glowing headers is usually caused by a severely lean running engine as Hahn's suggested, or (as in my case while back and definitely sounds like yours) the distributor is way out of whack. In my case, I pulled the distributor and reinstalled it one tooth off of where it originally meshed with the camshaft teeth. This caused raw fuel to be dumped into the headers and glow red hot. The rub is, a scan tool isn't as effective in helping you with the correction, only the dial in after it's set correctly.

Here's what you need to do:

1. get the engine turned over to #1 TDC of the compression stroke. pull the #1 spark plug and stick your thumb over he plug hole. when you feel pressure pushing against your thumb, stop. Now slowly crank the engine over further and use the markings on the harmonic damper and line them up with the marks on the timing cover to finish. get it exact. Removing all the plugs will get rid of the compression on the engine and make it much easier to move it small amounts. you can reverse it if you need to.

2. Remove distributor cap and rotor. Make note of the distributor's position in the block. The disty cap's mounting points or "ears" should be right about 9:15 and 3:15 respectively. Since you've pulled the disty once, check that it is aligned correctly.

3. Mark the position of the distributor so it'll be easy to install again. I used a sharpie and marked the outline of the distributor hold down clamp on the body of the distributor, and extended the line onto the block.

4. Remove distributor.

5. Using a flashlight, look down the disty hole and note the position of the line in the middle of the oil pump/distributor drive gear.it should be almost 12:00 to 6:00 o'clock with a very, and I mean very, slight tilt to the 5 o'clock side. It'll look something like this:



Ignore the black line, that's the line that I marked the disty clamp and disty position with. If you look at the black line it looks more skewed to the side. Use the edges of your monitor to judge the position and you'll see its pretty close to 12 to 6 o'clock.

Anyway, if the gear tooth is off, remove it and get it aligned. Harbor Freight makes a great little magnetic pick up tool that works great:

http://www.harborfreight.com/15-lb-c...ool-95933.html

Align that gear and reinstall the distributor and see if it runs better. The scan tool can help you get the fuel sync set back to zero with minor twisting.

 

Erm, did you, um, by some chance..... uh.... post the wrong pic?

 

yeah, photobucket misfired somehow. I corrected it, try a refresh and tell me.

 

That looks better. Thanks. Had me concerned there for a bit.

 

Ok, let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. The groove in that toothed gear should be pointing at 12-6 or close to it (also I'm assuming that the picture was taken from behind the motor). That is going to be really difficult to do because I can't get my head back there to look at it (didn't take my plenum off).

Ok I 2 questions and please don't take this the wrong way. I don't mean to sound like a jerk and if I do I'm sorry, I just wanna make sure I'm understanding everything right.

First, If that gear isn't pointed 12-6 I need to take it off and move it until it is. That gear didn't come off with my dist though or anytime while I had it off, but I can see how it might have moved a tooth or 2 while I was trying to pull it out.

Second, (and I could be totally wrong in assuming this) with the #1 cylinder at TDC then the rotor should be pointing at the wire for #1. Well if that groove is facing 12-6 wouldn't the rotor be pointing the same direction? If that is the case, the rotor would be pointing at the #2 cylinder wire then. There is a #1 on my cap, and when I put that on it's at about 8:00 or close to it (look from the front of the engine).

Again sorry if this came out wrong, I just couldn't think of any other way to ask these questions. Thank you for getting back to me and trying to help though. I really appreciate it, all of you.

 

Grab the factory service manual from the faq section here. On page 8I-12, toward the bottom, is the procedure for installing the dist into an engine that has been turned some with the dist out. Following that, is the Set Sync Procedure.... which requires a scan tool....... you should be able to at least get the engine running this way, and then take it somewhere for 'fine tuning'.

 

Have a read, this should help you understand what fuel sync is all about.