Little help ford 460

[devanwon]

hey all,
just bought the boat so not sure about everything in the engine.... ford 460 bored .030 over with forged pistons, cam i am told is a ford racing 520 lift, carb is a holley 800 with 1" spacer plate, manifold is single plane edelbrock torker, ignition is a mallory electronic... so the problem im having is that it wont idle and coughs trough the rpm range... I adjusted the float bowl levels on the primary and secondarys they were off, its a tad better but still wont idle and does the same through the rpm range. I was told maybe the timing is a tooth off but not sure where to go from here. still learning about engines know the basics but not a huge amount passed that. any help is appricated!!

[Blown 472]

Have you checked the plugs?

[devanwon]

plugs look good, gapped at .035

[jkh04200]

If the plugs looked good. I'd have to focus on the carb. Idling could be the power valves. But, its bad all through the rpm range. I'd bet you have a couple of problems. Its gonna be trial and error. Definatley check to make sure the dist is right. Then I'd check the pwer valves. How did it run when you bought it? Another thing the check is the valve adjustment. You could have one or two tight and the valve never closes. I've seen it happen.

[jkh04200]

Basically start with easy stuff and start elemnating possibilities

[Blown 472]

plugs look good, gapped at .035
Coil is good, cap and rotor ok, plug wires good, good grounds???

[devanwon]

yes coil is good, wires are 8mm taylor and are brand new and whole distributor is brand new mallory marine.

[devanwon]

yes coil is good, wires are 8mm taylor and are brand new and whole distributor is brand new mallory marine.

[Blown 472]

Fuel psi? carb clean? dirty filter, chuck o shit stuck in the carb?

[steelcomp]

Double check the firing order on the plug wires, and remember, the Ford dist. rotates the opposite direction of a Chev.

[devanwon]

running 7 psi fuel pressure carb is clean and brand new filter.... firing order ill check next, i didnt put this together i bought it like it is so ill go there next.. any other ideas let me know :) Fuel psi? carb clean? dirty filter, chuck o shit stuck in the carb?

[BrendellaJet]

check your idle mixture screws. How many on that carb? Close one at a time and count the # of turns and then re-open. They should be the same, if they are not they may need adjustment. Check the timing too.

[Big Inch]

Check for vacuum leaks while your at it. You said plugs look fine but did you check all of them or just a couple?

[Blown 472]

Have ya run a compression check on it? maybe a lobe went flat?

[devanwon]

ok guys, had my dad tune this.... the float levels were off and the timing was off a tooth. also my alternator went bad,and i had a bad balast resistor so between the low voltage issue and resitor and tuning that was it! fixed it all it ran like a rapped ape!!! gps it ran 81@5600 rpm... no issues! thanks for the help everyone