If they dropped the valve body to replace the shift/kickdown seals, it's possible that they either forgot the anti-drainback valve that goes in with the filter, or they have it on wrong. If you are draining out of your vent and it's been apart recently, then this is what I would be looking at.

While 20 psi may not sound like much, it's fine as long as it rises when you rev it up. The general rule of thumb is 20 psi at idle and 10 psi for every 1,000 RPM. My 351W has almost 70K miles on it and on hot days the idle oil pressure will get as low as 20 psi but it jumps up to 40 psi when I take off and it hits 50-60 psi when I jump on it. Now 133K on your engine is still quite a bit but I would take a compression test before thinking about rebuilding it.

TKOPerformance wrote:

Hopefully you meant "it" died?  Otherwise that's a really dark ending...
 

 
Good point. Fortunately my older brother is still getting older, as are we all. His old Vega might be but not with the engine that was in it...lol! He still has a Camaro and it's not running, as usual. I keep offering to help him but he doesn't want to listen to me talk about how great our Mustang is.

And running. ;)

I have a 10.2 to1 351W w/ Erson HFII cam installed 4 degrees advanced, and have to run a medium and a light spring or I get spark knock at around 1800-2000 RPM at sea level, air temp above 70. It's brief if I am accelerating but I can bring it in and hold it there if I'm light on the throttle and under load in third gear, which is bad news if you aren't paying attention to it. Going with one medium delayed the advance enough to eliminate it, even at an air temp of 95. That's with 91 octane non-ethanol racing gas (as it says on my receipt to make me feel better about the price...lol).


Higher compression, tight LSA = heavier springs
Higher compression, wide LSA w/ advance = lighter springs
Lower compression, just about any cam = light springs

and so on and so on. Toss in the other variables and you can see that it's not so cut and dried for advance. Most of my work is in marine systems and you have to be very careful with modified timing curves on high performance marine engines and the constant loads they are under, so I'm a bit more tuned in to it than most mechanics are (no pun intended,,,lol). Bad timing in those situations costs big $$$ and will kill your reputation in a small shop, so you test, test, test...

Then you hand them the bill, the best part of the job!

I would put the four blade back on and run it for a few days to make sure that you get the same results you did when you first ran it, then proceed. If by SS fan you mean the flex fan type, ditch it and run a fan/clutch combo. The flex fans flatten out too quickly and draw less air as the fan speed increases. At times the engine needs additional cooling at speed and with that fan it's not there. It's worse with a shroud as they flatten out they restrict air flow through the shroud at high speeds.

If you're not going a good electric fan, the fan/clutch combo is best.

I could write something on dialing in a mechanical advance curve but unlike explaining the setting of timing ranges, the curve is a bit more complicated to dial in due to the uniqueness of an engine and the components in it.

On my 10.5-1 351W, I have my initial at 16, mechanical at 20 for 36 total and all in at 2500 RPM. My vacuum adds another 10, for 46 total at engine speeds above 2500 RPM while under light throttle conditions. One other thing I have done is install a ported vacuum switch so that when the coolant is below 115 degrees, the vacuum advance is supplied manifold vacuum to assist with smoother cold running. Once the coolant temp rises above 115, it switches back to ported vacuum operation.

You want to choose advance springs that will hold your timing at initial until it rises about 200-300 RPM above your idle speed. This is so you don't get 'flutter' when adjusting your idle and the mech. advance is varying because it's coming in at idle. That's the minimum tension you need to have on the weights. The maximum tension is set by where it's all in at, which I recommend at 2500RPM. On some performance marine engines I may bring that up to 2800 RPM and have gone as high as 3200 RPM for full mech advance, but this was for some real torque monsters that loved timing but needed it spread out a bit more while under full load for long duration. Hot rods don't have that problem, we get right up and are gone!

One good thing to do to get started everything is to plug the vacuum advance, set initial and take it for a run. No romping on it until you know that you are fully into the mechanical advance, then jump on it and check for spark knock. Try this in different gears to put varying loads and rate of RPM increase to make sure you are not getting any spark knock. Keep doing this until you get knock, then back the timing off 3 degrees and note the full in timing (initial + mech). This number is the range you have to 'play' in.

Set everything from that point. For

If you're running your vacuum advance off of the ported connection on the carb and have vacuum at idle, your carburetor is out of adjustment. You should have no vacuum at that port when idling and the throttle plates are properly set. Reading vacuum there at idle means that your throttle plates are open too far, exposing the primary transfer slots and initiating ported vacuum. My numbers I posted on your timing may be wrong if there wasn't enough vacuum at the port to pull the unit into full advance. Leave that for later...

What I would do now is disconnect the vacuum advance and check your total timing at 3500 RPM. If the mech. advance is 26 degrees then you should see 38 total (with 12 initial). If so then your options are as I detailed above; shrink-wrap mech. advance post or narrow mech. advance slot, or retard your initial timing to 10 degrees (for 36 total) or 8 degrees (for 34 total). I really prefer increasing the initial and limiting the mech. advance as it allows the engine to run cooler (retarded timing makes for more heat) and makes for smoother cold starts if you have a lumpy cam.

After this your carb needs attention as setting idle speed while into your vacuum advance makes for a hard to set, unstable idle. Your throttle plates are too far open and you need to find out why.

ETA: One other point to note is that reducing the mech. advance and adding to the initial will allow you to close your throttle plates a bit as the idle will go up with the additional initial timing. That will help you in solving the throttle plates being open too far and the vacuum port/transfer ports being exposed.

You timing numbers tell me that your vacuum advance puts 8 degrees into timing and the mechanical advance puts 26 degrees into it. That tells me that your mech. advance limiter is on 13. Take the 8 degrees of vacuum advance out and your base + mech. timing are at 38 degrees. Your only choice to get to 36 or 34 degrees is to back off your base timing to 10 or 8 degrees, which I find to be less than optimal. My preference would be to limit the mech, advance to 20 degrees and add 4 degrees back to the base timing.

One trick I did on my old Ford distributor to narrow the mech. advance range was to use shrink wrap on the advance limiter post (make the post larger). I have some thick tubing that's lined with adhesive that I used and it held up to the beating for about 10 years before I put new piece on. I'm now running an Accel that has a setting for 20 degrees mech. advance.

I missed that it was a Flex electric fan, not a pump mounted one... my bad!

Great write up, TKO, but a nit to pick is that inward tilt at the top of the tire is negative camber. Regarding DIY and cheap, I've got that covered. I picked up a digital alignment box that has a magnetic base/sensor that's connected to it via a cord off of ebay for $20.00, so that has camber/caster covered. For toe I used two pieces of 3/4" square steel tubing just a bit larger in diameter than my front tires, drilled to slip over a wheel stud (I still have 4 lug). Using those bars in place of my wheels/tires along with four plumb bobs and two tape measures, that covers the toe settings.

First I level the car fore/aft and crosswise with liquid levels and blocks. I double-check this with the digital gauge. I then jack up the front end, remove the tires, add blocks under the outer edge of the lower control arm and lower the car down, locating the center of my hubs where they would be if the car was on the ground and on it's wheels. Now I add enough weight to the car to bring the front end down to where it would be if the car was on the ground and on it's wheels (250 lbs.).

Next I bolt the two bars on to the rotors and snug them in place with a wheel nut. Now that the body and hubs are where where I want them I pull my dust caps, stick on the base/sensor for the alignment gauge on the hub and set camber/caster for each side. I use the leverage of the toe bars to turn the wheels straight and 20 degrees out/in for camber, and a protractor laid on the floor to .align the toe bar with for those angles.

Once I have camber/caster set and double checked, I hand the plumb bobs (I have notches at the outer edges of the bars to indicate tire diameter) and lay my tapes, squaring them up. I then set the steering wheel ahead and dial in toe to 0 on both sides, then in 1/16" each. My camber/caster settings are (L/R):

Camber: -.2 / -.2
Caster: +2.8 / +3.0

Straight as an arrow, wheel snaps back to center nicely and good turn-in settings for a manual steering setup (which I have

If you are getting spark manually (screwdriver while points open) and none when cranking, you have no + voltage going to the coil when the key in in the start position, just the run position. A quick check for this is to disconnect the + wire at the coil and connect it to the + lead on a test meter, connecting the meter ground to your ground. At the solenoid, temporarily disconnect the battery cable to the starter. Turn your ignition key to run; do you have power at the + lead for the coil? Now turn the key to crank; do you still have power at the + lead for the coil? If not, you've found your problem!

Do you have a wire connected to the I terminal on your starter solenoid?

Bolted to Floor wrote:

I've been told this elsewhere. I will reuse all the parts I can within reason. Sheryl is already worried about upgrades!! It will be a month or two before It come out of the car.
 

 
One other way a crank can be screwed up is if it is ground with poorly dressed stones. Well dressed stones put less heat into the crank while grinding. It will be interesting to see exactly where the fracture was on your crank.

It's sad to see a nicely built engine have something like this happen, especially far from home on what is supposed to be a pleasurable trip!