Hello Gaba , i read again your first post , and i got some misgiving about the all story . 
you sayd that you car was running , and after carb rebuild ,  run  a little and  starts overheating.
My doubt is about that : if you car was running why you remove the distributor ? 
if was runnung your tdc should be right ...at that time 
I really curious about your re - start  and where this story goes to end . 
Is it possible that carburator has problem and nothing has to do with timing ? 
good luck !

almcgee wrote:

I have a piston stop you can borrow.

Al I have a piston stop , and if you watch this video I posted two posts ago, you’ll see I redid the 0 mark on balancer .

Allesandro, I am going back to basics here . Could it be the carb yes , could it be the fuel pump yes

But I took this time to just make sure things were right .

While engine ran, I did have timing issues from the start, and if you watch the last video, you’ll see that the timing marks on the harmonic balancer didn’t match my pointer / block setup, and I just put a new MsD tape on there


The distributor was taken out to check a broken roll pin on the drive gears

Now that this is checked , I’ll check movement on all cylinder valves , and then close up valve covers, go to fuel pressure check

If all that is good

I’ll take off the carb and send it to MS , if his offer still stands to rebuild it for me ;)

skip to 1.07 for the longest run its given me in a while

Last edited by Gaba (10/21/2018 7:04 PM)

it quit itself. It does sputter and quit sometimes. But mostly it puffs smoke out the carb, (in the hood you see a reflection of a spark inside the carb) ..

At 1.07 it kept running without crank for a long time , and then died with a puff. multiple times, the engine puffed and i could still let it sputter on somehow, and then it would quit with another puff

no way to bypass MSD

pink wire is eliminated completely. ( i have a switched ignition source but that tests good 12V all times , no issues)

Coil issue.. I can try a new coil no issues, but I doubt thats it. But I am not against anything.
 

Last edited by Gaba (10/21/2018 9:17 PM)

If you can't bypass the MSD, find someone in your area that can lend you a stock distributor.  You can run it without the pink wire for short periods directly to the battery for testing.  You have checked a lot of stuff and the only constant throughout has been the MSD.  At a minimum you will be able to confirm that the MSD is NOT the problem by testing with a different setup.  In the meantime, evaluate with a timing light as a way to see if you are losing spark.  Easy to do and can reveal a lot.  If the ignition misfires you can end up with raw fuel that can ignite and pop back.  You may have stated earlier but what plugs are you running and what is your gap?  MSD only recommends basic copper plugs and may not play well with platinum and other fancy plugs.  Have you changed your plugs through all of this or are you reusing them?  A hot spark when checking them when they are pulled out of the engine does not ensure that you have a hot spark under compression.  Basic copper plugs are cheap.

My thoughts too are either ignition or the timing chain slipped. You totally can’t rule them out but at this point I think you can make a good enough assumption, temporarily, that they are ok. I once bought a F250 with a 460 that literally was running on 1 cylinder. I went through the motor changing the cap, wires and new timing chain not to fix the engine but because I didn’t have a clue on the history of it and I wanted to start off with a clean sheet knowing these parts were simply in good shape and not fail later on. The problem was someone “rebuilt” the carburetor with a can of gold paint and totally block all the air bleeds. It was too far gone to rebuild. With a new carb it now ran pretty good except for a misfire at idle and couldn’t pass the smog test. Once driving you could not notice a misfire at all. Compression was excellent as well. All cylinders were with in 5 psi. I swapped plug wires and plugs around but it was still cylinder #2. I thought about it for a minute. The only thing that could cause a problem was the intake gasket. Sure enough, there was a tear in the gasket around the port. Once fixed it idled great and ran just as well and easily passed a smog test.

I suspect you have a problem with the intake gaskets. The manifold may have been slightly loose before hand and everything was sealing. Once you jumped on it, that could be what did it in. Even if it’s not, I think you’re at the point where you’re going to have to get a little dirty and pull somethings off and visually check their condition rather then make assumptions.

I have an update!!!!! A good one!!!!! It’s fully running!!!!! Yay!!!!!!! I even took the family out for breakfast in it!

It was the kiddos first ride in the mustang ever!! Finally the work of putting in car seats paid off , even if for one tiny breakfast trip!!!!

I am so happy!!!

I kept advancing the timing to see what would happen. Spark out the distributor changed to smoke puffs out the distributor and kinda would want to keep running

More advance , and nothing out the distributor at all, and smoother high rpm

More advance , I was able to hold an idle , then with the timing light and a vacuum gauge get 12degrees at 1100 rpm idle in park. And 16hg vacuum.

Fan for a good 45 mins in the garage without overheating just sitting there idling at 180 perfectly .

This morning joy ride was great!! Power falls flat at higher rpm

Checked timing and at 3000 rpm I have like 28degrees advance instead of 36.. so that will need adjustment .

I may call on HudjinsJ3 to help with the rest of carb and timing tune!!! But finally the issue is resolved

Like everyone said : fuel and timing that’s what this all was

Thankfully engine is mechanicaly sound!!

Last edited by Gaba (10/23/2018 9:22 AM)

Bullet Bob wrote:

Okay, that's good...butt (TS&T)  did I miss something or what exactly happened to the AOD project?  I was gone for Aug and Sept and didn't check in much.

BB

Bullet Bob ,, Good to see you back. .!! so the AOD project got sidetracked cause I wanted to get car seats installed, double heat and noise insulate the floor, and put a firewall behind the back seat, to drive the kids, wife and I to the bash in Glen Rose. All that was going perfectly, till the day before, this engine saga began, and couldnt take the car to the bash.

It would have drove me nuts to not have the car running while working on anything else, so any spare time I had (which isnt mush now a days LOL) i would spend troubleshooting this.

All that to say, I am now FINALLY able to rest that the engine is good and running ( even have the mustang here at work now in plano 30 minute highway ride) . and now the AOD project begins again!!!! in full swing

I will update that thread soon. But I have the valve body upgrades sitting here(transgo shift kit, Sonnax end plugs) , and the 4R70W internals with steel dums and 2" band and all sitting here , I just need to order a rebuild kit for a 4R , with gaskets and bushings for a AOD, A+ servo (which i was saving up for , and start building those internals up) .. I have all I need to redo the valve body though, so I will actually start on that soon!! I am excited!! ( possibly even have a lead on a 3.25 8" third member, MAYBE) SO, there is going to more posts there on the AOD thread now, than here  .. THANKFULLY!!

Last edited by Gaba (10/23/2018 11:14 AM)

You probably need to flip the slot the mechanical advance is using in the distributor.  If you pull the breaker plate out of it you can see the springs and mechanical advance.  The slots will have a number stamped near them like "10" or "13".  Double that number is the amount of mechanical advance you are getting (so 10 becomes 20, 13 becomes 26, etc.).  See which slot the arm is in, and if its the lower number you can flip the plate and use the higher number for more advance.  You will need to pull the distributor to do that though. 

I set base timing by where I need my total advance to be.  So, if the mechanical is on the 13 slot (26 degrees), and I want 32 degrees total I would set base at 6 degrees BTDC.  The factory setting is only so useful.  It was probably somewhere from 4-8 degrees, BUT if you're looking to extract maximum performance the factory setup is of little use.  Remember they were the ones that put those heavy advance springs in it, and used the lower slot setting on the mechanical advance, which tremendously limited power.  AND, they had 100+ octane fuel available at every pump when these cars were new.  I still scratch my head on this.  Almost since day one savy guys knew you had to recurve a Ford to get best power.  The factory guys used to do it with the magazine test cars back in the day.  Meanwhile we all got robbed.