[gonzo08383]

i have a chevy 350 on the engine stand. i have the -wire hooked up to the -terminal on the coil. i have the +wire on the +terminal on the coil. my timing light does not light. firing order is 18436572. the engine ran fine when i took it out the car. its a brand new distributor with a brand new coil. here's what happens: engine turns over, no spark. no spark no matter what i do, no matter how many ground wires i connect to the - on the battery. i even tried to see if timing was 180* out. still no blinky from my timing light. voltage at the coil drops to 9.8vdc during cranking but engine swings around easily. it's not even trying to fire. note:the coil is getting really hot. i blew up the previous coil. not sure why that happened. 12vdc should not blow up a coil.....ever. the dizzy is a new off the shelf accel unit. trying to sell this perfectly good, previously running 350 hp engine but if it won't crank what am i to do? help before i set this thing on fire!

[hcompton]

Originally Posted by gonzo08383

i have a chevy 350 on the engine stand. i have the -wire hooked up to the -terminal on the coil. i have the +wire on the +terminal on the coil. my timing light does not light. firing order is 18436572. the engine ran fine when i took it out the car. its a brand new distributor with a brand new coil. here's what happens: engine turns over, no spark. no spark no matter what i do, no matter how many ground wires i connect to the - on the battery. i even tried to see if timing was 180* out. still no blinky from my timing light. voltage at the coil drops to 9.8vdc during cranking but engine swings around easily. it's not even trying to fire. note:the coil is getting really hot. i blew up the previous coil. not sure why that happened. 12vdc should not blow up a coil.....ever. the dizzy is a new off the shelf accel unit. trying to sell this perfectly good, previously running 350 hp engine but if it won't crank what am i to do? help before i set this thing on fire!

Have you replaced the modual below the distributer. They go bad pretty often. Voltage must not drop below 11 volts if at all possible. This will cause all kinds of issues but usally atill fires.

[gonzo08383]

module is brand new, came with the dizzy i bought yesterday. coil was bought today. it just refuses to spark. maybe 9.8vdc is too low a voltage drop for the coil to fire. i don't know. thinking about setting it on fire at this point. at least then it will be interesting.

[jumbo2]

I once had a no spark issue on a malory hei dizzy and had to run a wire from the coil - to ground on the engine , it also melted the coil wires and almost caught fire if that helps its easy to try, between the gasket under the dizzy im not sure how the dizzy it self is grounded properly

[curly5759]

The (-) wire on the distributor cap is not a ground wire, it is for a Tachometer. If you have this wire grounded, you are shorting the coil. Try disconnecting the (-) wire from the cap and see what happens.
Note: You may have soaked the plugs with fuel trying to start it and/or built up a butt load of fuel in the exhaust.

Curly

[jumbo2]

Originally Posted by curly5759

The (-) wire on the distributor cap is not a ground wire, it is for a Tachometer. If you have this wire grounded, you are shorting the coil. Try disconnecting the (-) wire from the cap and see what happens.
Note: You may have soaked the plugs with fuel trying to start it and/or built up a butt load of fuel in the exhaust.

Curly

your 100% right , it might have been the middle one , I had it setup with a msd box so just ingnor my comment

[cobalt327]

Originally Posted by gonzo08383

i have a chevy 350 on the engine stand. i have the -wire hooked up to the -terminal on the coil. i have the +wire on the +terminal on the coil. my timing light does not light. firing order is 18436572. the engine ran fine when i took it out the car. its a brand new distributor with a brand new coil. here's what happens: engine turns over, no spark. no spark no matter what i do, no matter how many ground wires i connect to the - on the battery. i even tried to see if timing was 180* out. still no blinky from my timing light. voltage at the coil drops to 9.8vdc during cranking but engine swings around easily. it's not even trying to fire. note:the coil is getting really hot. i blew up the previous coil. not sure why that happened. 12vdc should not blow up a coil.....ever. the dizzy is a new off the shelf accel unit. trying to sell this perfectly good, previously running 350 hp engine but if it won't crank what am i to do? help before i set this thing on fire!

The pigtail from the distributor connects to the three inner terminals closest to the distributor cap (red arrow). The outer two terminals are for the 12VDC power (circled) to the coil and for the tach (not needed unless you have a tach to hook up).

The distributor is grounded through the clamp, be sure there's no paint preventing a ground through the bolt/distributor hold down and the distributor body.

Connect the negative battery terminal to an engine. Can use the block or alternator bracket, no paint between the cable and bracket/block. The positive goes to the starter and to the HEI. You can use a simple gator clip jumper to hot wire the distributor by attaching one end to the positive battery terminal and the other end to the circled HEI terminal.

[gonzo08383]

Originally Posted by cobalt327

The pigtail from the distributor connects to the three inner terminals closest to the distributor cap (red arrow). The outer two terminals are for the 12VDC power (circled) to the coil and for the tach (not needed unless you have a tach to hook up).

The distributor is grounded through the clamp, be sure there's no paint preventing a ground through the bolt/distributor hold down and the distributor body.

Connect the negative battery terminal to an engine. Can use the block or alternator bracket, no paint between the cable and bracket/block. The positive goes to the starter and to the HEI. You can use a simple gator clip jumper to hot wire the distributor by attaching one end to the positive battery terminal and the other end to the circled HEI terminal.

yeah I think the tach is whats screwing me up. my ignition box in my car has a black wire with a (-) symbol going to that terminal so I just assumed it was supposed to be grounded. there is ceramic paint between the hold down and the manifold, I will take care of that as well. I didn't remember 9.8vdc being enough voltage drop to prevent spark. If these suggestions don't work I will post pictures of the engine on fire. lol. thanks for the help, I can't believe I overlooked the obvious.

[gonzo08383]

problem solved. didn't have to set the engine on fire either. coil was shorted because someone(myself) grounded the tach terminal thinking it was supposed to be coil(-). and on top of that, the timing was 180* off exactly. runs like a champ now. thanks everyone.