I drive a 1985 Camaro sport with a carbureted (Rochester E4ME) 305, completely stock engine. A few weeks ago, coolant was leaking out of the intake gaskets and dripping down and burning on the exhaust manifold, making an awful smell and a LOT of steam/smoke. So I changed the gaskets out. That was the easy part. After putting everything back in the way it's supposed to (or the way I think it was supposed to) the car won't start. It'll crank and crank, but it won't do anything. I even put in a new distributor cap. At first I thought I messed up the ignition timing when I reinstalled the distributor, but after triple checking and reinstalling it 3 times I think it's safe to say that's not the problem. The car will crank over, and when you spray starter fluid into it, you might get a second of life out of it before it backfires. Even with the pedal to the metal it won't stay running. I suspect it has something to do with the emissions hoses. I'll admit that I have no idea how any of the emissions stuff works, and there were a few hoses where I couldn't remember where they went, so I plugged them up with screws in an attempt to at least get it running for a few minutes. It has the emissions code UBF, which I can't find any videos about or pictures. The diagrams mean nothing to me because I have no idea what they are. Maybe since it's a CC quadrajet carb it requires some kind of info from the hoses? Maybe there's something else I completely overlooked. Any help is greatly appreciated (I really want to drive this bad boy).

 

Sounds like the dist is installed 180° off.

Disconnect the 12V feed to the dist. Remove the #1 spark plug. Have your assistant bump the motor in small increments until compression comes out of that hole, then until the timing mark is at about 20° BTDC. Look at which plug wire terminal the rotor is pointing to, It should be pointing slightly to the driver's side from straight ahead.

 

So I should install the distributor at 20°? I've been doing it when it's at 0° so the rotor lines up with the number one terminal on the cap., so it's at exactly TDC. That's what I thought I was supposed to do lol. It was on the compression stroke, so I got that right. It's also really hard to see the timing marks, you have to kind of feel around with you finger for the mark and the big groove. You might be onto something.

 

Okay so I just did exactly as you suggested, I had it at around 15-20° BTDC on the compression stroke, llined the #1 terminal on the cap to the rotor, and the engine still won't do anything. I'm really at a loss. It sounds like it's a timing problem but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

 

No suggestions other than the above to determine if the distributor has been dropped in correctly.

Just to see if everything is working, pull out the #1 spark plug. Put the wire back on it and ground the plug. Cranking the engine over should make the plug fire. If things are bad like you say it is then the engine still should not start. Using a timing light on the #1 plug wire with the plug still grounded, watch the timing marks as the engine is being cranked over. Technically, the #1 plug should fire when you see the timing mark somewhere on the pointer area.

Also double check the plug wire firing order. #1 plug wire should be roughly in the 5 o'clock position. Plug wires go around the cap clockwise 18436572 and don't mix up 5 and 7