My string of 445 questions......

[Lenz]

Took a deep breath, let it out slow and turned the key yesterday.  I was close enough to fire it, took it up to 2,000 right away, played between there and 2,500 for 5 minutes and shut it down.  It wanted to diesel, didn't like that at all and put an immediate stop to it.  Checked the oil, water and for obvious leaks, all good and zero offensive noises along the way.

Tried to put a little more static timing into it, fought me while cranking and put it back (haven't been able to verify, 10-12B is expected).

Refired and ran another 10 minutes at the elevated rpm again, temp leveled off.  Tried to let it idle for a second, died immediately. Cranked almost a full turn into the throttle adjustment screw fired it up ran it back up and then got it to barely idle for a few seconds (I'm almost across the 20 minute threshold for the initial run-in).

My main concern right now is setting up a decent air/fuel mix.  I'm so used to smelling the somewhat rich exhaust from the past that I'm concerned about having a lean condition.

I have the same 3310 vac sec Holley that was on my 390, didn't touch it as the thing did run a tad rich.  Mixture screws are at 1 3/4 off the seats.

I bought a digital infra red thermometer today, been meaning to get one.  The plan is to get approximate exhaust temps off the headers at the ports.

I know I need to verify the exact timing, sorry about the sloppy reporting .

Can I use the exhaust temps to optimize my initial settings?  Should I have made any changes to the carb making the jump from 390 to 445 (other than tossing it out and getting a Demon ?  The 750 CFM rating seems good to me but I may be way off in how it's set up.

Thoughts appreciated, it's been close to 20 years since I put one together and it wasn't an FE

[ScotiaFE]

Normally when you run a cam in you keep the engine running for 20 minutes to half an hour
when you first start it.
Running it for 5 mins and then again for another 10 mins is not really how it is done.
A dial back timing light really helps in setting the timing when you do a run in.
Run it up and let run for 20 minutes next time you start it.
A fan pointed at the rad will help.

[turbohunter]

Good luck Len.

[bartlett]

You want a good 20 min 2,000 + rpm break in ..off and on is bad.  once the rpm is up every min or so a few quick stabs of the throttle upto 4g or so is good. This squirts fuel and helps keep a lean condition not so lean.  having the entire cooling system together is a good idea..   
  I like to have a timing light hooked up during this time. un plug the vac advance and run the motor upto 3,000 or a little higher and set the max timing to around 35 or so for starters(you can watch the timing advance on the ballancer as you raise the rpm when the timing stops advancing with rpm set it to 35).   you can twist it up to 36/38 later ... In my findings they like to run on alittle if the timing is at 38 when the engine is real tight yet.  after timing is set and you let it run at 2,000 rpm for 20 min pull a plug and take a look ...it should tell you whats going on ... lots of Fe strokers like 4 corner idle adjustment.  I run a 750 with 2 corner adjustment. I had to open the secondaires a little more than stock to get the carb setup correctly and also switch out the pump cam and change the vac spring.

[Lenz]

Thanks Turbohunter.  Good stuff guys, understood.  Part of my concern was exactly that, keeping the RPM's where they belong for 20 minutes, which I will do on next fire up.  I'll set the timing as recommended and I'm going to check out the secondaries also.  I'm pretty sure they are as set from the factory.  If they are I'll pull the carb and crack them open a bit to get those idle circuits working.  As a side bar I did pull the plugs this morning, they have some carbon but look pretty normal.  That got me thinking about fuel quality.  I plan to pick up 5 gallons of 91 to dump in too.  The gas in the tank was Lucas treated 89 but not fresh, I rolled right past something I should have done before I started...... 

[bn69stang]

Good luck with the new project , you can add some water wetter to the radiator and that will help drop a few degree s .. Bud

[Lenz]

Good luck with the new project , you can add some water wetter to the radiator and that will help drop a few degree s .. Bud

Thanks Bud, so far so good, Flipped the Holley over and dialed in about .040" vertical "lift off" from where the closed secondaries were sitting to start with, ran it in for another 22 minutes straight at the recommended rpm, spiking it up every couple of minutes.  Oil and water looked good after cool down.  Have to tune but the major stuff looks pretty good.  If I don't run into anything strange I'll follow up in the projects section.  Still have a ways to go but I'm pretty happy with how things turned out today .