I got my caruburator on and started up the engine and used some carb spray on the quadrajet... it caught on fire... my friends dad said that the timing is off how do i fix
!

Your dad's friend is probably correct. First thing you have to do is get it close. Take off the valve cover on the drivers side. Take off the dist cap and unplug the cap or coil depending on the style. Then turn the engine over. If you do it by hand you need to remove the plugs. When the intake valve closes on #1 check the position of the rotor. You should be at #1 on the rotor. I will guess you will be about 180 degrees out. If you are 1 cylinder off (which I doubt) then you can save yourself some trouble and just rotate the plug wires. This will get you close then just get a light and bring it where you want it.

<font face="Arial,Verdana" size="2">Originally posted by z28smokin:
Your dad's friend is probably correct. First thing you have to do is get it close. Take off the valve cover on the drivers side. Take off the dist cap and unplug the cap or coil depending on the style. Then turn the engine over. If you do it by hand you need to remove the plugs. When the intake valve closes on #1 check the position of the rotor. You should be at #1 on the rotor. I will guess you will be about 180 degrees out. If you are 1 cylinder off (which I doubt) then you can save yourself some trouble and just rotate the plug wires. This will get you close then just get a light and bring it where you want it.</font>

Huuuu??? Intake valve closes around 12-30° after BDC. If anything that would be around 150° advanced!

a much easier way is remove #1 plug, rotate the motor clockwise till you feel compression building and it should blow your thumb off the #1 spark plug hole. Stop rotating the motor when the balancer reads about 10° before TDC, THEN set your distributor/rotor to point at #1 plug tower on the cap.

<font face="Arial,Verdana" size="2">Originally posted by 71sloprime:
I got my caruburator on and started up the engine and used some carb spray on the quadrajet... it caught on fire... my friends dad said that the timing is off how do i fix
!</font>

With a timing light.

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Its always been easier for me to take the valve cover off wait till the #1 intake closes then look down at the tab rotate a little until the mark is alligned

Mwilson, not sure if you know it or not but when the intake valve closes the piston is all the way at the bottom of the cylinder. This is NOT when the rotor should be pointing to the #1 cylinder. The rotor points to and fires the #1 cylinder after the compression stroke is complete and piston is at the TOP of the cylinder.

71sloprime,
The absolute easiest way is EXACTLY what Marv said. Remove the #1 plug (and the coil wire for safety sake), put your finger over the #1 plug hole and have someone bump the starter until you feel pressure pushing on your finger. Look at the balancer and align the timing mark to 10* BTDC. NOW you remove the distributor and re-install it with the rotor facing the #1 lug on the cap. Reinstall the #1 plug, plug wire and coil wire. This will put your timing at 10* BTDC and it will fire right up. Now you will need to use a timing light to fine tune the timing.
The whole procedure takes about 10-15 minutes and you're done, good luck!

<font face="Arial,Verdana" size="2">Originally posted by N-Memory:
Mwilson, not sure if you know it or not but when the intake valve closes the piston is all the way at the bottom of the cylinder. This is NOT when the rotor should be pointing to the #1 cylinder. The rotor points to and fires the #1 cylinder after the compression stroke is complete and piston is at the TOP of the cylinder.

71sloprime,
The absolute easiest way is EXACTLY what Marv said. Remove the #1 plug (and the coil wire for safety sake), put your finger over the #1 plug hole and have someone bump the starter until you feel pressure pushing on your finger. Look at the balancer and align the timing mark to 10* BTDC. NOW you remove the distributor and re-install it with the rotor facing the #1 lug on the cap. Reinstall the #1 plug, plug wire and coil wire. This will put your timing at 10* BTDC and it will fire right up. Now you will need to use a timing light to fine tune the timing.
The whole procedure takes about 10-15 minutes and you're done, good luck!</font>

When it closes i rotate it until the tabs are alligned i guess you missed that part!

<font face="Arial,Verdana" size="2">Originally posted by N-Memory:

The absolute easiest way is EXACTLY what Marv said. Remove the #1 plug (and the coil wire for safety sake), put your finger over the #1 plug hole and have someone bump the starter until you feel !</font>

To mee in my opinion its easier to remove MY valve cover and watch the rocker than it is to remove the plug and stick my finger in a hole, I do have an under hood starter button with no power to the distributor i use for adjusting valves so i dont need anyones help.

Actually I didn't see where you said that you "rotated it a little to align the marks". I really should have addressed my reply to z28smokin, cuz he stated that the rotor should be pointing to the #1 plug wire when the valve closes and that is wrong.

If its easier for you to remove your valve cover than to remove a spark plug so be it. I don't see why you would break that seal when there is another way to do it.

71sloprime I thought you said the engine started, am I correct? If it did you don't need all this info these guys are giving you. I a guess they didn't read your post. If it did start hook up a timing light and adjust it to about 10 degrees intial, that should be a good sdtarting point, if you don't know how to do this just ask and we can list it step by step.

How was the engine running before you sprayed the carb cleaner?

How was the engine running before you sprayed the carb cleaner?

it didn't have a carb hooked up for a long while .. it was running before when i had the edelbrock on it and then i had to give it back after some jerk stole my battery after i had gotten a flat. i had to try and hook everything up and after i thought i had everything hooked up right i couldn't get it to start.... someone suggested the carb cleaner and after he sprayed it is when it caught fire. so far no luck getting running as of yet

If it's a manual transmission you can place the trans in 2nd and rock the car back and forth to move the balancer timing mark to the line on the timing tab and see if the rotor is at # 1 plug wire at the dist.

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Mark D
1970 Z28
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