Our engine is running with stock intake and carb setup.  After a few more runs, we'll take off the stock assy and put on the webers.  We need to make fuel rails and throttle linkage.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Well....Our engine is super hard to start and there is a lot of crank case pressure. We did put a little bigger cam in it but not dramatic.  Resized pushed rods are also in.  We're not sure if it's rings, cracked block, or what.  Any ideas?  Our next step is to check combustion pressure. Lots of blow by. Something"s wrong.

Are the piston ring end gaps adequate?  Beyond that, I’ll suggest a cranking compression test.  If you have leak down tester handy, that will be more definitive in isolating the problem to a single cylinder and exactly how bad the problem is if it is indeed a problem related to one cylinder and not all of them.  Excessive leak down on all the cylinders will also point to a different set of fixes for the problem.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

ALL cylinders have low compression.  We're thinking the cam timing is off.  With the change of cams to something a little hotter, we didn't change the dial in stock setting..We're going to investigate to see if we need to change that. If it improves the compression, we have found our gremlin. This is the second engine Jeff and I have built together, I don't think it is a builder problem.  He's too anal. Thanks for getting back to me.

Does it still have the carb and stock manifold? What changed from 4 days ago when you said it was running with no mention of a hard start. Was the 4 days ago start a typical one with a run to 2000 rpm and hold 20 minutes with a total timing check? Just asking..

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.

We can't figure it out. It started up right away first time. After it got hot we shut it down fearing our temp gauge might be faulty. Tried to start it again and nothing. Messed with timing for a couple of hours and gave up.  We went back yesterday and it was worse than before. Finally got it running but didn't like it. Did a compression check last night and every one of them is under 100.  We did put in a hotter cam so we're going back to the drawing board and re-checking valve timing.  Maybe we need to add/subtract a tooth.

Typically, retarded timing will cause the engine to run hotter than normal, and if it is getting worse, I would pull the distributor and look at the gear, and the pin holding the gear on the shaft.  Next, would double check the camshaft install with degree wheel to make sure it is correct.  Joe-JDC

JDC

Was fresh fuel being used when the engine was first started?  If the gasoline was over 90 days old, it is suspect.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Check the balancer for true top dead center.. Like Joe says, hard starting and hot exhaust says retarded ignition timing... Low cranking compression, if I had to guess, you are one tooth off on the timing marks and your intake valve is closing late..Was valve to block/piston clearance checked?  Lincolns are particularly bad on the intake side . The valve hits the block with lift over .500 and it does not take much to tweak the valve head and lose some seal   Do you have the specs on the cam you installed?  If none of these things are at fault, sadly, the problem is much deeper

Definitely get a leak down tester.. it will tell you if the compression is escaping through intake or exhaust valve or getting past the rings

Thanks for all the advice.  We are checking each and every idea. Gas is not an issue. Timing is our first thought, that's what is going on now. We had the timing marks spot on but maybe we needed to advance/retard one tooth because of the new cam grind. If the cam is more aggressive, should we advance the mark one tooth or retard?  It's just me asking, Jeff probably already knows.