firebird904

I pulled the newer style dizzy off my fiero and decided to put a new pick up coil and ignition control module for the camaro. After messin with the oil pump shaft after it came up with the old dizzy I finally got it back in where it needed to be. Now I got it all back together I have an issue with the harmonic balancer. I set it to 0* on the timing tab with the widest groove on the balancer and piston isn't all the way up. I took a paper towel jammed it in the #1 spark plug hole turned it over till it shot out and the piston was at the very top on one of the more narrow grooves on the balancer. I know the base timing is 10* btdc but I'm kinda stuck with the Harmonic balancer. When I set the timing with the old distributor the wide groove on the balancer was the one that would flash with the timing light. Is it supposed to be like this? Also how do I know if I'm on compression stroke?

firebird904

Found the problem and it was my own fault I forgot this wasn't like my dad's s10 blazer where the 4.3 has the #1 cylinder on the drivers side. I was checking the #2 cylinder the whole time lol well tomorrow should have it running gonna redo the timing and charge the battery first thing tomorrow one step closer to making that beast of a 2.8 reliable

TomP

Cool, glad it was that simple! The only other thing would've been, sometimes the rubber part of the balancer deteriorates- and then the outer metal ring of the balancer (with the timing mark) slips and becomes incorrect. So I was going to suggest your balancer might have to be replaced- but now that's not an issue!