Hi,
This one has me stumped. I got this chevy 400 engine from a buddy of mine. I seen this engine run and drive in his car and it ran great. He took it out and I put it in my pickup because im rebuilding the orignal 400 in it and hit a few roadblocks in that project.
It didnt come with a distrubutor. I pulled the heads and replaced the head gaskets and of course the gaskets i had to take off to get to the heads, because it came from a junkyard. I reset the valves and put it in my truck. I put my pretty much brand new distributor from my old 400 in this one. Turned out I was 180 degrees off when I set the valves and put in the distributor(it backfired out the carb when i tried to start it, thats what happens when your tired late at night working on stuff
).
So I turned the distributor 180 degrees and reset the valves the right way and it finally started but runs like CRAP. I set the timing to about 8 degrees and still crappy. If i rev it up to around 2500 i can hear it backfire out the headers once in a while and once i seen black smoke backfire out the carb. I checked the distributor orentation again and its pointing towards #1 at tdc(did the finger test). Checked the wires to make sure they were in the right order about 6 times and they are.
Tried a different carb(ive had a problem with idle on a 4150 street avenger carb) and still the same thing. It sounds like it doesnt hit on all the cylinders and the engine vibrates like you wouldnt believe. Im going to pull the valve covers off again tomorrow and make sure all the valves are moving and reset the valve lash again. The way its acting it has to be valve related but it just doesnt make sense.
I set the valves like I did when I had the heads redone on my orignal 400, tighten the valve till u hit 0 lash then tighten another 3/4 of a turn and it make my original 400 run SMOOTH without a hicup.
I just dont understand how a smooth running engine (that i seen running) ran so good and now its bearly running. Also when I got close to TDC on #1 with the finger test i aligned it to the 0 degree timing mark with the balancer. Maby that outer ring moved a bit, that was my second idea.
This one has me totally stumped, usually I can figure that kinda stuff out but not this time, maby I already answered my own question HAHA. I just wanted some input. Ive always been able to find answers to my questions by searching the forums but not this time so im extremly confident you guys know something I might have forgot to do when i put this engine in.
If need be I could always take a short video of me starting the engine instead of my long rambling.
Thanks in advance and I will post back when (if ever) I get it running.
This one has me stumped. I got this chevy 400 engine from a buddy of mine. I seen this engine run and drive in his car and it ran great. He took it out and I put it in my pickup because im rebuilding the orignal 400 in it and hit a few roadblocks in that project.
It didnt come with a distrubutor. I pulled the heads and replaced the head gaskets and of course the gaskets i had to take off to get to the heads, because it came from a junkyard. I reset the valves and put it in my truck. I put my pretty much brand new distributor from my old 400 in this one. Turned out I was 180 degrees off when I set the valves and put in the distributor(it backfired out the carb when i tried to start it, thats what happens when your tired late at night working on stuff
).So I turned the distributor 180 degrees and reset the valves the right way and it finally started but runs like CRAP. I set the timing to about 8 degrees and still crappy. If i rev it up to around 2500 i can hear it backfire out the headers once in a while and once i seen black smoke backfire out the carb. I checked the distributor orentation again and its pointing towards #1 at tdc(did the finger test). Checked the wires to make sure they were in the right order about 6 times and they are.
Tried a different carb(ive had a problem with idle on a 4150 street avenger carb) and still the same thing. It sounds like it doesnt hit on all the cylinders and the engine vibrates like you wouldnt believe. Im going to pull the valve covers off again tomorrow and make sure all the valves are moving and reset the valve lash again. The way its acting it has to be valve related but it just doesnt make sense.
I set the valves like I did when I had the heads redone on my orignal 400, tighten the valve till u hit 0 lash then tighten another 3/4 of a turn and it make my original 400 run SMOOTH without a hicup.
I just dont understand how a smooth running engine (that i seen running) ran so good and now its bearly running. Also when I got close to TDC on #1 with the finger test i aligned it to the 0 degree timing mark with the balancer. Maby that outer ring moved a bit, that was my second idea.
This one has me totally stumped, usually I can figure that kinda stuff out but not this time, maby I already answered my own question HAHA. I just wanted some input. Ive always been able to find answers to my questions by searching the forums but not this time so im extremly confident you guys know something I might have forgot to do when i put this engine in.
If need be I could always take a short video of me starting the engine instead of my long rambling.
Thanks in advance and I will post back when (if ever) I get it running.
Last edited:
