So I was with my buddy the other day and he was trying to turn around real quick, braked hard, and slammed it into reverse, then all the sudden the car died. turns out there was no spark going to the plugs, so we replaced the distributor and plugs. It ALMOST starts now. Itll get as close as it can get and then dies. I cant figure out what the problem is. You can hear it getting gas and everything but it just wont stay running. its a 1992 GXE with the VG30E. Im a 4th gen guy and dont really know these cars. its an automatic with 154,000 miles. Can somebody please help me? thanks
Zack

 

you replaced the distributor? or the distributor cap/rotor?

 

The whole distributor assembly

 

Perhaps the hard stop shook up stuff from the bottom of the tank and clogged the fuel filter? How are the motor mounts? Is there a lot of motion in the shifter when the motor was reved? Perhaps the motor twisted with the hard shift into reverse and pulled some wires? I'm guessing here.

 

I'm guessing that the distributor is installed wrong, possibly 180* off, which will cause the symptoms you are describing

 

I wonder if slamming it into reverse made the timing belt jump a tooth?

 

HUH? Why? If his tensioner was that loose, then it would probably jump on a hard 1-2 shift, or speed bump. The engine doesnt have to reverse its rotation for the car to back up. All the shock would be to the driveline.


Exactly my thought. Did you set the motor to TDC before you removed the distributor?

 

i might seem like an idiot but what is tdc?

 

[QUOTE=Maxpwer]HUH? Why? If his tensioner was that loose, then it would probably jump on a hard 1-2 shift, or speed bump. The engine doesnt have to reverse its rotation for the car to back up. All the shock would be to the driveline.

The belt is a belt, not a chain. It has stretch in it, especially if it is old. We're talking about a hard jolt to the drivetrain here, slamming it into reverse while going forward. That jolt can get transmitted to the engine through the transmission (especially if there's a lockup torque converter). The transmission tried to slow down the engine, the crank slowed before the action was transmitted to the camshaft through the timing belt, causing the slack side of the belt to snap taught, snapping the tensioner out of the way.
As I said I wonder if this happened. It's possible, not the most likely failure mode.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_dead_centre

 

Make sure that you have the plug wires in the right spots, and that the terminals are actually engaged in the distributor cap (don't laugh, I got my maxima for free because the previous owner screwed up the plug wires and couldn't get it started). If the wires all check out, then check to make sure you have the timing right. It's plenty easy to screw up the timing when you put in a new distributor, could be off by just a bit, or could be 180 degrees out.