I recently put a low mileage motor in my car also a turbo. have not yet got it running. get crank and cams in time go to crank and distributor jumps. I crank on car it backfires and It will be at #1 cylinder and go to #6. So I took the cap off and had someone watch it and it will not do it unless cap is on. Recently it only does it ocasionally but car wont start and I have tried changing distributors. Any ideas at all anyone?

 

Slipping Timing Belt?

 

If it's doing it with multiple dizzys, then check the gears on the cam and the timing belt.
going to have to pull the valve cover and/or timing covers to find anything else out.

 

guess I should have mentioned timing belt is not slipping or valves would be bent and lose compression and I had the heads off to resurface them and check all the valves and cam gears were in great shape

 

then you've got multiple defective distributors.
If the cam gears are in good shape and the engine is staying in time, then the only thing you can have wrong is the dizzy itself. there's not many joints in this chain here.

do you have the proper dizzy, cap, and rotor? is the rotor secured properly?
Is the gear on the other end of the dizzy secured properly and in good shape?

 

Late last year, I messed up a distributor when I was changing the rotor. Even though I took that little screw out that holds the rotor to the shaft it wouldn't budge. So I wiggled it left/right and then I finally got it off.

I put a new rotor on, and the timing was way advanced (even though I didn't adjust the distributor for timing). So I retarded it far back as I could. Still advanced, but way retarded during warm up for some reason....

Long story short, I messed up the distributor. I could "wiggle" the rotor about 10-15 degees in each direction (with screw in place). I got a used distributor, and it was fine again.