Hello, sorry to hear about your issue. There's a few possibilities as to what may have happened. So, you replaced the distributor because you lost spark I assume?
What did the distributor teeth look like when you pulled the old one out? were they all chewed up or have any damage to them?
With the timing mark being off to the left, it sounds like the distributor is off a tooth or so. It can be difficult to line them up perfectly sometimes. What you can do is get the #1 Cylinder up to Top Dead Center (TDC) and pull the distributor cap off and make sure it's at the #1 exactly. I will post the cylinder layout below and the firing order. Another possibility is that the crankshaft harmonic balancer has broken free and shifted where the TDC mark is. This would throw the timing off because the crankshaft is not actually lined up correctly, especially on an older vehicle like this.
But take out the #1 spark plug and turn the engine over by hand until you feel compression coming from the #1 sparkplug hole and the harmonic balancer should be getting close to the TDC mark, so line that up. Then recheck where the distributor rotor is pointing. It should be exactly at the #1 spark plus wire position. If it is not, then the distributor is off by a tooth or 2, or the harmonic balancer has spun.
There are 2 other possibilities too but check the first up top.
When an engine is running super lean, the ECM will retard ignition timing, and by unplugging the ESP you're taking away the engine ECMs ability to control spark timing. Thats an extreme case though.
Also check that the distributor you got has not failed, the Stator Wheel inside can break free and do the same thing the harmonic balancer can do, so again the ignition timing will be off. But start step by step and verify with the #1 cylinder at TDC. I would even take the Distributor cap off when you are rotating the engine by hand and watch that it moves as you rotate the engine. Make sure there's no end play, no damage to the drive gear for the distributor.
One other thing, how did you disable the ESP? I'm looking up the timing on this vehicle, data sheet is telling me the ESP connector is under the passenger side carpet, single wire connector, it says do not disconnect the distributor 4 wire connector.
Also, you have to turn the engine off and then connect to the ESP wire, this will reset the timing and give the ECM control.
https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-a-harmonic-balancer-works
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Monday, January 10th, 2022 AT 9:19 AM
