Setting in distributor BBC

Alright guys im lost here. Last night I broke in my 496 but I could tell something was off. It wouldn't idle and would randomly back fire out of the carb on deceleration, it also smelled rich. I played around with the timing today and found that I was 1 tooth off. Sweet simple fix right? Well now it's worse and barely runs at all. I went back and verified that #1 was at TDC but now at TDC the balancer reads about 20 degrees instead of 0 like when I marked the balancer with the engine on the stand. The distributor is pointing right at #1 on the cap. Not off to one side at all. Can anyone tell me what's going on?

pagrunt said:

Start off with the basics, was the timing tab matched to the balancer diameter when it all was put together? Next, back tracking, was anything put in 180* out? Another thing is valve train, stuck valve, a lifter collapsed/didn't fill when primed, or a bent push rod. This sounds like an issue I had with a 350 years back, turned out to be a bad valve.

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No bent pushrods, all lifters appear to be pumped up. I press on the pushrod and they are stiff, no play at all. No spring bind, valves appear to be closing. Now that I think of it the damn timing tab was for a small block But what would that mean at this point? I already found TDC and according to Comp my cam should be around 25 degrees at TDC.

What do you mean anything put 180* out? Cam was put in pointing at 6 o clock with crank at 12. If that was the issues why did it run okay last night with only the typical timing issues?

pagrunt said:

Just meant to double check if the distributor was put in to match TDC, nothing was bumped during priming. After "un-fixing" my brothers fixes on his cars, I've seen things work in ways they should not & to this day figure how he made it work.

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Yea I got ya. It's taken me 2 years to build this engine so I have gone over everything a few times. Im not saying it's not possible I screwed something up but so far everything appears to be fine. Wonder if I just got a bad distributor? Im lost so hopefully someone can chime in

Lilbowtie, I never even double checked the wires now that I think of it. I had to take a few off to get the cap out of the way enough to pull distributor. Too bad im at work now I get to think about it all day :x

Guy, all of my ports on the Qjet are plugged. I unhooked the vacuum advance and plugged that for now as well. The first backfire it had it blew a vacuum plug of the front of the carb and I still can't find it so I had to rig one up.

tetomas, the balancer is new. It came with the rotating assembly. I verified the piston was at the top using a friend and a wire. Both valves closed and piston is at it's highest point. Balancer reads 24-25 degrees which matches what the cam sheet says.