My engine is in and ready to run, but I can't get any spark. Being that I don't know a hell of alot about engine stuff, and even less about electricity I've no idea what to do.

 

try hooking up the battery

 

Lol, funny guy. Forunatly looks aren't everything.

The starter turns the engine, I just don't have any spark.

 

NICE reply Matt

Assuming you did that You have to trace down where you have spark and where you don't. The Cheap Hayes manuals usually have a good troubleshooting guide I would grab one and follow it save yourself some time!

Bobby

 

What kind of ignition? You have NO spark at all? If its HEI I can likely help ya through this pretty quick over the phone. If you get stuck call me at 574-0807.
CoryM

 

Thanks, I'll take you up on that this evening.

Being that I'm at work, I'll just post what details I can here...

I have an MSD distributor, which I removed the module from and installed the wires for an MSD box.

The red, black and orange wires from the MSD box are wired to the positive, negative and 'C' terminals on the distributor.

There are 2 more terminals on the distributor, one is for the tach, and I'm not sure what the other one is... I'm not even certain that I had anything connected to it.

The MSD box is wired to the battery.

Have I missed anything?

 

I found the problem, and I now have spark!!!

Now to get it to do more than pop 3 or 4 times...

 

I amm assuming this is a GM style 4-pin module HEI. Are you SURE you have those wires hooked up right? I looked it up and it sure appears to me that the orange wire goes to B+. The black goes to C- and the red goes to the factory power wire (either red or pink). Then you need to hook up the larger red and black wires to the battery and plug in the connector. Is there a white wire that is taped up and does nothing? If so, tap it to ground. It should spark everytime you break the ground (and collapse the field). The other 2 wires on the distributor are for the tach and for the factory power wire (that is now plugged into the MSD box).
To test for spark prop up the sparkplug wire about 1/2" away from an engine ground. If it jumps that gap you have spark. If you have spark and it is STILL not firing, make sure the distributor is not in 180degrees off (must be at TDC #1). Give me a call if I can help more.
CoryM

 

After advancing the dist. a little bit it now sparks and fires when I pour fuel directly into the carb. (my god, it's loud!!) Unfortunatly it won't keep going because the pump (new holley mechanical) has not yet moved any fuel from the tank to the carb.

I'm gonna drain the tank as best as I can, and replace it with new fuel (the 2 year old stuff stinks) and then suck on the hose to try to get some fresh fuel at least close to the pump

 

just keep pouring fuel in the carb and start it a coupla times .. that'll get the fuel in there

thats what i used to do with my 79 everytime i changed carbs i did that often .. had a holley 600 for weekends and a Qjet for weekdays ... it was fun .. a coupla times i set my carb on fire .. BURN QJET BURN

sometimes i really miss my 79