Tips for starting engine on the ground
Sooo what about the other issues; electrical, cooling, trans lines?
I did this years ago with a 400 and a 727 trans with a couple of wood blocks under the motor mounts and it didn't fall over.Some wooden supports as pictured earlier would be much better but do keep away from exhaust heat.
One nearly painful lesson I learned is to be careful about where you locate your fuel supply...keep it in front of the engine far from the exhaust heat.Best to use a low profile metal boat gas container that can't be accidently knocked over.Don't ask how I know this.
If you have the rad hooked up and securely mounted with some type of good pusher fan you should be ok for cooling but you need to have a way to monitor the engine temperature.A gauge is best but one of those point and shoot temperature detectors would do the trick.Do use a thermostat in the engine to get it to run up to operating temperature.
You'll need to have some sort of trans lines if you use an auto trans as one of the outlets will be pressurized and will be pumping out fluid.Just a couple of short lengths of steel line joined with high pressure hose securely clamped would do it.You won't need to cool the fluid if the trans is in park but you will need to have fluid in it and a way to plug the tailshaft.You could use the slip yoke part of an old driveshaft as long as the trans is in park.
As far as electrical,basically all you need is an ignition system and a way to run the starter.
If you're firing an engine for the first time,you want it to start right away and keep running so you want your ignition system to work properly from the get go.
One way to test it when it's all wired up and powered up is to pull the distributor and spin it manually to verify you have good sparks coming from the coil.If that's ok then reinstall the distributor and set that to a ball park setting that you can run the engine on.
If you're running electronic ignition,turn your engine by hand to about 10 degrees BTDC and line up the reluctor to the pickup and this will get your timing in the ball park for startup.
You'll also want to have a known good carb that's filled up with gas and have your fuel system primed.I use one of those hand squeeze boat fuel pumps to get fuel to the carb for the initial go then let the engine fuel pump do the work afterwards.
Also be sure to prime the oil pump beforehand,do you know the procedure for that?
