what am I forgetting?

[sifu dinan]

89 240, KA24E

I just finished putting my engine back together after changing the timing chain. Everything is back in its' place and all hoses, cables, sensors, and such are connected. The car starts, turns over, but idles horribly rough and a few seconds later simply dies.

My cam timing is spot on, I doubled checked it twice before putting everything back together. My ignition timing is spot on as well, 15 degrees BTDC is when the rotor hits the #1 position. Plugs are in and connected properly, injectors are connected in the right order.

The only thing I can think of is that when I started working on this I forgot to release the fuel pressure. When I took the fuel rail off a couple of the injectors came out and I had to empty the fuel still in there. Could that be the problem?

I think I can smell unburned fuel when I try to start the car but I'm not sure. If it's not getting enough fuel and there's air in the fuel system, how do I clear it out? If that's not it, what else could be causing this?

[Skiddz]

Same car, same task - I literally just tried firing it up about an hour ago. Same symptoms as you. I really thought I'd screwed up the cam timing somehow but as I was about to pull the rocker cover, I thought of something I may have done wrong.

I replaced cap/rotor & wires when I finished up the timing chain and thought the rotor in the dist spun clockwise so I put the wires on in proper firing order with that in mind.. Looking at the thing while it ran, I realized I'd "miscalculated" on the plug wires and inadvertantly swapped the leads for cyls 2 and 3. Flipped 'em around and voila! She runs nice and smooth. You may have done the same thing I did. Double check the plug wires to make sure you got the firing order right.

Still have to set ignition timing, but I don't know what the hell the marks on the crank pully are.. I assume one is TDC and the other are in X degree increments, but can't find any info on what the marks represent. If it's 5 degrees each, I'm off one tooth on the dist drive gear 'cuz I can only advance timing to the 2nd mark..

Still, after an entire day of wrenching, I'm glad it runs and it's down to a final tune before I can go play...

[docrice]

check to make sure you put the timing chain on exactly as it came off of the cam gear...1 tooth off = runs very poorly.

Also, make sure you don't have a vac. leak somewhere. When i swapped cams in my DE, i had the valve cover gasket pinched in a spot and it ran pretty much as you described it, except i don't recall smelling fuel. My guess is timing is off somehow, either distributor is off, cam gear is off, or its just not timed properly. try a few things and let us know whats up.