1969 Dodge Dart GTS - 440 Stalled Twice Yesterday

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Lord Sparky

Lord Sparky

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Carlsbad, California
The car had been running great but stalled twice yesterday. I was waiting at a light when the engine stalled without warning. I was able to get it going but it took some cranking. I pulled into a side street stopping and going a few times to see if it would happen again. It did not stall until I started slowly up a small hill and it stalled more violently (sounded like dieseling). Again, I got it going with some cranking and was able to get it home without stalling again. It seems to run fine: idled and accelerated normally. All the gauges were normal when it stalled: temp, oil pressure, rpms, and a normal 14 volts. No unusual sounds coming from the engine. Oil fine, nothing looked wrong on a quick inspection.
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It feels like more of an electrical problem than a fuel starvation issue. New within the last 6-12 months: AVS2 carb/fuel filter, Mopar Performance distributor rebuilt/tuned by Joe White/wires and plugs, gas tank/sending unit, Promaster one-wire alternator/battery. If the engine had stalled out of traffic I could have checked if the carb was getting gas, but I could not. The mechanical fuel pump came with the car and has not been replaced.
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When I first got the car, the engine stalled suddenly once when the car had the headlights running on 10 volts. I attributed this to the orange electronic ignition box not getting enough juice. With the new 95-amp Promaster alternator, the voltage has been a steady 14 volts.
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A few hours before this happened, I was about to order a new FBO electronic ignition box/coil/and ballast resistor bypass wire, but they are closed Fridays. I though an upgrade would be good. I will order on Monday.
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The question is: Is sudden stalling a symptom of a bad orange ignition box? I guess I will rule this link out once the FBO unit is delivered and installed, but asking now?
 
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Sounds like a faulty module, just guessing here. I had a simliar problem but I was lucky and the car was at home in the gararge. Before mine quit for good, I began to notice my tach needle bouncing a bit at idle after the car had been running for about 5 minutes or so. The longer the car ran the worse the tach needle danced. Really bounced if I revved the engine up a bit. Finally one time after shutting the car off and trying to start it a while later, it wouldn't start. Did this a couple of times over a couple of weeks, making me hesitant to take it out on the road. Finally got disgusted chasing "ideas". Had a spare "old" module and put it on, the car fired right up. Tossed the mopar module and put an HEI module in, tach never bounced after that and the car never had another starting issue. Installed the designed2drive.com distributor mounting plate to mount the HEI module on and been happy ever since. FYI, the module that went bad was a FBO.
 
416stroker said:
Sounds like a faulty module, just guessing here. I had a simliar problem but I was lucky and the car was at home in the gararge. Before mine quit for good, I began to notice my tach needle bouncing a bit at idle after the car had been running for about 5 minutes or so. The longer the car ran the worse the tach needle danced. Really bounced if I revved the engine up a bit. Finally one time after shutting the car off and trying to start it a while later, it wouldn't start. Did this a couple of times over a couple of weeks, making me hesitant to take it out on the road. Finally got disgusted chasing "ideas". Had a spare "old" module and put it on, the car fired right up. Tossed the mopar module and put an HEI module in, tach never bounced after that and the car never had another starting issue. Installed the designed2drive.com distributor mounting plate to mount the HEI module on and been happy ever since. FYI, the module that went bad was a FBO.
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How long ago did you get the FBO?
 
Lord Sparky said:
How long ago did you get the FBO?
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I't's been quite a while. I know he's made a few changes to the module since I bought mine. Mine was in a black case with no rev limiter. part # as I recall was something like Hr688 I believe. Guessing maybe 6-8 years or so, maybe longer. Had maybe 500 miles on it or less after installed. Car shows mostly.
Lord Sparky said:
How long ago did you get the FBO?
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Sparky can you "jerry rig" some things?

If you have a tach, watch it while cranking, does it show anything? (NOTE: Tach must be getting power to it's 12V supply while cranking, you may have to "hot" wire it to do so)

If you can scare up a neon bulb, run a temporary small wire up anywhere you can, through firewall, even up through rear hood gap. Wrap a few, maybe 6-8 turns of wire around the coil seconary wire, and connect the other end to a neon bulb, grounded. If you have one of those "quicky" 110V neon testers that might work. Anyhow if you get that working you can monitor it with one eye and might tell if you are losing spark

Lacking that, without disturbing any more than you must, when it dies (maybe some test runs on a low use county road, or even parking lot?) get it to die and immediately check for spark

WELL COULD BE vapor lock/ fuel boil
 
416stroker said:
I't's been quite a while. I know he's made a few changes to the module since I bought mine. Mine was in a black case with no rev limiter. part # as I recall was something like Hr688 I believe. Guessing maybe 6-8 years or so, maybe longer. Had maybe 500 miles on it or less after installed. Car shows mostly.
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Somebody last April stated there was a problem with the FBO boards at that time. Will ask them if the issue was fixed when I call.
 
67Dart273 said:
Sparky can you "jerry rig" some things?

If you have a tach, watch it while cranking, does it show anything? (NOTE: Tach must be getting power to it's 12V supply while cranking, you may have to "hot" wire it to do so)

If you can scare up a neon bulb, run a temporary small wire up anywhere you can, through firewall, even up through rear hood gap. Wrap a few, maybe 6-8 turns of wire around the coil seconary wire, and connect the other end to a neon bulb, grounded. If you have one of those "quicky" 110V neon testers that might work. Anyhow if you get that working you can monitor it with one eye and might tell if you are losing spark

Lacking that, without disturbing any more than you must, when it dies (maybe some test runs on a low use county road, or even parking lot?) get it to die and immediately check for spark

WELL COULD BE vapor lock/ fuel boil
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Thanks!
 
Just bring it over to my house to leave and you won't have to worry about it stalling with you in it ever again... :poke:

Ballast resistor? That's what was causing my car to stall.... well, that and a bad wire to the coil... lol
 
Check the simple, no-cost things first. New dist?
[1] Check the reluctor air gap, should be 0.006-8". Check that the pick up is tight, not moving around changing the gap.
[2] Next time it stalls, see if you get pump shot by actuating the throttle lever & watching for fuel spray into primary barrels.
 
Bewy said:
Check the simple, no-cost things first. New dist?
[1] Check the reluctor air gap, should be 0.006-8". Check that the pick up is tight, not moving around changing the gap.
[2] Next time it stalls, see if you get pump shot by actuating the throttle lever & watching for fuel spray into primary barrels.
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Yessir, always start with the basics, low to no cost, and you KNOW where ya are at!
 
Today, I replaced the orange box with FBO box, coil, and ballast bypass wire. Did a bunch of loops around my neighborhood. No stalling, but I seemed to have some knocking uphill. The timing had been at 5 degrees BTDC and with the new box was now at 7.5 degrees BTDC. I dropped it down to 5 and, so far, the knocking seems to be gone on my second set of loops. It seemed to really accelerate awesomely with it more advanced, and less at 5 degrees, but that might have been in my mind. Will have to do some longer trips.
 
Lord Sparky said:
Today, I replaced the orange box with FBO box, coil, and ballast bypass wire. Did a bunch of loops around my neighborhood. No stalling, but I seemed to have some knocking uphill. The timing had been at 5 degrees BTDC and with the new box was now at 7.5 degrees BTDC. I dropped it down to 5 and, so far, the knocking seems to be gone on my second set of loops. It seemed to really accelerate awesomely with it more advanced, and less at 5 degrees, but that might have been in my mind. Will have to do some longer trips.
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5* is not a lot of timing. What fuel grade are you using?
 
Ironracer said:
Id run 93..
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Sadly, CA only sells 91. There is a nearish station that supposedly sells 100 octane at aroun $9.50/gal. This would require mixing, which would be a PITA, but I will consider it. I’ll drive by to see if they actually have it and figure out the ratio.
 
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I'm running 9:1 compression with the Mopar 284/484 cam and am just on the edge with 91 pump gas. I mix in 2-3 gallons of 110 leaded every other month and all is happy. About 25 years ago I got a Race Fuel gas card from Cosby Oil. You'd be amazed at the number of CFN fleet stations that have race gas in the area.
 
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Lord Sparky said:
Basically. The previous owner (not the guy who did the restoration/rebuild-may he RIP) said there is a mild cam and .06 overbored.
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that would make her a 452 thin-wall
The stock vintage 440 4bbl engine
was already a high compression, 284/484 equipped, bit of a cam, model. 5* of IDLE Timing, is all wrong for that combo. It's even wrong for the 2bbl model. The Distributor will need a custom recurve.
If you set the Idle-Timing to just 5*, the throttle will have to be opened up a bit to maintain a decent idle speed. This will make the transfers go rich. In compensation, you would close the mixture screws some. Now it idles.
But as soon as the throttles are opened, it will go lean because of the closed mixture screws, which normally never stop flowing.
And the low idle-vacuum just aggravates the heck out of it.
But if you change the IdleTiming, this will also affect the PowerTiming, and the PartThrottle Timing. With a stock ignition curve in the distributor, this could cause all kinds of trouble.
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Here is an experiment;
With the engine idling, just pull in a bunch of timing, until the rpm stops going up. Then read the timing and note the rpm. This is the IDLE-timing that your particular engine actually wants at whatever the rpm rose up to. Now put the timing back.
However, in MOST cases, in a street car, you cannot give her what she wants at Idle, and still have her run detonation free the rest of the time. With a factory type distributor, it is just NOT possible.
 
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