This is where things started going wrong. Dad came over that night to help me get the engine running. We had a hard time getting the fuel pump to prime. I had to take the fuel line loose at the carb and squirt fuel into the line using an oil can. I filled the line up with as much gas as it would take. I also squirted some into the bowl vent. Once it finally took off and stayed running, I brought it up to 2500 RPM to break in the cam. The cam was a used MP purpleshaft 340 cam. I had it in a 360 for a couple hundred miles before putting a 484 cam in it. I still wanted to do a break-in to be on the safe side.

As soon as the engine fired I knew something wasn't right. It was missing badly and shaking the entire car. Since the oil pressure was very good and since I didn't hear any strange noises, I went ahead with the break-in. After 20 min I let off the gas. The engine backfired through the carb and died. I started it up again. As soon as I let off the gas, it popped and died.

I called a friend of mine who had a compression tester and he came over the next weekend. We took some readings and cylinders 3 and 7 had 0 compression. The engine was going to have to come back out.

Of coarse this is when the weather turned very hot. I couldn't work out in the garage very long before having to come back inside. I think I worked in the garage a little each night for three days getting the engine ready to pull. The engine went to the machine shop towards the end of June. They were busy so they wouldn't be able to look at it for 3 or 4 weeks.