So I got my AEM cam gear installed... so now I can see the timing problem a little better. The car will start, and idle, if I have the cam gear at least 10* advanced (20 degrees crank!). It will run ok, if I give it throttle too fast it dies, but I can ease it on and it revs normally after the initial jolt. The idle is a little rough, and it will kind of sputter and die after a while, but I think there's air in the coolant. Also I know the cold idle will be rough because the FITV is bypassed, but it didn't do that with it bypassed on the A6.
So when I get it started way advanced, of course the timing is off. If I rotate the dizzy CW (to retard it) I can get it close to the 16btdc mark, but it will either die instantly or when I touch the gas. I think I need to set the cam timing back about 5* (cam, 10* crank) and it will be fine, but the problem is that the thing won't start and idle there! I'm kind of stuck now, like I know where it needs to be, but it doesn't want to work there.

the setup is:
a6 block
y8 head
a1 (ZC) pistons
y7 dizzy
AEM CAI
DC 4-2-1 header
Z6 intake mani
OBD1 converted running on P28

 

Ok, so I'm basically sitting here reading through a lot of Honda Tech posts and such, and I find one where some guy had almost the same problem with the timing, except he had the opposite (too much retarding). He posted that it turned out he had 2 of the dizzy wires backwards, but didn't say which wires they were. Now, say I had the wires backwards for the CYP (or CKP), so they were both going to the sensor but the polarity was backwards... would that do it? I don't really understand how the sensors in the dizzy work, I know it's some kind of magnetic induction, but that's about it. I can see myself messing up the two CKP wires because they are blue/green and blue/yellow, and I'm a bit um... colourblind...

 

Nothing guys? Come on... I'm so close...