my diistributor in on my OBD0 b16 went bad. i bought another OBD0 distributor but the kid who had it before cut the plugs off it. i cut my plugs off mine and wired it up (color match) ..put it on and it sounds like its miss firing.it will start but run like crap. the spark plugs are put on correctly and i checked the wires again and they look fine... what can it be?

 

It could be a bad distributor. There are three sensors in them, any one of them going bad will give you issues, even if you replace it with another old part, because how do you know that the used one is any good? You should figure out which sensor(s) are bad and just swap them out between the 2 distributors. If you have a mutli meter you can set it to AC voltage and hook it up to each of the sensors, when you turn the distributor it'll read a voltage. Different level for each sensor. But if you find one bad all you have to do is swap it for a good one.

 

After replacing the dist, did you check the timing?
You can't just put it on and have it work correctly.

put a timing light on it and turn the dist clockwise/counter clockwise to retard/advance the timing.

 

can't remember off the top of my head, but doesn't the obd0 distributor have 2 white wires? maybe reversed?