Hey everyone! I think I made a big mistake. My newly aquired 86 firebird v6 was idling rough, so i checked out the firing order from the autozone site. I compared it to mine and i noticed it was wrong on my car. Maybe the previous owner screwed up. So I reconnected everything to the way it was on the chart...1,2,3,4,5,6 on the cap in a clockwise motion. After doing that, the engine wont start....even bigger thing, i forgot to write down the old order on the distributor..Im in panic, this is my first car and I dont want to screw up anything. So basically, should the "1" wire from the cylinder be connected to any specific connector on the distributor cap? Or can "1" start from any plug? thanks!

 

Back to basics. Remove #1 plug & bring #1 up to Top Dead Center (TDC). Remove #1 spark plug. Either have a buddy bump starter over while you have your finger over the plug hole, or bring it up with socket on crank. Make sure #1 is on the compression stroke (Your finger will be blown out of plug hole). Look at timing marks to be sure you are at TDC. Remove your distributor cap - Rotor will be pointing to #1. Start your plug wire firing order from there around the distributor cap. This will get your car running again. Just make sure you are using the correct firing order.
Corky

 

Alright, thanks. But, how do I bring #1 up to Top Dead Cylinder? Where are the timing marks?

 

on a 60* motor #1 is the front most cyl. on the pass side. take the plug off that cyl, maybe even disconnect the injector for that cyl, as well as the the spark away from that cyl alltogether, by disconnecting the coil. slowly (i mean for a 1/3 second kinda stuff) crank the motor over w/ your finger covering up the plug hole. when you get to the comp. stroke, it'll try to force your finger out. (due to compression) thats the TDC stroke. on your dampener there should be a groove in it. then that mark is straight up thats TDC. pull the cap off and see were the rotor is at. where ever it's at will be the spark on cyl. 1. the timing marks will be just above your dampener, little "teeth" on a groove. unless you're gonna get the timing, don't get worried about that too much. just get the wires to the correct location.

then go from there getting everything back on track.

if you need help, perhaps I could walk you thru it via phone??? let me know.