plug wires connected properly?

[jlondino]

While in the course of changing plugs and wires I've become confused
as how to reconnect the wires. When I revoved the wires I noted they
were connected 1-2-3-4 starting at the firewall. Additional research made
me beleive they should be connected in the opposite order which I did and
the car would not start. Went back to original configuration and the car fired
right up. What am I missing?

[manoa matt]

Cylinder #1 is at the front, then #2 then #3. Cylinder #4 is near the firewall. The cap also has numbers on it, match the cylinders to the numbers on the cap.

[So Cal Mark]

just matching plugs and the cap isn't enough, you have to confirm which terminal the rotor is pointing to when the engine is at tdc

[zachmac]

just matching plugs and the cap isn't enough, you have to confirm which terminal the rotor is pointing to when the engine is at tdc

As I just proved on my car, Mark is, as always, quite correct.

If your distributor was dropped in 180 out at some point, reversing the wires would have the same effect as fixing the 180 out distributor. To check this you have to line up the cam and crank timing marks at 0 TDC and see if you are firing #1 or #4 (where is the rotor pointing in relation to the cap pickups?). If #4 then you are in factory intended configuration, if #1 then your dist. is 180 out from factory intended and you can either swap the dist. around or wire it backwards.

Since wiring backwards is working you can pretty much assume you are in the 180 out mode but why mess with it as long as you know that? It works either way.

[jlondino]

180 out sounds like a probability for this scenario. I will be pulling the distributor when I
get the new seal from IAP(back ordered). How do I determine if I'm at tdc if I can't use the
rotor position as a final check? Is simply lining up the timing marks enough?

Thanks for your help.

[digitech]

Assuming the timing belt was installed correctly, when all three timing marks (crank, cam gears) and the Aux shaft are all aligned, it will be in the correct position. Note: The rotor will move X degrees upon insertion due to the meshing of gears. What I do is mark the body of the dist. with #4's correct position according to the cap, insert dist., see how much it moves, pull it back out and turn rotor back that amount and re-insert. Rotor should now be on your mark and you can keep the dist. in your preferred position, i.e., cap/wires pointing where you want them to.

[mdrburchette]

That's a better trick than reinstalling the dist several times until you get it lined up. Wish I thought of that a couple weeks ago.