Are the new mustang gas filler doors on the drivers side?  I was under the impression that most ford "cars" have the filler door on the pass side, and trucks all have them on the drivers side.  The last bunch of "cars" I've had, the gas door was on the pass side, 2 Taurus's and 2 Focus's, foxbody mustangs, sn95 mustangs.

it can really confuse some people.......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROYcAwdDPwY

I run a Mallory comp 140, ran it for many many years with zero issues,  a 110 or 70 series might fit your application.  I run mine with a return line setup, and I recommend it, any electric pump will live longer and work more efficiently with a return setup rather than a dead head setup.  Never saw a need for a check valve deal when feeding from bottom of the tank/sump.  It's also best to mount the pump as close to the tank as possible.  Mine is powered by #12 gauge wire, no issues.

Did you build/assemble the engine yourself?  Have you ever verified the harmonic dampener "timing marks" line up correctly, ie verified engine true "top dead center" and TDC on the balancer line up?  If not, do so, you could be timing it with false reference marks.

if you just want/need springs then this is the kit (throw out the bushing).

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/mrg-928g/overview/

This is the crane kit w.vac advance for a duraspark.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/crn-99607-1/overview/
 

Did you verify you were at TDC on the compression stroke when you installed the cam and timing set and distributor?

If piston at TDC on cmp stroke, rotor pointing near the #1 dist terminal, balancer near TDC mark and plug wires routed like in the post above, it should fire off.  I always find TDC, then rotate the crank so the timing pointer is lined up at about the 12* mark, and then stab the distributor so the rotor is pointing directly at the #1 terminal.  never had it fail me yet.

Have you checked to see if there is spark?

rbtconsultants wrote:

Cool. So, we agree completely. In my simplified thinking "phasing is not a thing", meaning if the distributor is installed correctly and mechanically sound, there is no "phasing" to worry about or adjust, other than the few degrees required for vacuum advance, and the spark should always fire when the rotor is pretty much under the cap contact, and that this worry about settng "phasing" to allow for full advance and  having the spark jump around in the cap because the rotor is too far from the cap contact is not a thing.

Bob

"phasing" is/can be " a thing", but typically in a daily driver/street car with vac advance it's not a matter of much consequence, vac advance usually doesn't add excessive amounts of timing to throw things out of whack.  Most people that concern themselves with it are addressing race motor applications where the ignition system pulls or adds timing "electronically" (sometimes a lot).  In these applications the timing/distributor is usually "locked" at full advance.  some reasons timing is pulled/retarded electronically may be for nitrous use, start retard, boost retard, to pull out power to get a car launched without blowing the tires off, etc.  An easily adjustable fix in these applications is often a crank trigger setup.
 

Red circle = dist cap, black marks represent the terminals.
blue circle = distributor
green arrow = rotor
black asterisk =  8 point reluctor wheel
orange block = mag pickup/points trigger

Rotor and reluctor rotate counter clockwise and are "fixed" to each other, one does not move more or less than the other in degrees of rotation, period. Every 45* of rotation, one reluctor vane lines up with the mag pickup sending a spark across the rotor tip to a cap terminal.

Consider the drawing set at "base" timing (8*, 10*, 14*, whatever....it does not matter for this explanation).  From this point, the dist body and cap are bolted down and cannot move.  In a perfect world, at this point, the pickup, reluctor, rotor tip, and cap terminal are all in perfect alignment.  In the real world, due to things like mass produced parts, worn parts, machining error, etc, the alignment can be "off" slightly.  A couple of degrees isn't much of a problem, but "all" degrees that it is "off" are cumulative.  The vacuum adv moves the pickup in a clockwise direction, advancing the timing, sending the "fire" signal sooner, keeping in mind that to trigger the pickup the reluctor has to be aligned with it,  and the dist and cap are "fixed" and the reluctor and rotor are fixed, so the spark will occur some degrees before the rotor tip and cap terminal are in "perfect" alignment.  Add in any component missalignment and some mechanical advance (could be a little, could be alot depending on how much the advance plate allows and the spring strength on the counter weights) and you could end up with the spark occuring far from the cap terminal.  Electricity follows the path of least resistence, it could be the appropriate terminal, or the one before, or a little to both, or wherever. The effort of "phasing" the dis

A lot of what was said is true, rotor phasing  (in a magnetic pickup dist such as a duraspark or msd for example, in a points dist it would be when the points opened instead of the mag pickup being triggered) is the relationship/alignment of the reluctor wheel & mag pickup with the rotor tip and cap terminal.  Problem arises when the two "sets" don't line up at the same time.  It's effects are mostly evident when "start retards" and/or when igntion systems are used that retard timing "electronicly", i/e the reluctor triggers the mag pickup, but the ign system delays when it actually fires resulting in a misfire or crossfire.  These are mainly seen in race applications where the timing is "locked" and the ign box is setup to retard timing on startup (can result in starter kickback), or when timing is pulled electronically such as when nitrous is used.  Ford recognized the potential of this problem and aleviated some of it's effects by going to the larger dist caps, placing the cap terminals farther apart, reducing the crossfire potential.  There are adj rotors available for aftermarket distributors to address the problem, and there are some methods out there to tweek stock stuff with a little bit of effort.  I've never had much issue with it on a "stock" centrifugal advance type dist, mainly with "locked out" distributors.  Many racers step up to a crank trigger setup to get past phasing issues. 

Several videos out there explaining it. Here's one MSD put out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWMlNwGW0tM

may be a carburetor issue.  9:1 compression with aluminum heads ought to run easily and well on 87 octane fuel.

289 has a different firing order than a later model factory hyd roller pushrod 5.0 (302).  5.0 has same firing order as the 351W.  Need more info on the ign box (mallory, msd, etc...part number) to see if it will work, probably will.  Probably just have to get the plug wires landed in the correct order on the distributor.  Factory hyd roller distributors did come with a steel gear, but a distributor from the 289 will work fine if the gear is swapped to a stee or bronze unit.  Cast iron distributor gear is not compatible with most steel roller cams.

289 firing order:  1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8

5.0 (H.O.)  firing order:  1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8

Set of old school South Side Machine lift bars for sale.  Pulled them off my 65 w/Lincoln Versailles 9" rear.  Car is never going to see the dragstrip so I pulled them off when I went through the differential this spring.  need cleaned up, leaky caliper caused some powder coating to bubble/peel.  $75 plus the ride from 26187.

Thanks for the compliments.  The paint is pretty old, actually needs repainted.  Pictures make it look a little better than it is.  Paint is an 80's Chryselr color "Clairet Firemist", has gold metallic in it.

The wheels are real pain to polish (they really need it), and I'm just tired of them, not sure what type I want to replace them with.