About two years ago i swapped my stock cam for a wade cam regrind, just the normal one. I swapped it over and everything ran fine. I bought a new car so want to use my ED 6cyl ghia for work purposes and use my FPV for everything else so Im returning my car to stock basically - there was barely anything done to it anyway.

After changing the cam back to stock the engine doesnt want to start. It just whines and whines when i turn the key. The cam is spinning and the rocker arms moving but no start. There is spark, there is fuel, and there is air.
I took the rocker cover off and rocker arms out to inspect cam and it all looked fine and the timing chain seems to be right also (it should be since it was never removed from sprockets). After putting it back together it started first go but ran a little s**t. I turned it back off to take rocker cover off again adn put everything back to correct tensions etc and now it wont start again! Just a constant whine and no turn over, all belts are spinning away.

What could this be? I havent unplugged anything that i can see and just have absolutely no idea what has gone wrong.

Any help is much appreciated,

Thanks

when u put the cam in was it a regrind?, did u have to add extra shims?
if so, did u take the extra 1 out when u went back to stock cam?

The cam was a regrind yes, but my mate bought it and then crashed his car so gave it to me. I took out my stock cam and put his regrind in which meant my stock cam was untouched and just sat in a bag in the garage for 24 months. One of the shims was missing from the rocker arms though so I replaced it with one from the regrind and they both looked identicle.

I know you want a quick fix but....its too hard to tell whats gone wrong.
If the cam worked in a car before then you have done something wrong with the install.
Retrace your steps...everything you touched or changed. You seem to have mechanical experience so be methodical.
We did a cam swap in an ED and the car wouldnt start. It turned out to be the coil. Figure that out.

did you release the tensioner when you did the swap, if not, there could be too much tension on the chain and its simply eating into your guides.

I've had one before where the HLAs looked as though they where in right but were still holding the valves open enough to have no compression.


Like you said it's got air fuel and spark, the only thing missing is compression.

But did you take out the shims under the lifters when you went back to stock? A regrind cam normally requires the fitment of shims under the standard lifters to make up for what was ground off the cam lobe.

So if you put them in for the regrind and have not taken them out for the standard cam you may find that they are leaving the valves slightly open as Tickford_6 mentioned.

I replaced the coil a few years ago, I hope it's not that, it was a b**ch to change. Though i dont think it is since I lost all power when it went including lights and ACC.

I did take a lot of tension of the chain to put the cam back in. The tension bolt was acctually screwed ALL the way in as tight as it could go from what i could see. I've tried to start it lose and tried to start it tight ad everywhere in between, but nothing.

I will take the cam out again this arvo and retrace everything like you said... For the third time. I just can't see what has gone wrong, might need someone elses perspective, will get a mate to come take a look.

The chain is in the right position when cyl one is TDC and there is compression in the cylinders also as I've had the car turned over with my finger over the spark hole and it seems to be all good. So now I definitely have spark, air, fuel AND compression but they hate eachother.

The shims are all correct in the lifters as I have a set of rocker arms from my mates car that I took when I dismantled the engine and took the cam and also have my original stock set of arms and shims which I have put back in with my old cam. I did lose one shim so just put another one I found into the arm, it looked exactly the same. Though I wouldn't think one shim would stop the car from running. It would just stop it from running well.

Got a bt of an update, it still won't start after taking the cam out and putting it back in. However there is no compression either. There was compression on my finger yeah, but a compression tester shows nothing at all. Any new ideas from that info?

I heard that they changed the lashers and shims in the ED at some point, is this true? The lashers were reduced from 14 to 11mm?

Have your tried putting the Wade cam and that rocker assembly back in? If it doesn't work then, you know that somewhere along the line you've made a mistake or something has happened.

No compression suggests that the valves aren't seating correctly. The pedestals of the rockers that you put in weren't machined down to suit a regrind or anything like that? Which could mean the 'pivot' point could be out and the rocker assembly / base circle relationship is out and the valves not seating?

Good luck, if you work it out. Please post.