Had a blown intake gasket that dumped alot of water into a 2.8 89 firebird.I thought it was going to be the head,anyway while taking it apart I pulled the dizzy out to make sure it wouldnt get messed up when I pulled the engine.I didnt mark a thing and turned the engine over buy hand to check the cylinders for obvious damage.Didnt see any so I put the engine back together.The chiltons repair manuel shows a diagram of the dizzy and engine placment for fireing order.I can only figure the picture is with the cap off and showing the tops of the metal post.Says to put the cap between the no.1 and 6 post.when I took my cap off I did mark the wires.the no one wire dosnt corispond with the diagram.I do have fire.I moved the dizzy some and it tryed to start a little.If I got it in wrong would it even try to start?Or should I be looking at the cap rotor and stuff like that.As a note.The car was hard to start the one time I started it before tearing it down.I figured the water in oil and blown intake gasket had alot to do with it.I bought it this way.

 

The best way to reset your distributor is to pop off the driver's valve cover, pull the #1 plug, turn the engine manually and watch the valves for #1, when you see the 1st valve open, keep turning until the valve closes and the piston reaches TDC.

Your #1 plug should be pointing towards the front of the car, slightly to passenger's side (if I remember correctly) make sure that the distributor is seated and the cap is close to contacting where the #1 wire sits on the cap. As long as you're close, you should get enough spark to at least get the car started to get the timing light on.


Disclaimer: It's late, and I'm tired as all heck, so I may be off a little on my guess, but it's a starting point.

 

taking the valve cover off on these cars means taking the plenum off,fuel rail and coil braket. looking at the top of the dizzy with the cap off the book shows #1 to be first post back of the screw hole going counter clockwise of the screwhole.the way all my cars have been with the cap on is first hole clockwise of the screwhole.#1plug pass side front most, if its in wrong would my car try to run?or would it just turn over and not even try

 

Sorry, it was late :P

Mine's carbureted, didn't even realize you had to rip apart your top end to get the cover off.

If it's wrong, but close, it may try to run, it depends on how close you are, but you've got like 10 degree window of "maybe" there to work with. Otherwise you won't get any spark on the compression stroke, and the car won't start.

Your other option is to find the timing mark on the harmonic balancer and align it to the 10 on the timing indicator (check your info sticker under the hood to make sure your engine is timed at 10 degrees first, the 3.1's might be different than my 2.8). You have a 50/50 shot at getting it on the compression stroke. Then, set your distributor and rotor to point at #1, and give it a shot. If it doesn't fire right away, stop turning the car over, grab your breaker bar again, and then manually turn the engine until the rotor is pointed at the #1 plug again, and then manually turn it one more full revolution stopping at the 10 degree mark again (your rotor would be pointing at #4 at this point), then flip the distributor 180* and make it point at #1.

I hope that's not too confusing. Someone else may have a quicker or easier way to figure it out, but that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

 

you did good my friend,I went ahead and took the #1 sparkplug out of another car I got and set at TDC and poped dizzy head off and did the same to my project and I'm one plug off.It's pointing at the #6 plug.So dizzy's coming out!Hope I get it this time.Thankyou again.I'll keep you posted.

 

Just have to remember that it's TDC twice each cycle... Once on air/fuel compression, and once on exhaust purge. That's where the 50/50 comes in. It's possible for everything to look right from the top, but still be 180 degrees out

Best of luck, and hope you get it on the first shot

 

got it going first shot.Put my finger in the sparkplug hole until air presure pushed my finger off.then watched my rotor cap,timeing mark and had a screw driver to gauge piston topping out.One problem though.The oil pressure is very low.dont know if the oil pumps not flowing good.or if the presure gauge sender is all gumed up with that watery oil mixture.My dizzy seated down good so the hex shaft from dizzy to pump should be in place right?I only ran it about 2 min.because the presure was low and I need new manifold to flang doughnut gaskets.So bad I couldnt listen for engine noise.Got bad ears to!

 

I'm glad you got it running! Low pressure could mean a few things, but you already covered that

Pump could be sludged up, or the sender could be sludged up. I'm too tired to think right now, so I'll re-read this one in the morning and maybe come up with some helpful advice, but for now I'm tapped out