Will it run 180 off?

[spider on the sound]

Hi All,
I have a 69 Spider I've owned about a year. Recently I had reason to check the timing and I think it may be 180 degrees off. It starts every time, purrs like a cat at idle. It will back fire at the carb, and hesitate when you accelerate hard. I found what I’m sure is TDC on the #1 cylinder, but when I check the distributer the rotor points to #4. I understand that could mean that #1 is in the exhaust stroke, and I'm the one who is 180 off, but the marks on the cam pulleys and timing mark are in the correct position for TDC. I’ve had two other “experts” look at it to make sure that it’s not my medication that needs adjusting. They say if it runs that good just leave it alone. When I checked the timing with a timing light it was set about 25 to 30 degrees advanced. When I set it back to 10 it ran very poorly. Also it has an electronic ignition, but I don’t know what brand.
So before I reverse the distributer and risk blowing the whole thing up my question is can this engine run with the timing off 180 degrees?
Thanks
Mark

[racydave]

nope. not 180 off. You should not have vaccume at idle to the dizzy. The centrifugal advance should be free, and have stiff enough springs to not adv at low RPMS. and It should idle at 10BTDC and totally adv to approx 34 to 36 BTDC using the no 1 wire for the T light. Timing lights with the adjuster wheel are good to tell the total adv, watch the eng mark, dial it untill it reads zero at the eng, and look at the adjuster for the degrees. Hope it makes sence...

[ventura ace]

What Dave said, plus:
The camshaft timing marks at TDC are for the #4 cylinder spark event, not #1. That's why the dizzy points to #4 wire, and that is normal (not 180° out). Since the crankshaft rotates #1 and #4 to TDC at the same time, you can use your timing light on either #1 or #4 spark plug wire.

Alvon

[So Cal Mark]

if it backfires on accel, you may have a bad accel pump diaphragm in the carb.

[spider on the sound]

OK now it makes sense.
Thanks for the help.
Mark