Hey, guys! After over five years of work, we finally got my car to turn over and kind of run last night. It was pretty exciting, but as you'll see in the video, it runs pretty rough. I know some of you have done the Erson 280/270 cam in your rides, so I'm hoping you might have some advice for when you did yours.

Here's the specs on the cam card. Valves are set to the .015 spec.


1974 225 bored .060 over, head decked, but not significantly shaved. New pistons and balanced rods, balanced stock crank. Double roller chain
Ported and .100 planed head with larger valves and hardened seats
HEI electronic ignition (module and distributor have been tested and verified) Mallory ProMaster 29625 coil (NOS and ohm checked, but not verified.)
Magnecore 7mm wires (new)
NGK V-Power 2635 plugs gapped to .045 (new)
There's a Holley 390 on it in the video that came off a running car earlier that day. We also have a rebuilt Eddy 500 AFB that will go on the car ultimately, but it behaved the same way as you see in the video.
Everything else is stock as far as pumps go.

Here's a link to the video. The best run starts at 2:35.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V95uE56V_o

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I've never done this before and my friends that are helping don't know much about Slants. Thanks so much!

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

Look's like you had it diagnosed correctly on the video. Probably one 'tooth' off on the distributor.

Agreed. Looks like timing is too far advanced (backfire through carb). I would also loosen the valves to 0.020" and 0.025" for a first start. Most cam company lash specs do not work well on Slants (need more lash).

Congrats on getting it put together and first fire up!

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Thanks, guys! (Lou, I was hoping you'd chime in since it's a "Lou Grind.") We'll mess with it more later this week and let you know what comes of it.

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

I'd love to see/hear another video of it running correctly. Should sound sweet!

x2...

The Erson cam has really nice fat lobes like Chrysler's original lobes... I think I loosened my 280/270 lash quite a bit... (cold lash it at .022 and see how it likes it).

Distributor is off a tooth for sure.

Pull the dizz and the #1 spark plug... manually run the #1 piston up to TDC with both rocker arms on #1 being loose/ able to wiggle by hand...

If you have an old "junk" distributor cap you can make an indexing "jig" with it... drill a 1/2" hole between the center tower and #1 post so you can see the rotor line up with the #1 post... roll the rotor counter clockwise a bit and insert back in to the block... if it seated right the rotor will now line up with the post... lock it down replace the cap with your good one and try to start it again....

Once you have it running and lashed right, you can then reset the static or initial by getting back to TDC with loose rocker arms... then rolling the crank back to 5-8 BTDC, reset the distributor with your indexing cap and lock it down and start it again...if all is good go for a drive... you can then advance a bit more like this testing/driving until your reach the limit I specified in your letter and it doesn't ping.

Great idea! I actually have a junk cap I could do that with. I'll make that tonight before we start back on it. I'm really hoping we can get it right with the distributor and I didn't mess up all the cam. Charlie helped, but I did the final install, and I'm worried I may have put the offset bushing in the wrong way. I don't think I need to resort to that kind of drastic measure just yet though.

I'll make the cap viewer tonight, we'll refind TDC, mark it, and see what we can do. If all goes well, we're breaking in the cam tonight. Fingers crossed.

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

Starting at 2:35, what is that blue flash below where the coil and the heater hoses come together? Just a moving shadow from a rocker arm? Or a spark…?

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Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Did you check it again with the degree wheel after you installed the bushing?

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

Good catch, Dan. That is shadow and light on the blue paint and not spark. We'd checked with the wheel after the bushing and it seemed right, but I had to take it off again and I must have put it back a tooth off. Charlie gave me a quick way to test by comparing level opening and closing of the valves on the overlap cycle. They should be exactly level at the timing mark, but we were a little over 8 degrees off, so it's definitely a tooth off. That explains the big fuel blowback.

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

...not my idea, but here's the one I use. Made it with a hole saw in about 3 seconds.

http://s785.photobucket.com/user/67dart ... html?o=285

You can see where I nicked some of the towers pulling away from the cut (didn't have the patience to use my drill press).


Brian

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https://tinyurl.com/yynpj4v2

Wow! You weren't messing around. I like it.

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

Any progress? Anxious to hear it run!

Charlie came over to double check the cam and according to the #1 intake cylinder, it's right where it should be, which is very strange. I was sure it was the cam. We're fiddling with the valves and pushrods now just to make sure it's not that.

I did have someone on Facebook suggest maybe I put all the caps on backwards, which I find both very unlikely and incredibly unsettling to think about.

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

Any chance that the lash is not set right? Did Charlie check that? Could try opening up the lash 0.010" on each and see how that changes things. Like I said in my PM, ign system or timing seems likely...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988