Re: only four cylinders firing
The way a standard 4bbl carb works is...(This will be a bit lengthy) assuming you're facing the engine, waterpump in front of you. Ford, so distributor in front of you also. The way a standard 4bbl carb is mounted, be it, Rochester, Holley, Carter etc.. Is the front two "quadrants" of the carb are the secondaries, the rear two "quadrants" are the primaries. Whether you have a dual plane or single plane is really irrelevent since it is obvious you are getting fuel to both banks of the engine. Hence the ability to detect that you do not have active cylinders. 2,3,5,8. The secondaries consist of two noticibly larger air fuel mixture journals than the primaries, thus the increase in power when more throttle is applied. I.E. more fuel/air mixture goes forth, blah blah blah. The primaries are the most utilized parts on the carb, entwined therwith is the idle mechanism, and air/flow adjustment. As well as the primary jets. In a active carburation system the "quadrants" we'll just say for now that your two front "quadrants" the secondaries are 3&4 3 being on the left. The primaries are the rear quadrants 1&2 1 being on the left. When the carb is functioning properly, upon initial startup 1&2 will be open slightly in accordance with where the idle screw is set. Depending on many variables, the primaries 1&2 will continue to open as more throttle is applied, at point X, be-it rpm influenced, throttle linkage influenced or timing influenced the secondaries will begin to open 3&4, after the specific point is reached whereupon the primaries are providing as much fuel as they can and thereby need assistance from the secondaries. So you follow ? 1&2 open simutaneously feeding a fuel/air mixture to ALL cylinders, then as throttle increases 3&4 open feeding yet more fuel/air into ALL cylinders. The fact that 2,3,5,8 are not functioning properly, to me indicates an out of sequence plug wire combination. One can hook up all of the plug wires on a typical v-8 engine and inevitably some or all will cause ignition in the cylinders, so the engine can still run even if the wires are totally screwed up. 1st you must determine which cylinder is #1. I believe on the ford it will be the front right. In any case it will be the furthest cylinder forward on the engine. Then that bank of cylinders will be the odd bank, 1,3,5,7, and the other will be the even bank 2,4,6,8. On the harmonic balancer locate TDC and rotate the engine by hand until TDC is reached on the #1 cylinder. Once that is complete remove (if necessary) the distributor and reset it on the cam gear (in the hole)so that the rotor is pointing to the #1 cylinder, or at least as closely as possible. Then put the cap back on, snug the distributor to the block not tight, you must be able to move it by hand to finalize timing. Then starting with the #1 plug wire connection on the distributor cap connect all of the wires clockwise in this order to these cylinders. 1,3,7,2,6,5,4,8. I don't think you're problem is carburation. Good luck
