well im a mustang guy at heart, but ive been helping out my father drop in a 350 we just built for his chevelle...its like the 5th time hes built a motor, so all the tolerences are spot on, the valvetrain is quadruple checked clearence wise (rockers and whatnot), we have the fuel pressure set correctly and we are definately getting fuel to the carb because we flooded it twice and had 3 small carb fires....we even tried a different carb we had from the previous motor which we knew worked, and it didnt make a difference...

we primed the oil pump to 40 psi for about 2 mintues, we set TDC 3 times, then advanced the balancer to 4 degrees below TDC...we set the dizzy perfectly to the Number 1 plug, all the wires are on correctly, firing order has been triple checked, the plugs are all good, all the wires are getting spark, and everything seems like it should fire right up...

IT WON'T!! and we can figure out what the hell is wrong! the starter turns the motor fine, but it doesnt even so much as sputter at all like its going to start! we thought maybe the battery was a bit undercharged so we hooked jumper cables up to my dads durango, and fired it, and still nothing...at this point, we spent 7 hrs trying to figure out the problem, and we havent been able to....at this point my dad is getting very frustrated, and i really wanna help him out...i spent all day out there today with him just like i always do, and as much as i LOVE to work on the cars, its just very discouraging...thanks for any help guys, this is killing us

 

If you have spark at the plugs and fuel in the carb you need to make sure that you are at TDC on the power stroke, not just TDC. Seeing that you are a ford guy putting in a chevy motor - the rotor turns the oposite direction on a chev - make sure you have the firing order in the correct direction around the cap...

Not a single backfire or pop?

 

Yup, it spins clockwise, 18436572, #1 is drivers side front, #2 is passenger side front.
To get it to TDC you have to either look at the rockers and wait for the intake valve to close and then look for TDC on the tab while turning clockwise. Or pull the spark plug and hold a finger over the hole until it just blows out a little, then look for TDC.

Could also be a mismatch in the harmonic balancer and timing tab.
Or the flooding thing has been a problem from the start and it fouled all the plugs.

I know I hear it all the time "tried all that" rather not hear it again even if you did. There's apparently something you haven't tried.

 

thanks a lot guys for all the suggestions...my dad was the one that set most of the motor up and hes been a die hard GM guy for 30 years, so he checked the firing order, and the rotation on the dizzy, and all the things that are chevy specific...im just the helper haha
we also put in a t5 tranny behind it out of an 80's camaro, and the first time we depressed the pedal, the clip that holds the clutch for snapped off...so we need to drop the trans again to fix this before we try firing the car again, because if theres something rattling around in there, and we fire it, there could be a catastrophe...and we dont have a scattershield, and we had to cu a section of the floor to fit the tranny, so i fabricated an aluminum tunnel which wont hold broken clutch pieces back from breaking your leg when they come thru the bellhousing..

thanks for your helps guys, and keep the great info coming!