Funneral.
Stupid ugly yellow color too, yuck.

DeTom/George,

Do you think that this could have been caused by the distributor shear pin having partially sheared? If your shear pin breaks altogether (as happened to me once, and as has happened to numerous people) then your engine stops running. But if it only partially breaks and jams, it could change your timing a whole bunch.

The shear pin on my distributor broke while I was on my way to the boat to send my Pantera to France (where I was living). I missed the boat, literally, and a friend's wedding due to that 15 cent shear pin...

Charlie, I don't think that a bent roll pin is a common occurance at all. It's kind of rare. They are hardened steel and I would think it would be more common for it to come out completely which I'm sure happens but I'd say is next to never.
You were just unlucky with that engine.
Things happened to your engine that don't unless a vodoo hex is put on it or it was built as an eight grade science project.

Oh Charlie my shear pin can't break cause I have a stock cam. The guys who have trouble with that have the big lopies with heavy duty springs and stuff like that. If you stick with stock, it never breaks. Besides I still have two years left on the warrenty.

A sheared roll pin has nothing to do with the cam DeTom. This failure is related to the replacement of the oil pumps drive shaft. The oem drive shaft will twist or flex when the oil pump passes debris. The heavy duty drive shafts do not twist or flex, so the next weakest link is the roll pin securing the drive gear to the distributor shaft. When ever a heavy duty oil pump drive shaft is installed, the roll pin needs to be beefed up to prevent sheering. This is normally accomplished by pressing a second, smaller roll pin inside the first one.

If the roll pin has sheered, but is somehow still creating enough drag to prevent the shaft from spinning free, the timing should walk off (again?). I add the parenthesis & question mark because I'm not so sure the timing walked off to begin with. It sounds to me that it has been set improperly since day one.

The nice thing about a sheered roll pin, the motor shuts off at the same time the pin sheers, so the motor is protected from damage.

This is just one of the little reasons why I advise folks to have their motor built by somebody who knows these motors.

your friend on the DTBB

You are absolutely right George. It was set wrong from day one. The timing didn't shift realy. More than the streatch a new timing chain makes anyway. The guy who installed the engine would not listen to me on much of anything. I am not complaing because he only charged me 1500 bucks to do the whole thing, but I wish he had listened on at least some stuff. Anyway what I was describing was the ngine was probably close to being thirty degrees retarded. I think right now it may be just a touch too advanced, because when I moved the distributor I moved it somewhere between 45 and sixty degrees of rotation. If I had to guess, I would say I am running about 30 degrees advance right now. I think I may have to retard it about ten. I have figured out how to do that without taking the whole car apart again. I am a little stiff and sore today from doing that Saturday. I am getting lazy I guess.

If you set your distributor where the engine idles at the highest rpm, then it is set properly for your motor. And I guarantee you it is around 20 degrees BTDC. The total advance, i.e. static plus centrifugal, may be too much because the distributor has too much centrifugal swing, but the static timing is right on. Too much total, as long as your engine isn't pinging, won't hurt anythng, it will just mean your motor is down on power above 3000 rpm. Does it feel like its down on power? Really need a dyno to determine what the optimum total advance is, then the distributor needs to be pulled & recurved.

your friend on the DTBB

No I don't think it is down on power, it's just when I started it it sounded like the starter had to strugle to get it going. Like it was having to push real hard. Then it smelled rich until it warmed up. BUt after that it was real responsive. The second your foot touches the gas pedel she just takes right off. Especially above 3000 rpm.

quote:

Originally posted by DeTom:
when I started it it sounded like the starter had to strugle to get it going. Like it was having to push real hard.

Thats was likely a symtom of too much initial advance.

Your adjustments have appeared somewhat course, as read....I think it best to quantify initial and final advance so you know the span of the advance mechanism, then record adjustments by using a light with the engine at the exact same rpm for each measurement.

By as much as the distributer has been twisted, it deserves a check that the nodes are still lined up best the rotor, else that high-speed miss could be cross-firing to the closest node in the cap.

A real distributer wrench may be in order, the bend in them are a godsend.

Yes sir Mr. adult. I know it is real crude. But at least I use a wrench now instead of just pliers.