Hello All, I posted a few time in the past several months about a 350 I have in my 64 chevy pu. In the begining It was hard to start, when it did, it ran awful, backfiring through the carb. no power at all, it would stall and when I tried to restart it, it wouldn't start. Anyway, tried all the things you guys said, and finally pulled the cam out and found a couple of lobes worn down. I installed a new cam (summit 1103) with lifters, new timing chain the whole works. rebuilt the 1406 edlebrock on it. it ran lot better, but still needs a few adjustments. Heres my problem, yesterday I drove it around for about 20 minutes, stopped at the store, and when I went to start it , it wouldn't start. (first time its done that since the new cam, etc.) It acted like it was out of gas , but I had just filled it up few days ago. or maybe no fire to the dist. I live about a mile away, so I went home got another truck, drove back and tried the old pour gas in the carb deal to start it, wouldn't start, tried a little starting fluid, wouldn't start, I let it sit there over night, and went this morning to try again, it started right up. why wouldn't it start after driving it a while yesterday, and this morning when it had cooled back down, it started right up? bad coil? I don't know, any ideas???
Sounds like an ignition problem to me....coil, condenser or module if its a electronic. What system are you running??
Its just a standard GM dist, I think its out of an 85-86 chev. truck with regular replacement parts, cap. rotor, etc. nothing high performance.
Pull a plug wire and put a phillips screw driver in the end so you can hold it. turn the moter over and hold the screw driver shaft close to a ground and see if you are getting spark. No spark could be coil or ignition switch is wired wrong.
take a look at this thread http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/can-an-ignition-coil-quit-when-it-gets-hot.824678/
For a street driven engine there's almost never a need for a hotter, high output coil. It usually takes no more than 6,000-8,000 volts to fire a spark plug and a good stock coil can probably put out 20,000 to 30,000 volts, if required. For constant high RPM, heavy load, lean mixtures and for firing a .060" plug gap a hotter 40,000 to 50,000 volt coil makes more sense. But they're overkill on most drivers. Save some money and get a good quality OEM coil instead. Just resist the urge to get the $12 "WhizBang" off-shore coil from the discount stores.
first, did you check for spark? did you check to see if it is getting a good supply of fuel to the carb?
http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/wc.../N3065/large/22983650_the_thx404_pri_larg.jpg GM electronic ignition modules were famous for intermittent hot failures. Ford Durasprk too
I've ran across this twice with GM HEI distributors, both cases it was the ignition module. The last one it would let the car start as long as it didn't sit for longer than 15 minutes. Past that, I'd have to wait 2 - 3 hours for it to start.
post pics of your motor - may be a sort of common Chevy hot start problem that is resolved by adding a remote Ford solenoid, like from Mad Enterprises
when it wouldn't start, I did check for fuel, and also added gas to the carb. from a can just to make sure. I did not check for spark at the time, but just figured it was getting spark because it fired right up 20 minutes earlier. thought about a bad coil later in the evening. and like I said in the op, this morning it fired right up after sitting all night.
Had the same problem in my 1970's Cutlass w/electronic ignition. Short story...Check the ignition module wires. Just pull the cap and the top plate and look down into the distributor to see if one of the two wires is cracked, broken or loose. Mine was broken and only made contact at certain points. My motor would die. Couldn't start it again or I would get lucky to start in right back up. I did the fuel thing with the carb rebuild. But I knew it wasn't fuel because the motor shut off was too sharp(electrical).
I'm assuming it's an HEI. Everybody has an extra one sitting around. Just throw another known working distributor in it and see what happens. Then you get everything. Sort the old one out later.
This sounds like a similar problem I have with my OT '70 chevy truck. I thought it was flooding and causing my issue but had the carb rebuilt and still had the same issues. I have another distributer I am going to try. My gut feeling about it is the ignition module gets hot and shits the bed. Too many irons in the fire and I haven't had a chance to try another dist.
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