first start troubles...PLEASE HELP!

hey guys, this is a question about a carburated small block chevy, but i figure ill ask here because its most likely going to be a generic answer to my question...my dad and i just rebuilt a 350 sbc to put in his chevelle...its like the 5th time hes built a motor, so all the tolerences are spot on, the valvetrain is quadruple checked clearence wise (rockers and whatnot), we have the fuel pressure set correctly and we are definately getting fuel to the carb because we flooded it twice and had 3 small carb fires....we even tried a different carb we had from the previous motor which we knew worked, and it didnt make a difference...

we primed the oil pump to 40 psi for about 2 mintues, we set TDC 3 times, then advanced the balancer to 4 degrees below TDC...we set the dizzy perfectly to the Number 1 plug, all the wires are on correctly, firing order has been triple checked, the plugs are all good, all the wires are getting spark, and everything seems like it should fire right up...

IT WON'T!! and we can figure out what the hell is wrong! the starter turns the motor fine, but it doesnt even so much as sputter at all like its going to start! we thought maybe the battery was a bit undercharged so we hooked jumper cables up to my dads durango, and fired it, and still nothing...at this point, we spent 7 hrs trying to figure out the problem, and we havent been able to....at this point my dad is getting very frustrated, and i really wanna help him out...i spent all day out there today with him just like i always do, and as much as i LOVE to work on the cars, its just very discouraging...

as i said, this is probably a generic answer, so if you have ANY advice, please post up...thanks a million:SNSign:

if this helps, heres the setup...

350 small block, canfield iron torquer heads, comp cams alum roller rockers, comp cams cam (about 480 lift) ,edelbrock performer intake, holley 650 DP carb, hooker long tubes, 3 inch exhaust, MSD 6al ignition box, MSD pro billet dizzy, MSD blaster coil, etc etc
 
urban, yea we turned the dizzy 180, and it still didnt work...at first he confused the intake and exhaust valves because he got so excited to fire it, then i looked at it and showed him he was getting to excited and to fix it, so we fixed it and it still didnt start...and we used the factory firing order, so ill check the cam card tonite...

the plugs themselves are all firing, we checked them all...as for vacuum leaks, i dont think there were any vacuum lines...there was one at the back of the carb for the pvc valve, but we plugged it since were not using a pcv setup, just a breather on each valve cover...

i guess we should check compression tomorrow...what would some symptoms of bad compression be?
 
2 easy things to check. Dizzy could be 180 out, or you could have put the plugs on the dizzy cap in the wrong direction. A ford turns counterclockwise, i don't know about a chevy. I put mine clockwise and I couldn't figure it out!!!
Scott
 
were gonna turn the dizzy 180 tomorrow as well as do a compression test even though my dad triple checked the tightness of the valves so that shouldnt be it...we've got the plugs going clockwise with the above firing order...the gap on the plugs is .035, the starter wises are hooked up correctly because it turns over...what do you mean by dizzy wires? there just one plug that runs from msd box to the plug on the dizzy...

also, how do you know if an msd box such as the 6al in the car fails? we've read about them going bad sometimes, were just trying to rule that out...thx guys:nice:
 
MSD has the test for the box on their site. It's real simple (like grounding a wire).

Good luck.