Scooterman

alright well then the distributer was turned on by accident, b/c like i said, i did the firewall by the book, it took alot of patience and time and we finally got it perfect.. so my question is, how do i turn off the distributer if it got turned on which caused the timing to go whack?

Magiarn71

Isnt that so the rotor is facing the #1 at the cap?....

Scooterman

ok i dont care, i should at least tell u what symptoms occur due to timing off, backfiring, a rich smell of some sort of fluid, car almost at point of overheating, and whack idle... there i told u straight up... now what should i do

Magiarn71

Gotta have a timing light dude. Then you can get it right on and eliminate any variables. Trying to do it without one is like trying to draw a 3 inch line with no ruler = you may get closer try after try but it wont be right. Maybe you can borrow one from someone for a day?

Scooterman

so after i get 1 of the lights, then what? i mean did u read what i said in the last post bout the symptoms, does that sound right to u b/c of bad timing? if u absolutly no waht i need to do to fix my timing, please tell me, i really need this

99saleen351r

The distributer can only be turned by accident if the bolt is loosened that holds it down ...did you loosen it??The backfiring could be from that,the idle may change alittle to but Ive never got a smell of anything or overheating from it thou.The rotor doesnt have to be anywere to check the timing all you do is clip the wire from the light on the 1 plug wire hook up a power and ground to the light and point it down at the crank,everytime the light flashes it will show you the number on the crank and thats what your overall timing is....I would have someone who knows what there doing do this cause it could be a pain in the *** for you.I still dont think its that....Just because you did the firing order by a book doesnt mean its right.there are a couple of different firing orders and you could have the wrong one.....Did you see the distributer turn or are you just guessing it did??

Usually the firing order never gets screwed up cause you only do one wire at a time and you wont screw anything up....Did you take all the wires of at once??If you did one at a time you wouldnt have any of these problems

Scooterman

ok well i might of found another solution to all this, ok if im wrong, dont call me a retard bc i read this out of another mustang car description from safety problems, the cars ignition switch caused pretty much the same problems i had that i thought was b/c the timing was off, overheating, backfiring etc, so could the ignition switch be going? or could that just be part of the problem, like i said, i read this from another guys perspective... so dont call me the idiot if its totally false

Magiarn71

You need to get a timing light, read the instructions and use it. Then once you see if its right or not, then you can either adjust it or move on to the next logical problem area. Until you make sure its right, you can never eliminate it as a possible source of the problem. You'll use it some other time on that car or any other car, its not wasted $$.

And no, I dont think a bad ignition switch will cause all those problems.....

daver

remove the retaining clip at the bottom of the distributor and turn it clockwise to advance it and counterclockwise to retard it, if you to advance it keep turing the distributor towards you until the engine begines to ping, then back it off until it stops.

MikeHawke

just out of curiosity.....why did you replace the cap and rotor? Was it just a general maintenance deal or were you haveing problems BEFORE you replaced it and thought that might fix the problem?

Also did you do it one wire at a time or pull all the wires off at once?