Hard starting assistance please.

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With the regulator you'll need a fuel pressure gauge to lower pressure. I know you said 8-12 psi but is that from a gauge in the fuel line? The other worse thing to do is start a car pull it out of the garage and shut it off. Even my modern fuel injected cars don't like it. When you start it run it till it warms up. What you did was essentially double choke the engine because choke was still on.
 
With the regulator you'll need a fuel pressure gauge to lower pressure. I know you said 8-12 psi but is that from a gauge in the fuel line? The other worse thing to do is start a car pull it out of the garage and shut it off. Even my modern fuel injected cars don't like it. When you start it run it till it warms up. What you did was essentially double choke the engine because choke was still on.
Yes that was from a gauge in the fuel line right before carb. I did let the car run in the driveway for a few minutes before shutting it off.
 
usually too much pressure to the carb loads up the carb after a few minutes you can see fuel coming out the booster at idle and itll get rougher and rougher until it dies...washing the cylinders in the process.
 
Fuel pressure at the carb reads between 8-12psi. Carb is literally brand new out the box. Once up to temp it runs decent, but it wants to stall in gear even though idle is set too high at idle in neutral
You don't want or need 8psi or more on the street. 4-6psi even 3.5psi is what a lot of running down the hwy 318-408cid uses.fwiw
 
^^What Dana is trying to say is that the no1 wire does not have to be in the no1 "book designated tower" for the engine to be properly in time. Two things that pops up lately is "rotor phasing" (Google that) and MSD does not like "dial up" timing lights

Other than that general tune up, cam timing, incorrect timing marks, and "just where is" the timing, what is the timing curve in the dist, and IS IT working in other words is the mechanical advance stuck

FUEL Did you drain it or or just add to it? Maybe the carb has issues, non working/ not fully working accel pump, partially clogged idle passages etc

Have you checked how does the spark look cranking? Any voltage issues in the system?
So Installed the regulator and the car still doesn’t want to start. Where do I check voltage when cranking over the motor to determine if it’s optimal? The battery is a brand new optima fwiw.
 
Check to see at the + side of the coil you should have about 8-10 volts when cranking. This gives you a hotter spark when cranking. When running voltage drops to about 6 volts. Did you check spark at one of the plug wires to see if you get a blue spark when cranking. You may need help to check the spark.
 
Check to see at the + side of the coil you should have about 8-10 volts when cranking. This gives you a hotter spark when cranking. When running voltage drops to about 6 volts. Did you check spark at one of the plug wires to see if you get a blue spark when cranking. You may need help to check the spark.
I will check this tomorrow.
 
So I’m charging the battery then I’m going to check for myself spark from the coil wire. One thing I notice is when I turn the key off after trying to start it, it gives one cough out the carb with fuel. Possibly ignition issue then?
 
So I pulled the wire from distributor to coil off at the distributor and laid it on valve cover to see if it sparked and it did not. I’m confused because it runs intermittently. Is the coil going bad or something else? I assume check the cranking volts at the + to the coil?
 
NOTE/ EDIT...........I assumed when I posted the below, that you have a Mopar breakerless ignition? Or do you have something else? MSD for example DOES NOT have DC voltage at the coil


Couple things.

You want to be careful..............

If you check spark "under the hood" by jumpering the starter relay, you change the conditions and the coil does not get full battery power as when using the key, and spark can be weak........so rig a test gap and use the key to crank

A stock resistor/ radio coil wire can give you false indication........so use a solid wire, even low voltage wire, hung "out in the breeze" to a test gap

Check coil POS with key on in "run" position, engine stopped. With battery near 12V (not undercharged) you should see anywhere from 6-8 V to coil, not much more. This shows that the coil is drawing current and through the IGN box to ground

Coil + when cranking "with the key" should be "same as battery IE 10.5--11V or so
 
So I replaced the coil, did not have spark, took the test light to everything. Made sure all connections were tight, turned the key to see if I had a flashing test light on coil, and it fired right up. I had also adjusted the choke back to the middle. Let it run for 10 minutes, turned it off. Turned key and again fired right up. Put it in reverse to back out of garage and it dies in reverse. I upped the idle a little, and drove around the block. Pulled in the driveway and it idled in gear. Back in park, then back in gear and still idles. Idle is still too high in park. Still have to install the regulator. I dunno.
 
So today with zero changes and fully charged battery it just turns over and won’t start. Work to do.
 
So I’m working with what I have which is a test light. It is my understanding that connected to the negative on coil, touching the test light to the positive, the light should flash. It did flash. I took spark plug #1 out to see if it was getting spark. It was not. I checked with the test light at coil, light on but no flashing light at crank.
 
I would start checking poor, worn, weak connections at everything. Bulkhead connector, ballast resistor, starter relay, battery terminals. Just to name a few. Also pictures speak volumes. It helps to see what you’re working on.
 
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In post 37 you say “still have to install the regulator”. Earlier on in post 30 you say you installed it. You may have multiple issues going on and need to focus on one thing at a time. Start with fuel pressure. Get it down to ~6psi or you will forever battle that carb. Then beg borrow or steal a timing light and tell us what the timing is. It’s not mentioned anywhere. Once those things are done we can narrow it down and someone like @67Dart273 can walk you through electrical testing if you still have no start issues. But get the fuel pressure problem fixed first.
 
Thank you for the reply. So I did install the regulator with permatex thread sealant, and it leaked like a sieve. I took it off, tightened it up more and that is when I dug into the electrical stuff. Adult A.D.D. I suppose. I do have a timing light, and plan to check the timing as soon as I can get it to start more than once. I am home tomorrow and it’s supposed to be in the 70’s as opposed to the 90’s like today so I plan to go through all connections again. Just moved our daughter into college yesterday in what seemed like a 50 sq ft closet in which the temperature of the room felt like I was sitting on the sun, so today is an a/c day mixed with day drinking.

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In post #7 I mentioned make sure timing is correct. But there are so many posts it could have been missed. He has to make sure he is getting a good spark to the plugs. Pull a plug wire and plug a spark plug in it and make sure it is grounded and see that it sparks continuously when cranking.
 
In post #7 I mentioned make sure timing is correct. But there are so many posts it could have been missed. He has to make sure he is getting a good spark to the plugs. Pull a plug wire and plug a spark plug in it and make sure it is grounded and see that it sparks continuously when cranking.
Getting no spark to the plug. But this is intermittent. Sometimes she starts, sometimes she doesn’t. *18 btdc is what it was timed at before it was parked for restoration and nothing has been changed or adjusted since then.
 
Did you look inside the MSD distributor to make sure the rotor tip is clean and the cap is clean with no oxidation on the brass tips. Are you using an MSD ignition with their distributor? You might think about changing distributor if you can. The intermittent spark is your problem. Also make sure the spacing is correct in the distributor between the pick up and the reluctor teeth which is about .008 on a Mopar distributor. A paper card is about .020, so no good, it must be non conductive metal, like brass.
 
Did you look inside the MSD distributor to make sure the rotor tip is clean and the cap is clean with no oxidation on the brass tips. Are you using an MSD ignition with their distributor? You might think about changing distributor if you can. The intermittent spark is your problem. Also make sure the spacing is correct in the distributor between the pick up and the reluctor teeth which is about .008 on a Mopar distributor. A paper card is about .020, so no good, it must be non conductive metal, like brass.
Distributor has about 500 miles on it with no oxidation on cap or rotor, and I’ll need to do some research on the last part that you said because it’s above my mechanical experience to this point.
 
In the case that I need to replace the distributor I was looking at the hei distributor from speedway motors.
 
In the distributor make sure the pickup is secure and not moving around. You can look at the air gap between the pickup and the teeth and if you see a slight gap, maybe double a piece of paper to fit in there it might be able to get the right setting. I had a distributor go bad and replaced it with a Jegs, but I'm using the Mopar ECU electronic ignition. Good luck in getting this problem solved.
 
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