car won't start

The shop that did my dyno tune disconnected my vacuum advance on my dizzy (MSD Pro-billet). I know that I am at 28 degrees total advance. Now I am having trouble starting the car. The starter, previously a flawless performer, acts like it is seized up. Here is another tid bit; I have a 10.5 CR. I know that the extra CR makes starts more difficult but could the fact that the vacuum advance is disconnected play a role? Could it be that I am at or near full advance when trying to start, thereby putting too much strain on my starter?

grego37 said:

you said you have 28 deg timing, is that total timing or initial timing.

What is your initial timing?

Click to expand...

That is what I am unsure of. The tuner told me the total timing is 28 deg. When I asked about the initial and why the vacuum advance was not hooked up, they said that the high 10.5 compression would cause detonation at idle so they disconnected the vacuum advance and told me that they did not know the initial. I was unsure about the implication of this and asked in this thread whether this meant that the act of disconnecting the vacuum advance essentially locked out my timing, making my total advance = to my initial and vice versa. KK seemed to opine that this was the case. All I really want is something between 10-14 deg. initial timing with 32-36 total advance but I cannot seem to get the tuner (only dynojet in the country) to pay attention. I just get "ja, ja, ja, ja, ja".

gsxrken said:

Jerry, this sounds ridiculous coming from a tuner. They live and die by timing and fuel mixture. You are not going to ping at idle with no load, and your camshaft has more to do with cylinder pressure than your static compression ratio does.
I would buy a $70 timing light that reads degrees from Craftsman and set it myself, read your plugs for mixture, and don't bother with this guy's dynojet. They only help with wide open throttle anyway, which you won't be at for 99% of the time.

Click to expand...

That was my suspicion. These guys are pretty half-assed. They never took any A/F readings the first two times my car was on the roller. They pronounced themselves satisifed with the tune. when I asked what the A/F was, they did not know and when they checked, they discovered the car was pig rich. When I was wondering why my power disk conversion was not working, they had all kinds of theories about the 1 and 1/8 inch bore dual bowl MC not being big enough for the 4 piston brakes. I asked them three times to test the electric vacuum pump. His idea of testing it was to put it against his thumb, feel that there was suction, and pronounce the pump in perfect working order. I pointed out that they had to verify the pump was pulling at least 21 inches of vacuum for it to be in spec and unless they were measuring, for all they knew, the pump was pulling 2 or 14 inches. So very grudgingly, they test it and low and behold, they pump only pulled 14 inches of vacuum. This was why I had not power brakes, not because the pedal was wrong, or the MC was no good for the 4 piston brakes, but because I did not have enough vacuum to run the booster. I am headed to Germany to have some of the guys with 10 second fox bodies tune me up. Once they are satisfied, I will be satisfied.

BTW, the problem with starting turned out to be a dead battery. That bums me out because it has a 75 month warranty and it is only in the 24th month. The shipper left the lights on during the voyage and the battery completely discharged and although I was able to charge it up after that, it got progressively worse. I have a new one as of today and the car started right up. I am still concerned about the timing, however, but I will leave that to the experts in Germany.

10secgoal said:

Don't know if you want to do it or not. But it sounds like you are gonna have to start really learning this stuff yourself just so you don't have to pay these idiots to drag down you I.Q. while in their presence. Disconnecting the vacuum advance won't have a whole lot to do with WOT. It will depending on the size of your carb. It's mostly for driving. It really won't make a car detonate at idle.

Click to expand...

I concur with your assessment. The problem is that if I have never done something before, it is difficult for me to know that I am not screwing up. Once I have observed up close and personal, then I am confident in my ability to do it myself. Like with re-loading. I bought all the stuff and had no idea how to use it. I was afraid to just start doing it because you can damage your gun if you put too much powder in. I had an old timer come by and we re-loaded together a few times until I got the hand of it and now I can reload a thousand shells with my eyes closed.

As for these guys who worked on my car, they were doing some big jobs that I could not have done because I don't have the space or the the tools or the techincal know how:

1. install power brake booster and new MC along with electric vacuum pump

2. tune the engine on a dynojet to determine optimum A/F and timing advance

3. install electric water pump and electric fuel pump.

to do 2 and 3, you need a dynojet, a wideband A/F tester, and lift only I don't have any of those in my little garage. I have a very small working space and even if I could have lifted the car up on bottle jacks, I still would not have had enough space to manuever.

The problem with the carb was a bad O ring and the starting problem was with the battery. I got the car back yesterday and it goes like a rocket. I am not too thrilled with the power band, however, as real power does not come in until later but that is a function of the cam that is in there and the 2000 stall TC. I will have to live with the cam but the TC locks up at low rpm while the engine is still making power and I know this is not optimal. First thing up is a new TC from Edge with a stall at about 2800-3000. Then I send the carb to Jet Performance for a Stage 3 work up. then I install a 125 shot of nitrous and this engine is as done as it will ever get.