Freshly Rebuilt Engine - Refuses to Start - Please Help

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 1:39 pm

I have a freshly rebuilt engine that refuses to start. This is what we have:
Originally a 1.7 Block
1.8 Pistons and Cylinders
1.7 Heads machined to accept 1.8s
New Crankshaft
New Scat C25 Cam and Lifters
New ConRods
All new Seals and Bearings
Rebuilt Dual Weber 34 ICTs
New Facet Fuel Pump
.009 Distibuter
New Coil
New Rotor, we have both governed and un-governed
New Plugs and Wires

We assembled the engine per instuctions in the Tom Wilson VW Engine book and the Haynes manual.

We have oil pressure as indicated by the dash light going out.
We have spark indicated by the timing light and we pulled and looked at the plugs. The spark is small, but it's bright.
When we build fuel pressure the idle port in the carb drips fuel slowly and when we open the throttles the accel port squirts fuel.

To set the spark timing we turned the fan to 7 deg before the '0' mark on the fan and Cylinder 1 at TDC. Then we hooked the timing light up to plug one and turned the distributer CCW until the timing light flashed. At this point we tightened the distributer down.

When we crank it over, all she does is make a kind of pop or fart noise every few seconds, totally at random. This noise seems to happen regardless if the fuel pump is on or not.

Please Help! We've made many posts at 914club.com concerning this project but that site seems to be down right now and we're crunched for time.

ewic · Post by **ewic** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 10:17 pm

Could it be possible that your distributor is set up to fire near TDC of the exhaust stroke? I did this once after a rebuild; it took a few days to figure out. I had similar symptoms - just occasional popping when trying to start it up. The quick check might be swapping plug wires at the distributor. Instead of 1-4-3-2, try 3-2-1-4 if you know what I mean. If it fires up, you probably want to shut it down pronto and re-adjust your valve clearances.

R2.0 · Post by **R2.0** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 10:45 pm

Is the distributor 180 deg. out? It's an easy enough mistake to make. (My Dad suggested this after I told him your dilemna.)

R2.0

trapnm · Post by **trapnm** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 4:50 pm

Like the others said, try the timing first, it sounds like a timing issue.

914-420 · Post by **914-420** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:51 pm

Any updates?

craigs356 · Post by **craigs356** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:59 am

Sounds like the distributor drive pinion is 180 degrees out of sync. It may have been set at TDC on the exhaust stroke. Set engine at #1 TDC (both valves closed) , pull out your distributor and see if the pinion slot in the case matches the picture in your haynes manual. If not pull the pinion and rotate 180.

R2.0 · Post by **R2.0** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:16 am

I spoke to these guys a little while ago (they were "renting" my new garage). Supposedly the static timing was just simply too far advanced - backed off on it and it started right up.

R2.0