'84 engine install update w/ questions.....

[bronson@inwave.com (Nate Mellom)]

Well, since Saturday was so nice (50's and sun), we expected a good day 
Sunday for the install, but of course Murphy stepped in with the stupid 
laws.  It was no better than 35, snowing and/or raining, and extremely 
windy.  Perfect outdoor engine install weather!!!  =o)

We started at around 10:30, got everything set, pulled the exhaust (I 
upgraded to the famed 4-2-1 mani/downpipe, so I'm ditching the stock 
exhaust) got the motor in, hooked up the tranny (I had seperated them to 
get new output flanges and seals put on my 4K).  Had some trouble with 
the passenger side motor mount, but other than that things went very 
well.  Took lunch, got to hooking up all the bits (fuel, electrical, 
cooling, etc).  I installed the CV's while my buddy hooked up all the 
mechanicals, and boy was he glad I did a good job of labeling stuff!! 
 Got everything ready, new coolant, oil, filter and Redline MTL.  New 
cap, rotor, plugs and wires.  We decided to crank the motor for a bit to 
build up oil pressure, so I installed an old battery I had and cranked 
away.   The most god-awful noise.....the motor cranked, slowly, but the 
starter was humming!!  Turns out a) the battery was way past toasted, 
and b) we forgot to tighten the main battery-tranny ground (you'd be 
suprised!!).  I pulled the battery out of the '81, pulled the plugs on 
the '84 (to give the starter a fighting chance, in case the starter had 
gone bad) and it spun like mad!!  No wierd noises, nada.  So we were 
happy.  Put the plugs back in, I pulled the fuel pump relay to jump the 
connections to prime the system (it had been sitting for better than a 
year).  Got everything going, stuck the relay back in.....cranked it for 
real AND........no fuel pump runnage.  This is where the questions begin.

Back when my car was running, I'd have this problem.  It would crank and 
crank and crank, but the pump wouldn't run.  Jumped the contacts, pump 
runs, so I know I have a good pump.  I also got a new pump relay.  I 
wouldn't get spark either, nor would the frequency valve activate.  Let 
it sit, and it would start up just fine.  Most of the time.  No rhyme or 
reason to the symptoms.....

Here's what happened last night.  It would crank, but no pump.  The tach 
needle jumped irradically, up to around 2500-3000 (it was dark 
outside!!).  Relay never clicked.  I swapped the relay from the '81 for 
shits and it still happened.  We could hear the frequency valve actuate 
irradically (sometimes it would run as soon as I started cranking, 
sometimes it would run in the middle of a crank cycle, sometimes it 
would run as I was letting off the key, sometimes it wouldn't run at 
all).  I've never had the frequency valve run alone from the pump, so 
I'm confused.  Since it was getting late (10:00 PM) and even colder, we 
packed up and had some foods.  We didn't get a chance to check spark 
(I'm doing that today).  When this same thing happened on my '81 (it'd 
start sometimes, it would stumble and die and the tach would drop to 
zero) it turned out to be a bad Hall sender connection.  I swapped the 
distributor and it's been okay since.  The distributor on the new engine 
in the '84 is the one that came with that engine, the old one is on my 
old engine.  Since the same thing is happening now, with the new motor, 
as it did with the old motor, I'm leaning towards something inside the 
car?  Maybe?
I'm going to go through Bentley as see what I can see, but if anyone has 
any ideas please let me know.  I"m going to check spark, I know I have 
fuel and air, I'll check all my coil connections again (I'll of course 
check the coil, as well).  If someone could give me the run down on the 
coil-fuel pump relay-fuel pump-frequency valve-tach relationship, that'd 
be very helpful.

I'm going to have some lunch and head outside and play, hopefully I can 
make the neighborhood very loud (if it starts, it'll be running 
straight-pipe from the downpipe!!)

Help!!

Nate
'81
'84