Finally had time over the holidays to track down all the necessary parts. Just got done putting in new gaskets under the plenum, throttle body and emissions. Fresh set of Bosch injectors, spark plugs/cables, and new distributor.
Got everything in, set the engine to TDC, got the distributor in dead on the mark, good spark, good injector flow, aaaaaaaand it's clearly way outta phase.
My guess is I got it on TDC Exhaust on accident instead of Compression, so I have the following idea:
If I continue to manually rotate the engine (with the distributor in, cap off), and get it to TDC again, if the distributor is pointing the opposite direction, I can safely assume that's Compression, reset the distributor to the right position and should be good? Just a thought I had, since I don't have a boroscope to check the cylinder head.
Couple additional questions while there's some eyes on this thread however:
1. What is this supposed to go to? I still haven't traced the issue of the headlight/wipers on fiasco, and haven't found any bad wiring, except for this plug chilling out by the battery on the passenger side of the engine bay. Headlights/turn signals are all wired in on this side correctly, so wasn't sure if there was something else this is normally supposed to go to that might be causing the problem?
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2. If anyone has any tricks up their sleeve about manually rotating the engine (minus jamming your arms between the fan and the block like I have been currently) I'm down to try just about anything else, haha.
After fighting with the no-start issue, took a break to do something more cathartic, and breathed some new life into the grungy wheels this thing came with:
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