Having a bit of a fit trying to get my son's car running.

A bit of a refresh for those out of the loop.

Bought a car with a bad short block.
Replaced short block with good short block. Swapped everything over, new oil pump, water pump, starter, compression tested good, injectors not tested, everything wired correctly. The plugs are Motorcraft platnum, gapped at .050.

The new (used) shortblock came from an Explorer. I swapped the cam that was in it for an E-303.

My question is did they make a non HO E-303 cam?

The reason I ask is because I've pulled and reset the distributor 20 times and this thing runs for about 10 - 15 seconds at best,.. popping and burping through the intake with an occasional small pop or backfire out of the exhaust. I wired the cap HO style. I consider myself an old pro at dropping in distributors. I've done several hundred over the last 20 year or so. The way this thing acts if I were to guess is I either keep dropping it in a tooth off,.. or I have the cap wired wrong. If the cam is for a non-HO motor and I wired the cap HO how bad would it be off? I'm going to go over tomorrow and rewire the cap non-HO style and see what it does. I'm just curious,.. because at this point I am out of answers.

We took a few days off. Let my son and a friend of his loose in Orlando. Now that I have had some time to reflect,.. this is all I can come up with.

Hypothetically,.. if the cam is a non-HO E-303 (It is definitely an E-303,.. stamped clearly on the end of it) and it starts and runs after I rewire it for non-HO. Will this hurt anything? I cant see where it would. But I have to ask. Also,.. if its for non-HO,.. does that mean its a flat tappet cam? Will running roller lifters on a flat tappet cam hurt anything?

Thanks,

Hurst