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I believe you can set the distributor while the crank is at TDC -- there is not enough teeth on distributor to get it as finely tuned as you are expecting based just on the install. Set the motor at TDC, install the distributor with the rotor pointed at the #1 wire and it should run. You will still have to "time" it to the correct specs.
Hmm.. From what I have read I want 10 cam / rotor degrees BTDC not 10 balancer degrees. The balacer degrees on the tape, as I understand it, are actually not 10 degrees rotation of the balancer but 10 degrees rotation of the cam and 20 degrees of the balacer.
10 degrees at the balancer would be 5 degrees BTDC for the cam / rotor...
My balancer has chipped paint for the 2 inches around the TDC machined marking. Any paint/tape or other on the balancer would be invisible.
Any one know for sure if it is 10 BTDC cam/rotor/balancer?
I've never heard anyone refer to timing as degrees of cam or rotor rotation. Its always expressed in degrees of crankshaft/balancer rotation. The cam turns half the rpm of the crank so there's no reason to reference cam degrees of timing all that's important is how many degrees before the crank hits TDC do you light the plug. Too late you lose power and too early you try and drive the crank out of the bottom of the motor.
Hi!
Yeah, I googled some more yesterday and found procedures for how to measure where to put the mark and they referred to it as being balancer degrees.
8 inch balancer diameter * PI (3.14) / 36 (360 degrees * 10) = 0.872 inch before TDC. So that should so it. Well, if the balancer is 8 inch...
Don't know where I found someone referring to it as cam-degrees but I did. But since you shouldn't trust everything you read online I asked the question here.
Thanks!
Mike
I know your confusion...the Brits love to reference cam timing. If it is a US engine, it will always be in reference to the crankshaft...so balancer markings.
OK, finally caught up on your work...
I am not sure if the ohm meter will work as you are trying to use it. This engine uses a magnetic pick-up. I would recommend setting the crank position to the 10 degrees BTDC, and then rotate the distributor to the left (CCW) until you get a spark at the number one plug. Just set the plug on a bare part of the engine block and watch for it to spark. Try it a few times, and you will get the feel for exactly when the plug is going to spark. Then lock down your distributor at that point.
Once the engine is running, you can verify the 10 degrees with your timing light.
Well done CJD I never thought of doing it that way, very simple.
Hi again,
Okey, so this weekend didn't go as planned.
I got to the boat saturday evening and managed the initial timing setting, installing the distributor.
Then I figured it was time for a compression test.
I got lower than before on all cylinders, no idea why?
The indmar original head side read 150-160 PSI (before it was like 190-210 ?).
The opposite side, with the mercruiser head read about 130-140, except for the number 6 cylinder. This one read 70-80.
I gave up for the night, it was starting to drop close to freezing temps and it was getting late, the sauna was warm and well.. I had other things to do... =)
During the saturday evening I figured that this could be related to the valve lash adjustment.
On sunday, i tested backing off a little on the lash adjustment on no 6 and the compression read higher. Maybe about 110 PSI, I then backed it almost all the way off, where I could just spin the pushrod and I got 150-160 somewhere.
I then used an air compressor and blew air through the spark plug hole while at TDC for the given cylinder and found that most of the cylinders on the even-numbers bank at least had some small leak. Either exhaust or intake valve.
I then set all of them using my reversed method of blowing with the compressor and adjusting until right before I got a small leak through either intake or exhaust.
This is however (especially for no 6 cylinder) quite much softer than the recommended indmar tension of tightening until no play can be felt in the push rod and then go 360 degrees more.
After my new lash adjustment I got better readings around 150-160 on the even numbers bank. My final test of compression on the odd numbers bank gave me 160-180 on the cylinders. One being 160 and the other 3 all being 180.
At this point the lash adjustment for cylinder 6 is probably too soft, more like a tighten until 0 lash is felt and stop, no 360 degrees or even 180 as I have read online as another suggested method.
Another thing that felt strange was that after compression testing all cylinders, cranking the engine probably 3-4 revolutions per cylinder so lets call it 25-30 revolutions total.
The play in the no 6 cylinder was really large. Might have had a problem with the lifters sticking? And oil moving around making it different?
I kind of came to the conclusion that one plausible explaination was that the valve springs of the mercruiser head were weaker and I plan to switch the springs to the ones from the indmar head.
Any other ideas?
Mike
Remember these hydraulic lifters have been sitting for many weeks, so they may be at different states of "pump up". That will affect the readings before you actually run the motor and let the oil galleries come to pressure. Set them as the manual recommends.
The readings , except for #6, sound ballpark to me. The earlier ones in the 190psi range were abnormally high. At this point the rings have different amounts of oil and rust from sitting...so don't sweat the compression differences until you have run the motor and burned out the oil in the cylinders. Also, valves can get bits of carbon in the seat that will free once you run it. They will seat fully after the first run.
Guess I'm trying to say...time to run it a few minutes, and then recheck compression.
Hi again!
I spent most of the weekend setting valve lash according to the manual and then hooking everything up again to be ready to start. Built my own timing shunt as I didn't have any and don't know where to get one.
Today I was gonna fire up and set timing.
Crank but no start. Unplugged timing shunt and plugged in the ecm and it started right up! I finally realized my injectors are not firing when the ecu is not hooked up!
I poured a small amount of gas down the throat of the engine and it ran fine for like one second with shunt in place.
How do you get the injectors working with the ecu not hooked up to the distributor?
Thanks!
Mike
Okey, after some time googling on this I found that the timing shunt seem to be valid for Carb and EFI-engines but not for TBI engines, at least not with MEFI4 ECU.
I later read in my Indmar MEFI4 manual that the procedure was in fact different according to that manual. You insert a scan-tool or short between terminals A&B on the DTC-connection/diagnostic connection.
This puts the engine in service mode and it will automatically go to a fast idle at 1200 RPM and base timing. At this setting you set the base timing, then let it warm up and recheck timing as it might change.
Sounds right?
Thanks,
Mike
That does sound correct, if you do have that ecu/efi version. It is difficult to tell which Indmar used for different engines during different production years.
I have the 2005 325 HP engine, and I had to buy a cheap gizmo that plugs into the diagnostic connector. It allows me to do the very basics, like set timing in service mode and read error codes with a flashing LED. Much cheaper than the full GM diagnostic tool, but very crude. If I remember (and it's been a while since I researched it), all my tool does is allow the "shunting" of a couple connections and it provides an LED to read.
If you get stuck, I Can dig up the details on the tool.
Okey,
This would have been much more painless if I knew what I was doing before hand. =)
As I said before, I spent a day adjusting my valves, testing compression, doing leakdown-tests and so on. I then learned I should adjust according to the manual, run the engine, then check compression and hope that the lifters adjust as they should to the valve settings.
Next I spent a day building a timing shunt and trying to start the engine with it. Only to later find out that the Indmar Delco EST TBI engine does not use a timing shunt but rather just a short between terminals A&B.
I tested the short between A&B on friday evening and it worked excellent. Though as it was getting dark I quickly gave up for the night and figured I better adjust the timing when I see what I am doing.
Next day, I spent a couple of hours trying to get the engine to fire up again as the batteries gave their last starting it on friday. (Just my luck).
I finally got it fired up, had to move the timing just about 1-2 degrees from my initial setting, let it warm up, and timing hadn't changed.
I went a head with my winterization putting water/anti-freeze mix in the engine and so on.
I then went ahead and tested compression on my two trouble cylinders where no 6 was adjusted so that it read 70 psi before the engine had gotten warm. The lifters or something else, like carbon on the valves, obviously worked better as I now got my 160 PSI.
I didn't check compression on all cylinders as all of the others were fine before and shouldn't have gotten any worse, and I already had anti-freeze in the engine and I don't want to run it all out of there with the impeller.
So in the end, all seems well. Engine runs good, no water in cylinders after being ran, good compression... Only thing was the gas-chamber I built for my self with a tarp over the boat and running the engine... It got old quick to be standing around in there... =)
I also had a small exhaust leak between muffler and exhaust hoses. I might just need to get new hoses if it doesn't settle in once they get real hot.
Thanks for all your help guys!
Glad to hear you're finally back up and running! I bet it'll make a huge difference next spring when it's running on all 8 cylinders...
Was there water coming out where you think the leak is or just fumes? Pretty straight forward changing the rubber but hopefully not under the floor somewhere. Very happy for you everything else is finally running though. what a nightmare it has been though. Time for a cold beer and a cruise. cheers. Jason
Hey,
The exhaust leak was mainly fumes, but also some dripping of water. It is the short (8 inch?) hose that connects the exhaust elbows/risers with the muffler that is leaking. Very accessible and visible.
I had to replace those hoses a few years back when I got sea weed into my oil cooler strainer and it clogged up. The engine over-heated, though, not that badly. It did run dry of cooling water but not long enough for the block itself to get really hot. The impeller and water pump itself finally got replaced and those hoses showed some wear from the heat so I replaced those too.
Engine was fine as far as I could tell though. The ECU put it in some protective mode otherwise I suspect something really bad would have happened.
Thanks!
Now I just need to wait for some better weather, it is freezing (below 0 celcius/32 farenheit) and I would guess the water is down to low 40ies.
May is a reasonable month for launching the boat and having going for a few sessions with cold water but nice enough weather and air temperature. =)
Okey,
So revival of this old thread. We finally had some good weather coming our way with 63 F air temp and 52 F water temp so we got the boat in the ocean this weekend.
Everything seemed fine, she ran great and no obvious leaks or other problems. Had a 5 mile trip from the ramp to our dock + a decent wakeboard session.
Oil looks good, engine runs good though I thought I heard a ticking noise from the port side, probably from the valve train. Only noticed it while first idling at the ramp and then I think it went away.
If it keeps ticking/clattering should I check my valve adjustment once again?
Could have been the fuel pump making the noise, but it felt like it was something that I wasn't familiar with.
Thanks!
set your valves while engine is running. It's the easiest way. Fuel pumps usually whine not click. At least if it's electric inline.
Hi,
Thanks for the input, I was at the boat this weekend and started to adjusting my valve lash again, this time with engine running. I backed one off, approx 3/4 turn and got a loud Tick-Tick-Tick noise back. So I tightened it again, slowly, and it went away.
That lead me to the conclusion that this wasn't my issue. I went ahead and adjusted the valves and remounted the valve covers.
Then I found a new noise coming from that area and realised I still had a small exhaust leak on the port side, where I had the noise. I tightened the hose clamp a little and it went away. This might have been what I heard with the engine cover closed.
Then I realized I still had my clicking/ticking noise with the engine cover open and it is coming from the fuel injectors. After some google:ing I found that it is normal for the TBI fuel injectors to be loud. They seem to work perfectly.
I guess I am just more observant/worried than normal.
Engine seem to run great! =)