About 3 days ago, I changed the cap and rotor on my distributor. When I took the rotor off, I struggled to get it off as it has been on there for a very long time. When I was taking the rotor off, I was twisting it when I took it off the shaft. I noticed the shaft had a bit of a play after I got the rotor off.

I installed a new rotor and cap. Started the engine and ran fine. I drove to work and noticed that my engine would ping at moderate acceleration like the timing was too far advanced.

It ran good though.

I noticed it was idling really high too (like 1000-1050 RPM)

I hooked up my timing light and to my surprise, the timing was at 26 degrees BTDC! I l adjusted the distributor and set it as far as it would retard and that was at 17 degrees BTDC.

It started the engine after I adjusted the distrutor and it ran fine.

I drove it to work the next day. When I left my house, it was fine. I got about a mile down the road to an intersection and it was sluggish in the low RPMs, but took off past 3K RPM

After it was completely warm, it runs fine again.

The past 3 days, it's been a repeat.

So the car seems to struggle a bit when the temp gauge is between C and the 1/2 way mark to H.

I broke something in this distributor. Anybody have an idea what I broke?

Last time I checked the timing on this car (like 3 years ago), I did set it at 15 degrees BTDC.

 

well im not sure what your problem could be but i remember when me and john changed my cap and rotor and all that i loosened the coil plug a bit and for the next couple days it was slow but once if got past 3k it would surge but still slower than it used to be. Then one day the coil plug sorta fell off and the car wouldnt start. i doubt thats ur problem tho as u said it was fine when it got warm.... but about the timing, on my other 92 gxe i went to adjust the timing today and the farthest i could retard it was to like 20ish degrees no less and it seemed to run better when it was at the last tick mark or past that, 35 ish degrees, now if someone could help us both out that would be good...

 

if your timings at most-redarded are still that high, you may have misaligned distro gears. you'd have to pull the distributor out, realign the marks on the gar, and reinsert it

 

You know Tom, I have a very similar problem although replacing my ECU helped a bit, the problem is still there. After my car warms up it gets laggy, causing me to think the knock sensor is bad but a lot of guys on here have said that you only feel noticeable power-loss on the VE and not on the VG engines.

I've compared mine to the GF's and I def have a lag cuz hers revs up real fast compared to mine, not HUGE difference but you can tell. I think but hope that I'm wrong, I may need a KS.

 

I turned the page in my Chilton's Repair Manual to 2-12 and saw a photo of a crank angle sensor inside the distributor under the sealed cover. When I was taking the rotor off, maybe this is what I tweaked when I took the rotor off.

I'll check again tomorrow as it's late already.

 

What's BTDC stand for?

 

something regarding Top Dead Center but I dont know what the B is for lol

 

before top dead center. If you really think the timing is the problem, then go ahead loosen the bolt and retard it a bit. that should solve your problem without much drama.

 

Before you do that make sure you put the wires onto the new cap in the right order and in the right orientation. Whenever you do a cap or wire replacement this is why you always transfer it one wire at a time and even then it's easy to get them one connection off. Check this out first, since getting that far off timing suggests a shift in the wire sequence.
Also, make sure the bolt that secures the dist from rotating is tight and not stripped and prevents the dist. from rotating when tightened(the bolt that you loosen to change timing).

 

I did, I retarded the timing all the way. The distributor won't go any farther. It's still at 17 degrees BTDC. That's what's baffling me.

 

TOM............
isnt there a litle screw on the side of the rotor? it was that hard to slide off the shaft after removing the screw?

 

Yes, it was that hard! The first thing I did was to take that little screw off.

When I put the new rotor on, I made sure to put some anti-seize (the thing you put on the spark plug threads) on the Distributor shaft.

 

If your interested,i have a good used distributor for sale..

 

I just did the cap and rotor on my max, and even with that screw removed, the rotor was a beast to get off. I was quite careful about messing up any of the internals of the distributor though.