Starting problem

[70B]

When starting I get on little cough out of my 440 w/ Holley 850 but then nothing just cranks. The carb smells like gas and is wet with mist, I have fuel pressure at the inlet, it does "catch" briefly when cranking but won't fire. It did fire yesterday to back it out of the garage but will not fire again. Any body got a idea to what's going on or where to look next?

 

[Don Frelier]

Pull an easy plug see if it's wet. Check for spark.
What ignition type do you have?

 

[David martin]

When starting I get on little cough out of my 440 w/ Holley 850 but then nothing just cranks. The carb smells like gas and is wet with mist, I have fuel pressure at the inlet, it does "catch" briefly when cranking but won't fire. It did fire yesterday to back it out of the garage but will not fire again. Any body got a idea to what's going on or where to look next?

What part of north ga you from you may not be to far from me

 

[70B]

Pull an easy plug see if it's wet. Check for spark.
What ignition type do you have?

Hey thanks for the response, MSD spark controller, it does fire for about one second then rolls, if I wait for 15 minutes it will do the same thing again . I'll do the plug check

 

[David martin]

Does it die on you or do you have to turn it off if it dies it’s possible that it is the electronic ignition mine give me one warning and the next time it happened it was at a gas station and I had to push it out of the way very embarrassing but sometimes you have to do what you have to do right

 

[70B]

It just stops firing, just enough to say I heard it fire. The MSD is new, I just got over another problem of not running and replaced it. A few month's back it wouldn't fire at all and I found a bad ground which has solved the problem until now but this time it does make a "igniting noise" but won't continue running, A head scratcher isn't it ?

 

[Aron Gleason]

I would check the float level, may have some junk stuck in the carburetor. Those are always the worst to chase down, good luck and keep us posted on what works.

 

[70B]

I would check the float level, may have some junk stuck in the carburetor. Those are always the worst to chase down, good luck and keep us posted on what works.

I will look into that, it does seem to me that the carb is starving, It has been a intermittent thing for a while now, hard to start and floods easily though.

 

[dadsbee]

Spark, fuel and air. Air is there, spark is easy to check.. just pull the coil wire off the cap and lay it close to anything metal. Fuel, feed it with a squirt bottle. If it runs, it's a carb issue. If it doesn't it's a spark or timing issue..

 

[Don Frelier]

It could be too much fuel...

 

[Shorthorse]

Check your voltage while cranking the engine. MSD's will not work if the voltage drops too much. If your MSD has an led, watch it during cranking. If it's not flashing while cranking, it's not working.
Had a bad starter once. I guess one winding was faulty. It would turn the engine over but it would drag a fully charged battery down below 9 volts when cranking. Took a while to figure that one out.

 

[70B]

When starting I get on little cough out of my 440 w/ Holley 850 but then nothing just cranks. The carb smells like gas and is wet with mist, I have fuel pressure at the inlet, it does "catch" briefly when cranking but won't fire. It did fire yesterday to back it out of the garage but will not fire again. Any body got a idea to what's going on or where to look next?

I thank every one for their ideas about this . It was a ignition problem, the electronics in my Mallory distributor burned up probably when programing my Digital gauges, lesson learned, unplug the ignition before messing with digital stuff save a head ache, even if it's just for a couple minutes.

 

[70B]

I would check the float level, may have some junk stuck in the carburetor. Those are always the worst to chase down, good luck and keep us posted on what works.

Thx

 

[70B]

Spark, fuel and air. Air is there, spark is easy to check.. just pull the coil wire off the cap and lay it close to anything metal. Fuel, feed it with a squirt bottle. If it runs, it's a carb issue. If it doesn't it's a spark or timing issue..