Ok guys I need some serious help here. My sister has a 1990 Accord EX that I have been working on because this thing was refusing to start when it was cold. So I went in there, pulled all the fuel injectors and cleaned them, adjusted all of the valves, put in a new coolant temp sensor, adjusted the throttle speed to 750rpm at idle like factors specs say, changed all of the spark plug wires and distributor.

Now the car starts just fine in the cold, but the timing is off. I took my timing gun and loosend the 3 bolts on distributor and no matter how much I turn that damn distributor eigther way the timing marks on drive plate will not line up with the timing marker. When timing the car I cant even see the timing marks at all no matter how much I turn the distributor. Please help me. What should I do?

 

Are you doing this with the service connecter jumped?

Anyway-pull the upper cover and set it to TDC-do the marks (cam/crank) line up?

 

Did you disable the spark advance before trying to set the base timing?

 

Yes I did jump the service connector

Cheggie What do you mean disable spark advance?

 

You've disabled the advance by jumping the service connector.

Didn't you wonder why you have to do that?

It would be very difficult to get this car out of time. I would:

Illuminate the timing marks with a line of white or silver paint

Set the crank on TDC and pull the cam cover, verify the cam is also on the mark so you know crank to cam timing is correct.

Try shooting the timing again, the distributor should be about in the middle of it's adjustment range when it's correct.

Remember, the base timing is usually 8-10 degrees before TDC, there's usually a mark on the timing cover for that value.