351 Windsor Swap

I am leaning toward it being a lean mixture or a valve adjusted too tight,going on what has transpired and what you are describing Drew. Make certain all your fuel line connections/hoses and gas filter are good. One little pin hole in a rubber line will suck air and cause the float level to drop dramatically and starve the carb due to cavitation.

 

Found the problem. Ugh. I can't even talk about it right now...

 

This doesn't sound good =(

 

Ok, don't talk about it, just get it fixed. I have been waiting for the burnouts

 

It would seem, some dumbass crossed a couple of plug wires...

 

Alright, now that I'm on a computer instead of a phone...

I guess the "don't want to talk about it" post was just to build a little suspense. Truth is I was grinning like a fool when I saw that, in spite of the fact that my failure to check the most obvious of problems cost me more than a day of troubleshooting and $100 in parts... I don't even care though. I guess every time I made a change and thought I'd seen an improvement, I was just letting the headers cool down enough to not light off the unburnt fuel that was getting pushed through them. Plus I thought, hey, it's a bigger engine, high compression, got a cam in it... If it wants to shake like hell who am I to judge? I think I would have noticed two cylinders missing on a familiar engine, but this was a fresh build. Hell I'm going to stop with the excuses now, I'm just an idiot.

When I got home from work, I swapped the carb and fired it up, got in the car, put it in reverse, (so's not to end up in the kitchen should something go awry) stood on the brakes and blipped the throttle. And BANG! it did the same thing. Then I decided my timing light might not be trustworthy so I marked the distributor, then just started turning it to see if I could make it run better. No luck. Finally I decided I would wire up an HEI module to the Duraspark distributor just to rule out the MSD box, and as I was about to do that something made me check the plug wires. I had crossed #7 and #8. So I put them back where they go. This time when I fired it up, it ran much smoother. Very smooth indeed. Idled high too of course. I then did the same thing I'd been doing all along to induce the popping; hit the brakes, blipped the throttle, and instead of a fireball I got the glorious screech of rubber against concrete! I was overjoyed. I put my Holley DP back on the car, got the idle right, and went for a drive. The carb seems to be set up fine for this engine. Transitions are smooth, no hesitation, strong idle... I may look at the plugs and fool around with it some later if I get some dyno or track time, but it was running just as nice as the 302 ever did.

It was pouring rain, as it has been all day and as it is right now, so I couldn't really test it out. Can tell you one thing though it takes NO effort to break traction on these wet roads. When I left my neighborhood and got on the main road, I gave it a little gas and started to slide. Way less throttle than it would have taken to break loose with the 302. It's a lot more than I'm used to in this car and I'm going to have to change some habits. I guarantee if I'd had a locking diff I would have put it in a ditch tonight or worse. It was great though. On the way back I was at a light, it turned green and I started up a hill. Saw a cop so I looked at my speedometer. It said I was speeding but it didn't feel like it. I let off the gas and that's when it grabbed the road again and I realized I'd been spinning since I left the intersection, for quite a distance. I thought I was just cruising...

It's great. The car runs great, sounds great, and drives great. I was worried I was going to ruin the car's personality when I did this, but I didn't. Everything feels the same, really at idle it even sounds the same, just gets real angry real quick when I give it any throttle. It just feels amazing, and the best part is I have yet to go over 40 mph or even get into the secondaries. Just let me see one dry patch of pavement tomorrow, just for a minute...

 

Thats awesome, glad you found the problem....

 

Welcome to the "too much torque" club
Glad you got it sorted out man...Now be careful with that right foot.

 

We don't have a "egg on face" smiley, do we? Don't feel bad Drew, it's happened to all of us. I wasn't going to tell this, but when I was wiring the 460 in the motor home, I did about the same thing. I thought I had it right, it would spit, fire ball out the carb, backfire through the exhaust, and never crank. I advanced the timing, retarded the timing, swapped rotors and caps, looked at the firing order in the book and on the dizzy countless times. I was about to pull my hair out. Then, out of the blue, it hit me.......I had wired it in the proper order, but the wrong rotation! Reversed the rotation, SOB fired and ran the first time! What was I thinking? Looking at a diagram, and then proceeded to wire it right reverse the way it needed to go! Glad you got it figured out.

 

So at what point did you double check the plug wires before you "know for sure the firing order is right."? Like I said it had to be something simple. I was going to push some more to check the firing order but from that last quote we all assumed you had done that a couple times. Well if nothing else it kept ya busy for another couple days and maybe learned a couple more things along the way.

if it makes you feel better.... My most recent build with my brothers engine had a similar event. the car wouldn't stay running long enough or smooth enough to adjust the rocker arms. We looked at stuff for hours. My brother was positive he had the wires on right. I finally broke down and double checked him at the risk of insulting his work. And it was totally wrong. It was like he made up his own firing order, that worked, but not very well. Got it wired right and it ran smooth enough to adjust the valves.

Which reminds me, did you do a proper adjust on the valvetrain?

 

Rub it in, rub it in... I deserve it. The firing order was right, (well kinda.) It's not like I wired the wrong order correctly; I wired the right order incorrectly!

As for the valve train, it's non-adjustable. I used the Comp Magnum roller tipped rockers instead of the SVO full rollers, with the non-adjust studs, so I could use those low-profile valve covers and keep my power brakes. I felt like it was no big loss since this isn't a high RPM setup or a crazy high lift cam.

 

Oh I see. I was wondering how those roller rockers in one of your pics cleared the valve covers. And what kind of friends would we be if we didn't rub it in? So how long until you get some dry weather to really test it out? I bet your next thread will be about what type of locker to use and how to intall it character0182:

 

Oh yeah. I guarantee that's on my mind, definitely. I had a traction problem before the engine swap, now it's just going to be stupid. And now that I think I can weld, I'm starting to consider that 8.8 swap again...

As for the weather, the rain is allegedly over for a while. I just need the pavement to dry up some, 'cause of the deluge this weekend and last night there's still a lot of standing water.

 

I was on the fence about doing a 351 swap before this thread started, now I'm totally sold. Need to get the T-5 in first, and make it look like a complete car, but after that the 302 is out and a 351 is going in.

 

Sweet!!
It's always amazing when it's something so simple that trips you up, but it happens to all of us.