Car will not run

[55Belair]

I thought I might post this here to see if I could get some help.

I am helping with a supercharged, injected small block Ford.
About a month ago, the car shook real bad and shook the pick up loose on the crank trigger. The car back fired a little through the mufflers, but I don't think it was drastic. They replaced the pick up. The problem starts here. When they went back to the track, warmed the car up fine, got into the water box. Set the line lock and the three step. When they went to do the burnout, the car started to rev, sputtered and died. Now will not run.
They sent the ecu back to have it checked and were told it was fine. I was able to get it running on Tuesday night. Wednesday they were able to rev it in the garage, check timing everything looked fine. Went to the track, warmed the car up driving through the pits. Said it was running better than before. Got into the waterbox, set the line loc and the three step, sputtered died and we are back to square one. Not running again.
anybody ran into this before.
Any suggestions would accepted.

 

[IRACEIT]

Oil pump shaft leading to the distributor. Check it.

Getting oil pressure?

 

[Chuck Leeper]

??????????????

What did you find wrong and what did you do to correct it on Tues??
Only common thread I see is the trans brake and the 3 step. Being they are electronics.. are they messing up or interfering w/ the ign system??
Try leaving the 3 step off, and foot brake the engine. It could be that the engine is moving and wiring connections are being affected.
Then try the TB.. Still OK? then try only the 3 step. OK??

Process of elimination.....

 

[55Belair]

We've got oil pressure. We even checked the drive gear on the distributor thinking maybe it sheared the pin and was moving. It was fine.

We were working on it this evening. Changed the cap and rotor on the distributor. We were getting some eratic spark. We put the timing light on the coil wire and it had an even fire pattern. We put it on #1 plug wire and it was very eratic like it was firing sometime and sometimes not.
The motor was set to run at 36 degrees (that was where it was running all this year). We moved the distributor to about 33 degrees and it started right up. We were able to bring the rpms up to 4000 with no problems. We pulled it out of the garage to try a burn out in the driveway. Put it in the water, set the line lock, set the three step, brought the engine up. It actually pushed the front tires down the driveway. When he let off the throttle, it started spitting, sputtering and acting like it was out of time. We could not get it to start again then the battery went down. I had to leave so they put it on charge and were going to check the timing to make sure it did not move.
It is like the timing is wondering around.

As for Tuesday, The map kpa was about 10 points higher than it had been in the past at idle. This put the engine in part of the ve table that had never been tuned. I increased these cells about 10-12 points (to match the other kpa settings). We were able to get it running. Looks now like I was just lucky.

They have even disconnected the 3 step to make sure it was not the problem. No change.

We are down to changing the distributor completely as a last resort.

 

[55Belair]

They found it today.
They checked the crank trigger magnets and brackets last night to make sure they were fine. They also checked to make sure the keyway was still in the balancer.
Today they pulled everything apart again to recheck for any movement and the balancer came apart. It had sheared all the bolts holding it together.
New balancer is on the way and should be back up and running tomorrow.