Wagoneermaster Posted July 22, 2022 Author Share Posted July 22, 2022 Looking good! But that old gas looks baaaaad. Glad you replaced it. Here's hoping your startup going wonderfully. Hi guys, It has been a while..... I got the engine all re-assembled again. I had some difficulties to get it started. I had to adjust the distributor more than once to get it running. First attempts some back firing. Re-adjusted the distributor (jump one tooth) and finally got it started. But the engine ran bad. I mean really bad. Double checked timing and firing order. That seemed to be okay. Today, I dusted off an old engine analyser, that I have had for more than 30 years. It is a Sun Pro unit. I checked the coil secondary voltage for each cylinder. Than, I noticed some strange behaviour: some cylinders were about 6 kV's and some were about 4 kV's. The firing order for the 351W is 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8. Cylinders 3,7,5 and 4 were low (4 kV). All others were high. This and the poor / rough idling got me thinking. I compared the firing order of the 351w with the 302. Some cylinders are in the same sequence and some or not. The 302 has a firing order of 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8. After looking closely at some photos I took from the car when I just bought is, I found some evidence that the plug wires were not connected in the 351w order. I decided to change the firing order to the 302 sequence. And voila, engine run waaaaaay better :). On the block, you can clearly see "351W"stamped under the intake manifold. Also, the distributor is located lower than the intake manifold, which also indicated that this is a 351w block. Apparently, the previous owner swapped the cam shaft for a 302 cam shaft... I do need to take a closer look at cylinder #7, cause that one is not contributing to the bunch. However, has anyone of you see such a thing?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpin Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 Hi guys, It has been a while..... I got the engine all re-assembled again. I had some difficulties to get it started. I had to adjust the distributor more than once to get it running. First attempts some back firing. Re-adjusted the distributor (jump one tooth) and finally got it started. But the engine ran bad. I mean really bad. Double checked timing and firing order. That seemed to be okay. Today, I dusted off an old engine analyser, that I have had for more than 30 years. It is a Sun Pro unit. I checked the coil secondary voltage for each cylinder. Than, I noticed some strange behaviour: some cylinders were about 6 kV's and some were about 4 kV's. The firing order for the 351W is 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8. Cylinders 3,7,5 and 4 were low (4 kV). All others were high. This and the poor / rough idling got me thinking. I compared the firing order of the 351w with the 302. Some cylinders are in the same sequence and some or not. The 302 has a firing order of 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8. After looking closely at some photos I took from the car when I just bought is, I found some evidence that the plug wires were not connected in the 351w order. I decided to change the firing order to the 302 sequence. And voila, engine run waaaaaay better :). On the block, you can clearly see "351W"stamped under the intake manifold. Also, the distributor is located lower than the intake manifold, which also indicated that this is a 351w block. Apparently, the previous owner swapped the cam shaft for a 302 cam shaft... I do need to take a closer look at cylinder #7, cause that one is not contributing to the bunch. However, has anyone of you see such a thing?? IIRC, there are some 351 cams with the 302 firing order. ETA: Good job figuring that out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 IIRC, there are some 351 cams with the 302 firing order. ETA: Good job figuring that out! Yes, good job! And it isn't that unusual of a problem. Just enough that we've had several people have that problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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