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Ford 1500 Kent pre-crossflow mystery

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Chevron56

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In a recent vintage race my 1500 Kent pre-crossflow engine suddenly dropped from firing on four cylinders to two. Cylinders one and four are firing, two and three are not. Over a period of several days I have tried the following:

- Replaced the entire ignition system incl. distributor body, points, condenser, coil, high tension and low tension wires and spark plugs.
- Replaced the head gasket.
- Performed compression and leak-down tests with all reading within acceptable limits.
- Verified cam timing.
- Verified valve operation, lift and lash.
- checked intake valve stem seals.
- Tested an alternate intake manifold / carburetor system.

None of these actions has any effect on getting cylinders two and three to fire.

Does anyone on this forum have any additional input or theories to help resolve this issue?

Thank you
 
Replace the rotor with an original - A really crappy one is OK as long as it's an old one. If that's no help, leave the old rotor on and replace the coil with an old original. The new rotors tend to arc across into the dist. metal guts. The new high output coils exagerate the arcing. We've found this on 2 cars recently after tune-ups. The new rotors plastic just doesn't insulate the spark properly. If this easy check doesn't help, check firing order one more time, then step away before you throw something and hit the car.

Phil.
 
I don't want to state the obvious, but you did remember that on those engines the Firing Order is 1 2 4 3 not the more normal 1 3 4 2 , didn't you?
 
are you running one carb or two? What colour were you plugs? I'm not familiar with the manifold on thos puppies but could there be an obstruction?
 
One sidedraft Weber DCOE. Checked for obstructions in the intake manifold, carb and exhaust manifold and found nothing. the mystery continues.
 
Probably a dumb suggestion but it seems you've already checked almost everything - are you sure the rotor is pointing to the #1 cylinder's terminal with the piston just before TDC?

I assume you're getting spark on all 4.
 
Yeah, Roger, a bit disconcerting.
 
Vacuum gauge, as mentioned in the other thread, while running. Tell me what it does. Then check the valve springs.
If that's all good, I'd be pulling the rocker shaft and making sure one of the rockers isn't bound up, holding an inlet valve open when running.

We know what it isn't, now we isolate down to what it is.

Dave
 
I had at one time a customer's VW beetle, where the inlet valve seals allowed just enough oil in to burn onto the top of the inlet valves. After much time, the build-up was enough to effectively block the inlet air - only while running at sufficient speed. Compression test showed good, same with all other tests like timing, spark, mixture etc. Problem was solved by removing and cleaning the valves. Of course replacing valve seals was also necessary.
 
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