Whenever I unplug the wire to check my timing the car dies will not stay running with the wire disconnected. what would cause that and is this a problem. It never used to do that with it unpluged in the past.

 

what wire?? you only need to unhook the vaccume advance and hook the timing light to the #1 spark wire. then point the light at the timing marks on the harmic ballencer. and turn the dist until the the right timing is set then tighten up the hold down clamp.

 

the vaccume advance wire.

 

Vacuum advance?

What engine/induction do you have?

If it's the EST Bypass that you're disconnecting when it dies, my first guess would be that the basetiming is too retarded.

How's the engine spin over with the wire disconnected?

 

you really need to say what you have and then ask questions, makes it a lot easier on all of us, or we can just guess.

 

its 350 TPI and yes the brown white wire that is at the back passenger side that needs to be disconected to set the timming the car wont run with out it. It turns over fine and sounds fine giving it gas but dies right after and if already running then pull the wire its dies. The car runs and sound good but get's the odd back fire when it warms up. There is a little slack in timing chain just want to make sure timing is set right.

 

Try leaving the wire connected and have someone start the car. Check the timing right when the car is started. This way the computer doesn't have time to change the timing that much. It will probably be way too retarded.

 

Or you could loosen the distributor a bit, advance the timing a little, disconnect the EST wire, start car and see if it stays running. If not, try advancing it a little more and keep trying, sooner or later it should stay running to check the timing.