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Stalling 1977 Chrysler 440s

captain_ed

Regular Contributor
Both engines have stalled, but the worst is the port side freshly rebuilt 440. The engine is perfect mechanical condition after total rebuild. I put new Mallory distributors and Edelbrock 1410 carbs on both motors. The starboard has stalled, but not as much.

The engines start and idle perfectly. I can run at planing speed for as long as I want. The trouble comes when I slow down to anchor or dock . The port engine will stumble and stall after running at 1200 rpm for more that 5 minutes. My wife says she smells gas when the engine stalls. It will not start until it sits for about 5-10 minutes then she fires up and runs fine again? The temps are staying normal, oil pressure and voltage are all normal. Sometimes I can try to rev up the motor in neutral to keep it from stalling it will buck and studder before it stalls out. This is a pain when trying to dock. I am thinking that it is not fuel starvation because it runs fine at planning speeds (3200 rpm). I had water in my fuel years ago and have replaced the fuel tanks since, but it reminds me of how the engine is acting. I don't think it is a fuel issue with new tanks,lines,fuel pumps etc.. My fuel filters don't show signs of water.

A friend thinks that the edelbrock 1410 (750 cfm) carb may have the floats set too high? He said that it will dump fuel into the engine as the heat of the engine expands the gas and the carb bowl overflows into the engine at idle speeds and floods the engine. I pulled a spark plug and it was clean and looked like perfect heat range no oil fowling or carbon fowling at all. I never messed with the float setting from the factory, I just bolted them on ,set idle mixture and they ran great. Does this sound like it might be the problem????
 
Check that the choke is fully opening. Also readjust the fuel mixture screws, sounds like they could be a little lean. and just for comfort, check the advance on the distributors to make sure its returning. If those all look good, next time it stalls; measure volts at the coil with the ignition on.

will
 
Hi, The Edelbrock carbs have a small flaw when they re-designed from the original carter. They did away with the aerator on the accelerator pump as well as the second check ball at the accelerator pump well.. They extended the small brass nozzle from the accelerator pump into the air stream. On the 600 cfm the brass tube just clears the aluminum air horn. On the 750 it is well into the air stream.
To add the check valve needed for the pump they used a small brass weight just under the pump squirt nozzle to hold down the check ball.
Now here is what happens.

When the engine gets around 1100 -1200 RPM the velocity past the squirt nozzle creates a vacuum sufficient to overcome the weight and then draw fuel up the accelerator ports and out the squirter. This will act like a second set of main jets and run the engine very, very rich, After about 2 minutes at that RPM the cyls are washing oil away and the engine appears to flood.
Pull the throttle back from 1200 to idle and it will likely stall. Wait several minutes and the heat of the engine vaporizes the fuel then it will restart, but leaves a lot of fumes around.

On all my carbs I remove the new squirter and put on the old 1970's one. I also remove the brass weight and get the springs that Edelbrock uses in place of the weight on the bigger carbs. I do not have a part number but I get them from the guys on the Tech line. I get a dozen or more at a time as I do this to every new carb.

To check to see if this is happening take off the flame arrestor, start the engine. While in neutral bring it to 1200-1400 RPM and look down into the Carb. If fuel is coming out of the pump squirter tube you have the probable answer.

I have talked at length on several occasions to the Tech guys but their answer was to send me the springs. I also found that the spring needs to be stretched .200 thousands longer than stock for it to work perfectly. This stretched spring will work without changing to the older nozzle, but I change them anyway as that is my nature.
believe me when I say it took me many hours to sort this all out.

Do the RPM check and look down the throat to see if fuel is coming out. I would be interested to know what happens.
Good luck.
Dan
 
Outstanding info! (Into my keeper file.)

As I read your post, that problem is NOT with the 1409 model, right.

Jeff
 
Hi, The Edelbrock carbs have a small flaw when they re-designed from the original carter. They did away with the aerator on the accelerator pump as well as the second check ball at the accelerator pump well.. They extended the small brass nozzle from the accelerator pump into the air stream. On the 600 cfm the brass tube just clears the aluminum air horn. On the 750 it is well into the air stream.
To add the check valve needed for the pump they used a small brass weight just under the pump squirt nozzle to hold down the check ball.
Now here is what happens.

When the engine gets around 1100 -1200 RPM the velocity past the squirt nozzle creates a vacuum sufficient to overcome the weight and then draw fuel up the accelerator ports and out the squirter. This will act like a second set of main jets and run the engine very, very rich, After about 2 minutes at that RPM the cyls are washing oil away and the engine appears to flood.
Pull the throttle back from 1200 to idle and it will likely stall. Wait several minutes and the heat of the engine vaporizes the fuel then it will restart, but leaves a lot of fumes around.

On all my carbs I remove the new squirter and put on the old 1970's one. I also remove the brass weight and get the springs that Edelbrock uses in place of the weight on the bigger carbs. I do not have a part number but I get them from the guys on the Tech line. I get a dozen or more at a time as I do this to every new carb.

To check to see if this is happening take off the flame arrestor, start the engine. While in neutral bring it to 1200-1400 RPM and look down into the Carb. If fuel is coming out of the pump squirter tube you have the probable answer.

I have talked at length on several occasions to the Tech guys but their answer was to send me the springs. I also found that the spring needs to be stretched .200 thousands longer than stock for it to work perfectly. This stretched spring will work without changing to the older nozzle, but I change them anyway as that is my nature.
believe me when I say it took me many hours to sort this all out.

Do the RPM check and look down the throat to see if fuel is coming out. I would be interested to know what happens.
Good luck.
Dan


Great information. I will show this to my friend that is more knowledgable. I am sure he will know what to look for. I am learning all the time. I helped him replace fuel tanks and decks on his trojan and he helps me with motors. Together we can figure out most things.

Thank You.....and I will let you know what we find.
 
Yes it does, the 1409 is the 600 cfm units. I have 5 of the 1409's on my own boats and had to change every one of them over to stop the massive rich condition and excessive fuel consumption.
This spring we purchased 2 brand new 750 cfm Marine carb's and both poured fuel out the nozzles, fixed them with just the springs, but I had to stretch them the .200 thou with a caliper to get it right.
If not sure just check it at the dock around 1200 RPM.
Dan
 
Well! One of my engines runs crap rich at about 1,800 rpms, but is okay above or well below that. I'll be giving these mods a try.

Thanks again!

Jeff
 
Well! One of my engines runs crap rich at about 1,800 rpms, but is okay above or well below that. I'll be giving these mods a try.

Thanks again!

Jeff

Jeff.

First do the looking down the throat check to see if the fuel is coming out of the squirter ports, if it is not I would not bother changing to the springs as this will not do anything for your rich condition at mid throttle.
Your problem may be happening right at the point where engine vacuum drops to the setting of the metering rod step up spring and the rods go up to the enrichment point. There the fuel increases quite a bit. Once you rev the engine up it can swallow the extra fuel and comes back to a bit leaner condition.
This is the problem with Carbs. They mismanage fuel not manage it.
Fuel injection is much better.
I was working on a few more changes to the fuel injection I am using and it is many times better than a carb would ever be.
I am building up a system using stock parts that can be found in any scrap yard so it is not wildly expensive. The entire system will be under $1000, closer to $600 if you barter. I have about $400 into it.
It is almost as good as the very trick system I had on there but want to put a cheap but proven system together so anyone can round up the parts and go.

I hope to have an entire article on it next winter.

I would do the check down the throat before any mods are done, if it is not broken, don't change it. You may need to go one size smaller on the enrichment side by changing out the metering rods.
I find the 750's do run rich and have changed a lot of jets and rods to make them right for each specific application.

Let me know how yours looks down the throat.
Dan
 
Hi Ed

I can help you out. You have several things to do, not hard or expensive but until you do them the problem will never go away. I am leaving right now and hope to be back later today to write it all up for you.
Dan
 
In the video. those are the acceleration pump outlets--normal and correct.

The rear barrels MUST be closed at idle or it will stall every time.

Will the motor keep running if you turn the idle screws all the way in? If so, it's flooding.

Jeff

PS: A similar problem with my 360 turned out to be a bad coil wire. Easy to try that.
 
Hi Ed
There are a number of issues you need to fix before this goes away, and it will not go away on its own.

1. The start of this thread explains the problem with fuel coming out of the accelerator pump nozzles. There should be no fuel coming out unless the throttle is being opened. when the throttle shaft is not moving open and the engine is at any RPM there must not be any fuel coming out the 2 small pump nozzles. To correct this follow the instructions on the first post here.

2. If you rebuilt the engine and did not close off the exhaust bypass through the intake manifold this will cause excessive temps and the carb to the point of fuel boiling in the fuel bowls. This will boil and flood the engine until it cools and allows it to run normal again. What I do is 3 parts, first I weld a plate over the ports on both sides of the intake. Then second I use a thin paper gasket over the tin gasket between the head and the intake manifold to insulate the manifold from absorbing conductive heat from the heads. About .010 or so thick is fine, blue felpro sheet gasket works great. Third I use a 2 inch thick open port Phenolic spacer between the carb and the intake. Once this is done the airflow through the manifold will keep it very cool. You will find the 4 port spacer will make the engine flood at idle so times from vacuum difference across both side of the carb. When you bring the boat off of plane after running it you should be able to put your hands on the carb housing and not have to pull away due to being to hot. If you cannot keep your hand on it the fuel will boil.

You need to set the electric choke so it comes of in about 1 minute. Since the motor is fresh and compression should be good you will not need more choke than that. Loose the 3 screws on the choke cap, rotate it slightly until the choke plate opens, now rotate the other way until it JUST CLOSES, snug down the screws. Now with the ignition on make sure you have full battery voltage across the 2 terminals on the electric choke cap.

The 750 Edelbrock is set very rich from the factory. If you look at the set up sheet with the rod, spring, jet combination change the jets and rods to go 1 stage leaner and run it with clean plugs for a few hours and check the plugs again for color. If very dark or black after running around 2500-3500 rpm it is still a bit rich.

In your video you were not sure if the rear plates should be closed. The plates you are looking at are not the throttle plates but the secondary air valve plates above the fuel butterfly plates. These are loose fitting and slightly open and counterbalanced to open on air velocity. These plates stop the engine from going very lean when the secondary plates open. The old AFB carbs did not have these plates and stalled badly on hard acceleration. They looked fine in the video.

Another way to fix the accelerator pump from spraying out the nozzles when it should not is to use the older Carter pump squirter with the vacuum break, which Edelbrock eliminated. You can try calling Allstate Carb and Injection and see if they can get you one. However the spring trick on its own works well.

your biggest problem right now is fuel boil. I find this on every engine that still has the exhaust crossover still open in the manifold. The fuel we have today boils so easy compared to the days we used crossovers.
Try one engine with these remedies, which are cheap but effective, and compare it to the untouched engine.

You need to contact Edelbrock Tech line and get the small spring they use on the 850 Carb instead of the small brass weight used on the 750 and 600 carbs.

By the way, I use the 600 CFM carbs on my boats that still use carbs, I found they run much better at slow speeds than the 750. My engines rarely go over 3200 anyway so I really do not need the 750. These engines also with run up to 4600 with no problem with the 600.

Hope this all helps. Good luck.
Dan
 
Hi Ed
There are a number of issues you need to fix before this goes away, and it will not go away on its own.

1. The start of this thread explains the problem with fuel coming out of the accelerator pump nozzles. There should be no fuel coming out unless the throttle is being opened. when the throttle shaft is not moving open and the engine is at any RPM there must not be any fuel coming out the 2 small pump nozzles. To correct this follow the instructions on the first post here.

2. If you rebuilt the engine and did not close off the exhaust bypass through the intake manifold this will cause excessive temps and the carb to the point of fuel boiling in the fuel bowls. This will boil and flood the engine until it cools and allows it to run normal again. What I do is 3 parts, first I weld a plate over the ports on both sides of the intake. Then second I use a thin paper gasket over the tin gasket between the head and the intake manifold to insulate the manifold from absorbing conductive heat from the heads. About .010 or so thick is fine, blue felpro sheet gasket works great. Third I use a 2 inch thick open port Phenolic spacer between the carb and the intake. Once this is done the airflow through the manifold will keep it very cool. You will find the 4 port spacer will make the engine flood at idle so times from vacuum difference across both side of the carb. When you bring the boat off of plane after running it you should be able to put your hands on the carb housing and not have to pull away due to being to hot. If you cannot keep your hand on it the fuel will boil.

You need to set the electric choke so it comes of in about 1 minute. Since the motor is fresh and compression should be good you will not need more choke than that. Loose the 3 screws on the choke cap, rotate it slightly until the choke plate opens, now rotate the other way until it JUST CLOSES, snug down the screws. Now with the ignition on make sure you have full battery voltage across the 2 terminals on the electric choke cap.

The 750 Edelbrock is set very rich from the factory. If you look at the set up sheet with the rod, spring, jet combination change the jets and rods to go 1 stage leaner and run it with clean plugs for a few hours and check the plugs again for color. If very dark or black after running around 2500-3500 rpm it is still a bit rich.

In your video you were not sure if the rear plates should be closed. The plates you are looking at are not the throttle plates but the secondary air valve plates above the fuel butterfly plates. These are loose fitting and slightly open and counterbalanced to open on air velocity. These plates stop the engine from going very lean when the secondary plates open. The old AFB carbs did not have these plates and stalled badly on hard acceleration. They looked fine in the video.

Another way to fix the accelerator pump from spraying out the nozzles when it should not is to use the older Carter pump squirter with the vacuum break, which Edelbrock eliminated. You can try calling Allstate Carb and Injection and see if they can get you one. However the spring trick on its own works well.

your biggest problem right now is fuel boil. I find this on every engine that still has the exhaust crossover still open in the manifold. The fuel we have today boils so easy compared to the days we used crossovers.
Try one engine with these remedies, which are cheap but effective, and compare it to the untouched engine.

You need to contact Edelbrock Tech line and get the small spring they use on the 850 Carb instead of the small brass weight used on the 750 and 600 carbs.

By the way, I use the 600 CFM carbs on my boats that still use carbs, I found they run much better at slow speeds than the 750. My engines rarely go over 3200 anyway so I really do not need the 750. These engines also with run up to 4600 with no problem with the 600.

Hope this all helps. Good luck.
Dan


Dan,

In regards to number 2......I don't think that I mentioned that the intake manifolds were changed to Edelbroch aluminum intakes. They are the stock replacements ( I think it was the torquer model). I would think the aluminum would not transfer the heat as much. I will do the hand test on the carbs.

P.S. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions and type it all up!
 
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Take a moment and rethink aluminum. You have answered your own question. Reinstall the manifolds with the exhaust crossover blocked off and all should be good. An insulating spacer alone would help but after a long run the heat would build up.
 
Hi when choosing an aluminum manifold for marine you have to consider how much idling and under 1500 rpm you will do. I find that dual plane manifolds are a must as single plane manifolds do not maintain velocity and fuel will drop out of the air stream creating puddling.
Chrysler has Edelbrock make the special dual plane aluminum manifolds in 1970 that were a dealer option on the magnum motors. The were marked CH4B for the 440 and had the edelbrock name and a Chrysler part number. I have found these perform better than any available today. They will idle for an hour without any puddling and with the crossover plugged off they do not over heat the carbs. However with the crossover still open any aluminum will boil today's fuel.
Once the boiling is cured you can work on the carb calibrations. I will look and see when I get back to the shop what notes I have for calibration setup of the 750 marine carb.
Keep us posted and ask any questions you have.
Also please install a hydrocarbon detector in the bilge area to alert you of fumes. Any carb can create them, especially a boiling one
Dan
 
The video doesn't look like a single plane Torker intake to me. Looks like a dual. The Torker is more of racing manifold with a 2500-6000 rpm performance range.

Check this repaired dual plane Eddy CH4B. I'm thinking this got just too hot in the crossover. Flanges are flat within .002". Engine it cam off ran just fine...........................
 

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The video doesn't look like a single plane Torker intake to me. Looks like a dual. The Torker is more of racing manifold with a 2500-6000 rpm performance range.

Check this repaired dual plane Eddy CH4B. I'm thinking this got just too hot in the crossover. Flanges are flat within .002". Engine it cam off ran just fine...........................


It is an Edelbrock performer intake manifold (basically stock)because I wanted maximum torque. Hopefully, I will be able to do some tests this weekend. Edelbroch tech guy did not give me the parts that you recommended. He swore that it is a jetting problem. They want me to measure the intake vacuums to make sure that I have the correct springs on the step up needle jets. I have a jetting kit, Edelbrock heat insulators (3/8"), and rebuild kits for the gaskets. I will keep you posted.

Ed
 
I had the carbs professionally rebuilt and gone over. The shop added the springs to the squirters. I added an Edelbrock heat shield (3/8") between intake manifold and wedge/carb. I ran it hard for a half hour and docked at a restaurant with no problems. I ran at 9 knots coming home. The starboard motor stalled when I tried to turn her to back into my slip. It would not restart with closed throttle or full open throttle. As I tried to dock on one engine, the port stumbled and stalled......same thing. I drifted into a slip and let it cool for about 20 minutes. It started up and I moved the boat to my slip. This time I had a friend check the engines. He said they sounded great running on the water. He did not smell gas when they stalled. We should have smelled gas if it was flooding. Also full throttle crank did not clear anything. The engines did not seem too hot. We are now wondering if the Mallory ylm 578 AV distributors are shutting down.

We are going to try to simulate docking on open water and get it to shut down. We will then be able to verify if the spark plugs are getting spark when it stalls. It is probably time to call in a marine technician to help us out.

P.S. I had the generator carb also rebuilt......it ran great the whole time and never faltered. The generator pulls from the same fuel tank as the starboard motor.
 
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Take a good look at the voltage ARRIVING at your ignition system with a reliable meter. On mine, 12 volts went to the helm, but only 8 to 9 came back! That was not enough to generate a decent spark, and the motor died. I chased bad connections and etc. for years before discovering it was a bad push button circuit breaker.

Low voltage to the ignition system kills the motor at idle speed, especially if you have one wire alternators that 'drop out' at idle. Once reved up a bit, the alternators 'kick in', the voltage comes back up, and all is well. Oh, and they restart lousy thanks to poor spark caused by the above.


Jeff
 
Ed.
You did not mention if the fuel stopped coming out the accelerator squirters when revved up a bit, if so that problem is cured and will save you some fuel and keep the engine and oil cleaner as well.

With the heat shield are the carbs running cooler and you can keep your hand on them? If so another potential issue fixed.

Can you tell me what type of coils are you using? If they are the black, round oil filled stock type then look at the writing on the side and see if they use internal or external resistors. If an external is required and it is not there then you may be overheating the coils. Also those old coils do not produce much secondary voltage, especially when the resistor drops it to 8 or 9 volts. I just helped a fellow with an old Dodger Charger that would quit and not restart until cool, it has the old coil and ballast. We changed the coil to an epoxy type, full 12 volt with no resistor and it started right up. In fact it will jump a 1 1/2 to 2 inch gap. So once warmed up try shutting down the engine after a good run. Make sure the engine room is fully opened and well vented. Pull the coil wire out of the center of the cap and have a helper turn the engine over. Hold the wire about 1 inch from ground using a pair of non conductive "chicken" pliers and the spark should jump this gap easily. If you have to hold it about 1/4" before if arcs then consider upgrading the coils.

Here is the link to the one I use all the time. You can buy direct from Procomp or just get one from an Ebay seller.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Universal-P...Red-/181502240167?hash=item2a426065a7&vxp=mtr

It sounds like you have fixed the carbs properly and got rid of the dangerous evaporation from the hot carbs. Do a primary voltage check at the coils and see what you get. Jeff had the same problem my Searay had. I only had 7 1/2 volts to the coils from the flybridge as the wire run was way to long. I used the original wiring to feed a relay beside the ignition system which switched the 12 volt supply direct from the main circuit breaker on the engine harness from the battery. This gave me full power to the ignition amplifier. I use a Jacobs 60,000 volt system and that cured all hard staring, it can jump almost 3 inches!

Please let me know if the carb changes fixed the fuel out the squirters and it runs cooler.
Keep us posted.
Dan
 
..."Jeff had the same problem my Searay had. I only had 7 1/2 volts to the coils from the flybridge as the wire run was way to long. I used the original wiring to feed a relay beside the ignition system which switched the 12 volt supply direct from the main circuit breaker on the engine harness from the battery. "

Did the same thing! Works fine. I also had starter engagement problems for the same reason, but another relay cured that as well.

Jeff
 
Can't get a mechanic to show up. He kept saying he would come tomorrow for a week.

We tried again ourselves. The carb is not leaking fuel out of the squirters. The fuel pumps held 5.5 lbs. of pressure when the engines stalled about 5 minutes apart. The engines lost spark after stalling. We had an inline spark strobe light checker.


Temperatures were 160-180 on the engine blocks, front of carb near idle screws were 114, side of carb was 145-150 (could hold thumb on it), intake manifold was 260-280?, distributor was 160, coil was 160-175?, exhaust elbows 114.

I am not an ignition person. We installed Mallory YLM 578 AV distributors, matching coils , and ballast resistors. All match according to Mallory tech support. Wiring double checked and correct. (both engines). My friend say the distributors should get about 12 volts and after the ballast resistors the voltage gets knocked down to around 9 volts feeding the coils. We measured 11.9 at distributors and 8.9 at coils while engines idle. When running at part throttle, they had 14.75 at distributors and 10.9 at coils. My generator powers my battery charger (Zantrax 2, 40 amp) while the boat is running. This never seemed to hurt anything with the old distributors.

It was suggested that the Mallory coils are built in China and they only have 1000 wraps and the old coils Prestolite would have 5000 wraps? We are going to try again with the old coils installed and see what happens.

Frusterated!
 
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Did the exhaust crossovers get blocked off yet? Manifold temp seems pretty high.

The water temps in the Chesapeake Bay have been 83-84 degrees, so they are running a little hot. I did not remove intakes yet. I would think the felpro marine gaskets would block the heat riser, but I can't remember for sure. I did however add the 3/8" heat shield from Edelbrock . Trying to avoid this until Fall. I was thinking that maybe I should put the stock steel manifolds back on. I would think that they are easier to weld a plate over the exhaust passage. Do you think that gaskets with metal blocker inserts would do the job? Wondering how much the welding/machining would cost?

I have been laid off since May and trying not to spend money. I am starting a new job Monday.
 
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