Couple of thoughts:
1)Please tell us what your firing order is and what cam you are running if you know.
2)I would check the float level on the carb to make sure you are getting sufficient fuel and or not too much fuel.
1)It's the stock 302 HO cam and the firing order is the 351w firing order 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8
2) My dad re adjusted the floats after we cleaned the carburetor and put it back on, but I don't know which settings he used but he got them from the Holley website. But I did have gas on one of the spark plugs when I pulled one.
If the car did have a vacuum leak wouldn't it at least start and run rough rather than not run at all?
I didn't say he didn't have punctuation (please re-read my post), I said that I didn't read through it because it was too difficult to read due to the fact that it looked like just a long run on sentence.
I wasn't trying to give him a hard time, either, I was just offering constructive criticism based on the difficulty I had (and possibly others as well) in reading the original post.
And yes, I didn't see the part about the compression check because I didn't get through the original post . . .
If it was just a vaccum leak, the car should at least start and run, albeit poorly. My next suggestion is to pull the plugs for a reading. If they are fouled, then it is more reason to suspect the carb. When you swapped to the HEI ignition, did you regap the plugs and if so, to what gap? Clean up the plugs and if it starts and runs for a bit again, then I suspect the carb is the problem. I'm no carb expert, but do know that it's not uncommon for carbs to get dirty and cause all types of problems like this. Rebuild kits are cheap, that would probably be my next step before buying a replacement carb. Too bad you don't know someone with a carb you can borrow just to rule it out.
So my carb is fine they bench tested it and everything.
Today I threw on the old distributor just for the hell of it and I managed to get it started and timed it and now it runs fine. So I guess my new HEI distributor off ebay was crap?
So my carb is fine they bench tested it and everything.
Today I threw on the old distributor just for the hell of it and I managed to get it started and timed it and now it runs fine. So I guess my new HEI distributor off ebay was crap?
There are quite a few possibilities . . . bad coil in the HEI, not enough voltage to it (HEI's require a full 12 volts, and the wire that goes to the coil on standard ignitions is a resistor wire that does NOT deliver a full 12 volts), cracked HEI cap, bad rotor, bad module, etc.
Yup, could definately be not getting the full 12 volts, which would result in weak spark... How did you wire it? What is the switched 12 volt source you are using? Also, I think I recall reading the HEI systems require a certain type of spark plug wire (solid core versus spiral wound or something like that). This could be causing/contributing to the problem. Who makes the HEI?
So my carb is fine they bench tested it and everything.
Today I threw on the old distributor just for the hell of it and I managed to get it started and timed it and now it runs fine. So I guess my new HEI distributor off ebay was crap?