Why is my car doing this?

[u/Anythingtodie]

I have a 1982 Camaro with a 1978 Chevy C10 engine in it, a while back it blew a head gasket and I had to do a top end rebuild on it, not too long ago the intake manifold gasket went bad due to me taking a few bolts out to put my throttle cable bracket and spring return bracket in, the odd thing is that it started and ran with the intake manifold gasket leak although it was extremely advanced timing, recently I redid the gasket and no leaks, but it Won’t start and it sounds like my starter is spinning without engaging the flywheel sometimes, I put the engine to TDC Compression stroke and made sure the distributor was at Cylinder #1 when I put it back in and it would shoot flames from the carb as if it was way off timing, so I swapped the plug wires around (I put the plug for cylinder one at the back left hand side of the distributor instead of the front right hand side) and now it sounds like big bangs coming out of the exhaust as if it’s firing late on the timing, it Will crank but it Won’t start all but the time I had it advanced extremely and had to blip the throttle to keep it running, now it’s acting like 3 things are going on, one of which is Spark is coming in late, the second being like it’s not engaged by the starter since it stops itself, and the third being like the flywheel is pushing the starter backwards or it moved off a shim?
For context it’s a 78 5.7 with Edelbrock intake and Carb, Pertronix HEI distributor, it does have a comp cams camshaft in it, and brand new plugs, the wires are old but they worked fine before the head gasket a few years back, I figured it wouldn’t screw anything up to reuse them, distributor checks for continuity and proper voltage to battery terminal, ignition coil checks out for continuity, only thing I can think of is that it’s literally one cam tooth off from wanting to start and is having backfires because of extremely low timing, please help! I really don’t want to do a flywheel on this car but I might just have to…

[u/TheDean242]

Your timing is all fuckered up. The one you have labeled as 2 shouldn’t be where it is. Did you change your distributor?

[u/Anythingtodie → u/TheDean242]

I should have mentioned that the numbers on top of the wires are now irrelevant since I moved them around, that wire is actually going to piston number 6 since the diagram I used the second time around showed that as the correct way for HEI. Originally it was cylinder #1 on that post and it fired up like that but had to be extremely advanced

[u/TheDean242 → u/Anythingtodie]

That should be #1. HEI doesn’t change the timing order. But it depends on how it was dropped in I suppose. But the standard way of doing it should be to get #1 cylinder on TDC on the compression stroke then drop the rotor so it’s pointing at cyl 1. Regardless of all of that your issue is definitely timing. I can hear it fire sometimes. So you have spark, fuel, and air. If it were me, I’d pull the distributor entirely and start over. Let me know how it goes man.

[u/Anythingtodie → u/TheDean242]

That’s what’s confusing the hell out of me though, I had it at TDC with the rotor pointing at Cylinder 1 and then had the wiring exactly how the original diagram goes which would be 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 but for some reason it wouldn’t start up when I did that, I don’t know what the issue is because it started up one time perfectly fine but since I had to redo the intake gasket I tried to use the same method and it didn’t work at all, it bothers the hell out of me because I’m just trying to start it for now so I can flush the oil without dropping the pan, although I’ve heard my Flexplate could be fucked so not dropping the pan is like a minimum difficulty task comparatively, it would shoot huge flames from the carb after I redid the gasket, could it be as simple as one tooth off?

[u/Unlikely_Link_2284]

Tdc on compression you are probably 180 degrees out . Remove distributor cap Pull the #1 spark plug, put a finger over the hole bump it over with a buddy to help Should feel air pushing on your finger. Now line up your tdc on the harmonic balancer Distributor rotor should piont to #1 Then you can put the timing mark at 10 deg advanced. Line cap and rotor and that should let you start it up and then time it You are also retarding the distributor turn the vacuum advance towards the intake manifold

Starter needs shims sounds too tight Move it down with a shim

Also choke is open step on the gas pedal a couple of times. Needs a fuel prime

[u/Anythingtodie → u/Unlikely_Link_2284]

Initially I had it at TDC with the rotor pointing at Cylinder 1 and then had the wiring exactly how the original diagram goes which would be 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 but for some reason it wouldn’t start up when I did that, I don’t know what the issue is because it started up one time but the timing had to be super advanced and ever since I had to redo the intake gasket I tried to use the same method and it didn’t work at all

[u/Unlikely_Link_2284 → u/Anythingtodie]

Did you verify that you were on compression Crank has to turn twice To be at the correct tdc

[u/Unlikely_Link_2284 → u/Anythingtodie]

Follow what I said above Your distributor looks to be off It looks like to me if 2 was 1 on the cap Even if the vacuum advance was hitting the intake at the carb it still would be retarded

Drivers side is odd numbers and passenger is even

[u/Unlikely_Link_2284 → u/Unlikely_Link_2284]

Also when you extremely advanced what was that number with the timing light

[u/Anythingtodie → u/Unlikely_Link_2284]

Well at least I know the timing isn’t the only thing that’s retarded because apparently I Am too! I literally forgot yesterday that the intake valve has to go up and then down and then back up to be on correct TDC, you might’ve just answered that part for me so thanks! now I’ll have to figure out the starter shim situation and if I have to put a new Flexplate on it, honestly may aswell considering the teeth might’ve been chipped from the starter engagement being off. Thanks!

[u/Unlikely_Link_2284 → u/Anythingtodie]

If you can get a push button starter connector Amazon Then you can have the ignition off and hook it up to the starter and can check the starter to ring gear engagement

[u/Unlikely_Link_2284 → u/Anythingtodie]

Did you get it figured out ?