I just did a small rebuild on my 83' z28 that has a 5.7l 350 in it because my other car crapped out and i need something to drive for a month or so. After reassembling everything I just can not get the car to start. It will just sit there and whine when a turn the key over and not fire at all. I have checked connections, the car is definetly getting fuel. The thing I am pretty sure is the problem is when I was changing the timing cover and gasket I manually turned the engine over trying to get the crank pulley off, Would this have messed up where my distributor sets. I did take pictures of where my rotor and everything was positioned before i took it out but do I have to go back and set it at tdc....

 

sounds like you already know what the problem is, turning the crank defently changed the position your dist needs to be in, set it at TDC firing on #1 and restab the dist accordingly.

 

Just to make sure I am doing this the right way what I need to do is take out the number 1 spark plug which on the 350 is the first one on the drivers side then manually crank the engine over until i feel air pushing through the hole, then just crank it until the timing mark is at 0. When I put the distributor in after this the rotor should point to the #1 plug and screw on the cap.

Also what is the easiest way to manually crank the engine I have just been using a socket wrench on the crank bolt and force but sometimes it seems like the thing just won't go anymore...

 

Disable the ingtion and have some one turn the engine over. Put your finger over the spark plug hole and have someone turn over the engine. Keep cranking untill compression blows your finger off. Look at your timming tab, It should line up with TDC, some times you have to turn the engine forward or backward a few degrees to line up the timming tab. The rotor should point to #1. if not pull it out and line it up.

 

I still can't get this thing going and I am not sure what I am doing wrong. When you turn the engine to find tdc is the distributor suppose to be in. What I have been doing since I have no one to help me right now is putting a piece of paper in the #1 spark plug hole and turning the key to crank the engine until the paper is blown out. Then setting the grove on the balancer to 0. Will this work or am I doing it totaly wrong, and when they say the rotor should face the #1 plug is it the side with the part that goes up or the side that is flat that faces it.....

 

It would be pretty hard to do it dead on that way. Personally I'd just turn it with a large breaker bar on the crank bolt, if you remove the plugs first it will make it much easier to turn. Once you feel compression building continue to turn until you're lined up with 0 on the balancer. Once you do that then restab the dist so that the rotor is pointing to the number 1 firing position. Sometimes its hard to get it in right the first time. Also sometimes you might have to turn the oil pump drive with a long flathead screw driver to get it to line up if the dist won't drop down.