How important is the firing order? Pretty important!
So yesterday, I posted about the first start up of my Vette after sitting 25 years. I posted a video which shows the car running albeit rough and with a lot of dinging noises. I had posted the video on the Corvette Forum and received some excellent feedback. It looked things were pointing to the baffles in the muffler as the culprit however there were a couple of posts that indicated I should check the firing order on make sure the wires are connected correctly to the distributor. In fact, it seems that if the spark plugs are firing out of order, then the air/fuel that is sent to the cylinder and instead of sparking there, they instead travel to the exhaust system followed by the spark from the next cylinder and 'explode' in the exhaust system.
This sounded like a viable explanation especially given that I changed the distributor cap early on and it was feasible that messed something up. I had already double checked the information based on another post suggesting a similar issue and was satisfied that it was correct. As the night wore on, this began to consume my thoughts. I woke up at 5:00 AM for my daily walk and thought about it the whole time. I had the morning off from work to take care of a couple of things and when I completed those tasks, I had 30 minutes before I had to get to the office. I couldn't take it anymore so I headed to the garage.
I popped the hood, grabbed the manual and got to work. Having second guessed my need to replace the distributor, I pulled the original out of storage and decided to put it back on. I removed all the wires and pulled up the diagram. I rewired the distributor based on the original firing order. I went inside to get the keys, popped the garage door and started her up. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The car was no longer shaking or making pinging sounds in the exhaust. It seems that it is now firing exactly how it was before its long sleep. Another small step forward and a small taste of satisfaction!
This sounded like a viable explanation especially given that I changed the distributor cap early on and it was feasible that messed something up. I had already double checked the information based on another post suggesting a similar issue and was satisfied that it was correct. As the night wore on, this began to consume my thoughts. I woke up at 5:00 AM for my daily walk and thought about it the whole time. I had the morning off from work to take care of a couple of things and when I completed those tasks, I had 30 minutes before I had to get to the office. I couldn't take it anymore so I headed to the garage.
I popped the hood, grabbed the manual and got to work. Having second guessed my need to replace the distributor, I pulled the original out of storage and decided to put it back on. I removed all the wires and pulled up the diagram. I rewired the distributor based on the original firing order. I went inside to get the keys, popped the garage door and started her up. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The car was no longer shaking or making pinging sounds in the exhaust. It seems that it is now firing exactly how it was before its long sleep. Another small step forward and a small taste of satisfaction!
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