no spark, screwed up my timing, help.

[seamusac88]

alright car broke down, had no spark, swapped out the cap and coil, but in the process of taking the distributor off i threw off the timing. ie the car reved ever so slightly and died again. but i have no idea how to correct it, someone want to guide me in the right direction. oh ya its a 93 I4

[ghettosled]

did you do anything to the timing belt? the only thing i can see off hand is either the distributor was put in 180 degrees off or the plug wires are in the wrong order. did you also change the rotor?

[Kep]

^+1. How certain are you that you put the rotor on back in the same position that it was in when you removed it? Later models were designed so the post only fit in the engine one way. I'm not sure about 1993s.

Also, it sounds like you may have removed the distributor body without marking it reletive to the engine and may not have reinstalled it in the same orientation. If so, someone besides me will need to explain the fine art of timing your engine. It shouldn't be too far off though.

Kep

[Mike Gerber]

The distributor should only go back in one way. The timing can still be off though. If you are real lucky, you can see the old bolt marks on the base of the distributor, left by the old bolts when they were originally tightened down. If you can, just move the distributor back to that position and retighten the bolts. If not, you can retime the distributor with the engine just cranking, not running. Have someone crank it while you follow the procedure in the manual for timing it and watch the timing marks and adjust the distributor accordingly.

Mike