Okay. I'm new to 350s especially new to vortec 350s. The issues: this truck was a bargain deal. The previous owner said that the truck ran and drove. Battery went dead. They bought the Walmart special and didn't notice that it was reverse posted. After they hooked thebattery up, it blew a lot of fuses and it had no spark. They replaced all the fuses, computer, and cam sensor. They got fed up and soldit to me. I work at a scrapyard, and we've got another 97, so after some testing, I determined there was no spark coming from the coil, and replaced the coil/Icm assy. Now I get spark. But it does not fire. If you open the butterfly, shoot ether down the hole, and crank, it pops in the exhaust a bit and has sounded like it wants to start. It just wont. Any suggestions? I understand these are spider injected? Would that have something to do with it? Any help would be appreciated

 

Are you sure they replaced just the cam sensor? It’s part of the distributor - you have to remove/install the drive gear with a press in order to change it, so for most it’s easier to just replace the distributor.

In either case it’s possible the ignition timing is off if the distributor has been removed. To verify it, rotate the engine until it’s at TDC on cyl#1 (driver side front) - the timing mark on the harmonic balancer should be lined up with the 0 on the timing cover (may need to clean both). Pull the distributor cap and see if the ignition rotor is pointing at the #1 spark tower on the distributor (a reference mark on the base makes it easier to tell. If not, adjust as necessary, but the oil pump drive shaft will have to be rotated to allow the distributor to fully seat. It should be positioned at approximately a 90* angle to the camshaft.

Also try pulling codes - even without a check engine light, codes can be stored.

 

Instead of ether, try carefully adding gasoline, see if it starts and stays running as you add gas. That will tell you fuel system needs further investigation. Do you hear fuel pump run when you turn key on?

 

I do not hear the fuel pump, but that may be because of the ignition chime.. took a whiff of the gas.... pretty sure it's bad. Will try gas after I set the timing for sure. I thought the distributor could only drop in two ways? If it was in there wrong, couldn't I just pull it up, rotate 180, and drop it back in?

 

You can change the cam sensor without pulling the distributor or pulling the drive gear off. Actually the distributor can be installed in many positions and only one is correct. I would verify fuel pressure first, with the reversed battery pump may have been taken out.

 

Please elaborate on changing the cam sensor. I’ve never done it but it’s always been my understanding that it can’t be done without removing the shaft from the housing, so I’m always up for learning new things.

 

There are several grooves in the metal piece that the rotor bolts to. If you align the cam sensor to the tallest groove(from the perspective of a side view ) , you can slip it out. On the thought of setting the dist, it has a flat groove on the bottom, which rotates the distributor, while the spider gear drives the oil pump. That flat groove can only go in two ways, and then the head of the distributor can be turned independently once the drive gear and oil pump gear are seated, leaving a small adjustment window, no?

 

Like posted above, rotate engine by hand until the tallest cut out is over the sensor, remove 2 screws, remove and replace. Easiest if you have two people, one cranking the wrench the other watching the distributor.

 

Other way around, gear is driven by the cam shaft driving the distributor, the flat drives the oil pump. Often when replacing the distributor the oil pump shaft will be out of alignment and will not allow the distributor seat, you can either pull it out and with a long screwdriver try to align it up so they will mate, my preferred method in this case is to have someone crank the engine a second while holding and pushing down on the distributor, they will mate and it will drop into place. Has always worked for me and the messing with the screwdriver is a pain.

 

Gotcha. After looking at some pics, I realized My mistake was getting it mixed up with the earlier distributors (pre-1996) that didn’t have the flat top caps. I forgot they’d made the change when OBD2 was introduced.