Ticking, Smoking, Low Oil Pressure, Distributor/cam Gear Not Turning

Exile

Active Member
Apr 3, 2012
128
5
29
Dallas, Tx
My buddy recently picked up a 1989 GT Mustang, and is now having some problems, and needs a lil help...

302 + 5-speed
E7 heads (unknown whats been done to them)
E303 cam
Trick Flow upper & lower intake
A/C & Smog delete
Long tube headers
Electric Fan

The car runs good, but a few days after he got the car it started a ticking noise. Its coming from the drivers side of the motor, and sounds like a lifter ticking. And at warm idle its only getting 5-10lbs of oil pressure, and starts smoking some. Its been like this the last few weeks now.

Then today the car died on him going down the road. When he tried to start it back up all it does it turns over trying to start, but acts like it isnt getting any spark.

The spark plugs/wires, cap, rotor, coil, and ignition module are new/good. So we took the distributor cap off, tried starting the car, and noticed the rotor inside isnt turning. So we took the distributor out to check the gear, and the distributor gear looks/works fine. So we tried starting the car while looking down the distributor hole, and noticed the cam/gear isnt turning.

So would this mean the timing chain broke? Or something else maybe? Any feedback is appreciated.
 
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Sounds like you're correct.
If the crank is spinning, and the cam is not, the first suspect would be the timing chain.
Could have done a couple things, but pulling the timing cover is manditory, so why bother guessing...
 
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If I had to guess, I would say that the low oil pressure likely caused your problems, rather than your problems causing low oil pressure.
The latter is possible, but less likely since the timing chain doesn't really affect the oil pressure.
 
If I had to guess, I would say that the low oil pressure likely caused your problems, rather than your problems causing low oil pressure.
The latter is possible, but less likely since the timing chain doesn't really affect the oil pressure.
What could be causing the low oil pressure problems? It looks like a fresh build besides the reuse of the stock heads, which im still not sure if any work was done to the heads by the previous owner before adding the E303 cam. Failing oil pump? Rings?
 
That's a question that could have so many answers....
Too many to even start guessing over the net.

There are a thousand ways that a part could have failed, been out of tolerance, or the engine builder could have made a tiny mistake.
 
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I think more so than the chain breaking that the dowel pin probably sheared off in the end of the cam. For this exact reason mine is drilled for 2 dowels...
Food for thought. You're still taking it all apart anyway. Depending on the cam size you make have had a piston to valve event..
 
Then there's the whole 5-10 psi of pressure at idle, and a timing chain doesn't cause that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 10 psi is all the rule of thumb requires, but the fact remains, a healthy pushrod 5.0 should be making at least 30 psi at hot idle.