You've all seen my flailings regarding attempts to start my car. Here's an interesting twist: After reading some more and making some more phone calls I went back to the distributor. Despite the fact that I aligned the rotor correctly, and #1 piston was at TDC, -and- the timing light strobed at 13 degrees BTDC when checked, I was slapped in the face with the realization that perhaps I set the dizzy on the wrong stroke. So I double checked that I had indeed set the dizzy for #1 TDC. Rotor lined up, a screw driver showed that #1 was TDC and the pulley mark lined up with "0" on the scale (so I didn't set to #6 piston by mistake). I pulled the dizzy, cranked 360 degrees and dropped it back in. NOW the engine back-fires a lot where before there was nothing, although it didn't start. I only fiddled with it for a couple of minutes. The rain was pouring down, it was dark and I didn't have a buddy to crank it while I adjusted the distributor. Not to mention I'm not sure the O2 screw is set right just yet. Does back-fire necessarily indicate an over-advanced timing condition? I'm trying to figure out which direction to turn the dizzy on my next attempt. Thanks, Rich