Engine starting issues

[jfalesi]

Originally Posted by Chris_oz

Backfiring confirms you have 2 things, Fuel and spark, just not at the right time.

you will get some compression on the exhaust stroke too, as the exhaust valve is only just beginning to open when the piston is heading up on the exhaust stroke.

If you take of the rocker cover, you can confirm you have a closing intake valve as the timing mark for no 1 is coming up, if you have movement at the exhaust valve, you are 360 out on the crank and need to go around another full turn of the crank

once you have the timing mark on 10 deg btdc No 1 COMPRESSION stroke, take of the dizzy cap, ensure its pointing towards No 1 lead.

If its 180deg out, you can redo the leads as a quick fix, or retime the dizzy, normally the rotor button will point towards no1, but you can set it where ever you like, as long as the cap and leads line up with it.

I have seen people driven to despair by this, flooding engines, destroying starters, new cams and batteries trying to get them to fire.

if you have the spark 10 deg BTDC on the correct stroke, pour fuel down the carby...it will run.

I did all that... I had both valve covers off and verified that the correct valve was opening. It's possible that I got it wrong - it was the first time I had ever done it, and it was a while ago. If it comes down to it, we'll pull the valve covers off and re-do it.