new motor won't start

[narleycarley]

Hey,
I just built a big block, and it won't start. It rolls over, but no firing off. I pulled a plug out and held it in the wire against exhaust manifold and no spark. I pulled coil wire off and did same thing and it had a very very small spark. I figure the coil wire should a very strong spark, like it would want to jump off. Right? any pointers?

[hotrod_991]

i just put my new motor back together today and had the same issue i was 180* off on my distributor. I would check that first.

[narleycarley]

Well. It was a bad distributor. This was after alot of head scratching, calling buddies, and swapped a coil out. It fires up, timing is at 8* advance. Carb adjusted. It only pulls about 10inches vacuum at idle. But it's a fairly big cam (.577 lift) so it will lose some vacuum, right? Is this enough advance?

Problem now is that it overheats. I'm gonna change my 180* thermostat to a 160 one. Also, my 2 electric fans are close together in the middle, and you can feel hot spots in the radiator around the perimeter, so i'm gonna move them out and see if i can get them to be in better spots. Sounds good?