Any of you motor guru's around the Seattle area? I'm on the fence on deciding if I should rebuild the 289 in my Z or fork up for a complete crate motor. I can't get the car started anymore (Thought it was the electronic points so put back reg contact ones with no luck). At the end, car kept on cranking and got a weird binding sound and a squirt of fuel out of the carb. This engine has been running on about 60% power for about two years already do to the distributor being pulled out and not put back in correctly plus it looks pretty beaten up. As you can tell, I don't know much about motors and not sure what is the most sensible proceedure that I should be taking. I know it will take time and I want to get it running around sping time so if anyone have some pointers for me or is in the area for some beer + car chatting, hit me up. Thanks, Marc

p.s I've attached a link to a pic, sorry best I can do

 

Do you know how to properly time an engine. If not seek help in this area and get the distributor clocke in the correct location please. The binding you experienced was probably the car lugging over from being to far out of time. The chug of fuel from carb is from same problem. Replace pugs and have timing set correctly. Set engine at TDC compression stroke and get rotor button pointing to #1 cylinder on cap and that will get you close.

 

good point, just that the car is stuck in my garage and the distributor is already advanced all the way. Turning the other way will stall out and I'm too scared to pull out the distributor again. It took my cousin a whole day just to get it to sit in at where it's at now. Been driving like that for a couple of years already. The new problem now seems to be spark. I'm pretty sure if someone who knows engines like you take a look at it, it'll probably be running in a day. As for me messing with it, I've spent days on it already so I'm sort of giving up since my knowledge of this subject can't take me any further. I'm sort of new here in town and don't know anyone who knows how to ticker with this yet. Thanks for the pointers though.

 

If I were you, I would go to a local garage and ask if one of the tech s would give up a half hour of their time after work to give you a hand. Offer them $20 for their time and let them know that you probably just need to have distributor restabbed and timing adjusted. I doubt anyone would turn down that kind of cash for something that easy to do. Don't give up on your current combination. I would do this for $20, because it is really easy to do.

 

so it's called distributor restabbing, cool. I've set up for a shop owner that has an rebuilt 351 4 sale to come check it out next week. I'll bring up the stabbing if my motor can be saved. By the way, a few years back, I had a shop that specialized in hot rod and also pro drag raced on the weekends to retime my motor. They ended up letting me drive out with the engine running worst than when I started. So I paid and drove back down the block to my work and readjusted it by feel and it ran much smoother. Just can't seem to find a break for this car. Thanks again Wheelsup, hope next week will be a better outcome..