Need some help on tuning

[Sendero]

MY brother just  back from a restoration shop his 70 RT SE Challenger 6-pak. He has owned it over 20 years but you know how life goes. He just got it back after 5 years to run it and he said it was immediately stalled at stops, sounded like he had hot soak starts, and carbon on the exhaust with only 20 miles drivin.

I took a look at it today for him.  Immediately I noticed that plug cly one was at a odd hole on the dist....the distrib vaccume adv cannister was turned clockwise as far as it woul go pressing up against his fuel line.Spark pkug one was dried fouled with only 30 miles.

I rotated the crank to TDC mark, verified the cyl one ( front drivers side) had piston at top and that the rotor was pointing to spark wire one....should at least start until tuned properly.

The thing will not start and even backfired. slight adjusting on the rotor cap would not cause a start. just an immed. backfire.

I am thinking dist is one 180 off...he did tell me that before I came over he hooked up a timing light to cyl one and had to be under the car to see the mark....

suggestions?

[maxwellwedge]

Sounds like 180 to me. Pull up the distributor, rotate the rotor 180 and slide distributor back in and try it again.

[Sendero]

If the dist. is 180 out...how can it start ,...let alone run for 40 miles. I have speculated that the shop may have installed the rotor 180 out and in an effort to get it to run...just turned the distributor clockwise as far as the vac.adv cannister would permit and still failing that -  moved the spark plug wires on the dist to get a rough idle start and then called it a day....that would be a new one on me if that was the case.

I would like to think that I got something wrong using the service manual rather than the high $ resto shop just screwing up big time. The probability is that I am missing something here.

[maxwellwedge]

I thought you said that you re-adjusted and now it wont start and backfires.

Start from the beginning. Pull #1 plug, bump the starter till you get compression, line up this true TDC mark and adjust the distributor and rotor properly to #1 on the cap.

[Sendero]

I did what was recommended and the car is running ( barely). - I know what the issues are to resolve now. thxs!

The question I have is ...What is the "concourse" correct orientation of the distributor and plug wire 1 on the distributor cap? I had thought that the factory tended to put the distributer with the vacuum advance module close to max counterclockwise (approx 22:00 on a clock dial) so one could provide plenty of advance (turning it clockwise). Additionally, referencing the service manual, it indicates that the no 2 plug wire is just counterclockwise to the ( -) coil feed and from that ref point you follow the firing order 2-1-8-.....counterclockwise on the distrib cap. This would place plug 1 near 12 noon orientation after advance is set around 15 BTDC.

Is the above scenario "factory correct" or is there no actual "factory correct" orientation :...i.e. plug one could be at the 6 o'clock position or the 12 noon. I am curious.
The "expert high $$$ restoration" has some obvious flaws and I am wondering if his dist. setup can be added to the list. Certainly having the VA full clockwise to a physical stop on a fuel line and only getting 10 BTDC is suspect.

[maxwellwedge]

The service manual shows the correct orientation of the slot in the cam/distributor drive gear at TDC. Usually #1 is one or two cap towers clockwise from the cap clip that is at 7:00 while facing the car. This will give you lots of adjustment both ways.

[Sendero]

Thanks!

[Sendero]

Next six-pack tuning hurtle.

We pulled the distributor and got it indexed properly so that the car fires up fine when cold. To get it to run without stalling , we had to go to 25-30 degrees at 1200 rpm . That being noted, the car was still running extremely rich with Heavy fumes in 2-4 minutes of running. Restarts were problematic- having to wait 5-10 minutes.

We checked the float level on the center carb. of the 6pak. The center cab had the bowl filled beyond the top of the plastic site window. We adj the float level to where we could barely see gas on the window. We then moved to the rear carb. It too had the float set way to high.  We adjusted the rear carb float to where there was barely any fuel leaking out.....yet the richness did not dissipate. Heavy fumes and light missing at the the exhaust. Hard to keep idle unless rpms were increased to 1200. My thinking was that the 2 float adjustments should have gotten us substantially leaner with better idle ability

Still being so rich, I opted to check the mixture screws on the center carb. One side was out 4 turns and the other 3. I seated both and backed each out one full turn. No noticeable difference in maintaining idle or fume generation.

We had the bag it at that point, but I am surprised at the continued super rich condition ...which is driving the increase  of idle to 1200 and advance to approx. 30 degrees. Wow! My brother will go out and get the clear holley float plugs ( the old ones are to milky to see definitively) but I am starting to think something else is amiss. I also used carb cleaner down the bores resulting in no difference.

what else should I look for? A 6-pak rebuild?

[greenpigs]

I had some of those clear site plugs...one snapped off when I tried to push it in. Something else if the float level is to high there is no way to adjust for it, short of taking the plug out and risk it breaking. If that happens you will have to tear the bowl off so best to leave it as is and stock.

[b5blue]

Here is some stuff I went through on my six pack car: The rubber tips of the float height adjusting valves dry out and bowl fuel height wanders up and down, remove them and replace if they are dried out. When I replaced my old dist. with a new Mopar Performance one my old one had a brand new cap so I left it hooked up with most of the plug wires on and installed the new dist. then snapped the cap back down. It did just like yours and needed to rotate too far for tuning. The fix was to move the wires all 1 or 2 holes over to get the vac. pod pointed correctly. Things to consider are: normal idle screw is turn in till just snug then back out 1 1/2 turns on all of them, again there are tiny "O" rings in there and if they dry out the needles can not sit nicely and settings can kinda wander as the tip may not be centered in the hole (the engine idles on all 3 carbs.) After adjusting idle then adjust or readjust bowl fuel height as that compensates for fuel flowing out of bowl. The system can be picky, it wants only 5lb pressure but at the correct volume, the correct pump and vapor canister will give that so if that's not what you have check fuel pressure for 5lbs. (I run other pumps and no vapor can OK) To make all this adjusting and removing and replacing the carbs I cut the steel lines and added rubber hose with clamps rather than keep dealing with undoing then re tightening the lines on the bowls. Finally curb idle (on the linkage side on the center carb.) is set off the curb idle solenoid and that allows the butterfly's to close completely when the engine is shut off to prevent run on.     

[Sendero]

Thanks for the comments. I did get the dist indexed properly so that part is now good. I will note as you had stated, that I did observe the center carb float level did go up and down and back up gradually without adj during idle...so maybe we got a lead now to look at that o-ring more closely. I am staring to lean toward a 6-pak rebuild at this point. I am starting to think that the restoration shop neglected the six pack.