Built fe 390

[Chris390]

I just finished building a 72 ford fe 390. I bypassed all the wiring and hooked up the hei distributor to the battery and the starter to the relay. And grounded it. All it it doing is turning. Its not even really back firing. So someone told me to make sure the rotor is pointing at cylinder #1. Is that correct?

[fastEdsel]

An old school system that has worked for me, perhaps there are others that have other ideas, but find the compression stroke for number 1. Just before it comes to TDC align the timing marks to 6 degrees BTC. That is what I do for my FE's and Y blocks. Put your number 1 wire on a spark plug grounded to something close, exhaust manifolds work well. Turn on your ignition and then turn your distributor till the spark plug snaps a spark. Tighten down the distributor. Reinstall the spark plug to number 1, replace the wire. The engine should start but you will have to fine tune your engine with a proper timing light. Also, the rotor will be past the number 1 post on the distributor going to the next firing order. Make sure your plug wires are in the correct firing order first. Good luck and like I said before this has always worked for me.

[Chris390]

Thank u. I pulled valve covers off and all the exhaust pushrods r bent. The can lift is the same for both I believe. Why would it bend just the exhaust sides? Does anyone know if these work together and what size rod or knowledge of what could be wrong?

[colnago]

My thought is to take off the front cover, to ckeck the timing chain and gears. Make sure they're lined up correctly. To me, it sounds like they are off 90 degrees.

Joseph

[Chris390]

My thought is to take off the front cover, to ckeck the timing chain and gears. Make sure they're lined up correctly. To me, it sounds like they are off 90 degrees.

Joseph

That would cause that? I will take a pic of it too.

[colnago]

It basically controls when the valves are going to be open/closed, compared to the crankshaft revolutions. There's ways to set your crank/cam relationship, but that goes beyond my understanding. To me, it sounds like they're out of sync, so the exhaust valves are open when the piston compresses. Somebody's gotta lose, so it sounds like it bent your push rods.

Joseph