I got my car correctly setup now, with the correct valve lash so the valves aren't hanging open now. Once my buddy and I got that done, we hooked everything back up and tried to fire the engine. It sounded like it fired on a couple of cylinders, and then nothing but the sound of cylinder compression, but no firing of the cylinders. We did notice that gas had leaked out of the passenger side header and made a small pool under the car. We tried it again just after the first time, but nothing tried to fire this time. We worked on his car for maybe 20-30 minutes, and then went back to mine and tried to start it again, and again a couple cylinders fired right off the bat, but then nothing again but the rotation of the engine and compression sounds. We checked spark from a few of the spark plug wires, and it's sparking without a problem on the ones we checked.

Any ideas on what could be the problem? Could the timing be off that much that it wouldn't even start the engine, or am I missing spark on most of the cylinders, like the spark plugs are bad?

 

Nobody has any idea's?

 

A little more info might help, like what type of rockers, lifters etc. To me it sounds like you overtightened the rocker arm causing it to not start. I would back them all off and then try and start the car and adjust them with the car running to the correct preload for the lifters you have.

 

Jesel rocker system using the comp series rockers, tie-bar style Jesel lifters, comp cams hardened pushrods. Solid roller cam with the setup. I was a little paranoid with the valve lash, when I put it at .022 the rocker kinda sat off the valve too much, didn't seem tight and I thought the rocker might have problems like that. Is there suppose to be a little bit of play where the roller tip goes to the valve?