I have a ford capri 1989 model which runs the same motor as the mazda 323 1.6L fuel injected single ovehead cam 1988 model (I think)

The problem is it is only running if i advance the timing heeps. Its probably sitting on about 20btdc to get it to run. If i set the time to spec the car wont rev, idle drops, and the thing basically does not go.

I checked the cam timing - fine
I bought a new timing light so thats fine.

What could possibly be causing this???

On the wekend i was giving the car a hard time and after a hard take off the thing began to work fine again. The only problem was that since i had set the timing so far forward to ge it to run it was pinging heeps. I adjusted the timing and it went excellent. Then i parked it, started it up and it died again!!!

I have set the throttle position senor. The air flow sensor seems to be woring in spec, but i will paull it apart to see if there is adequate contact inside there.

Anyone able to suggest anything???

 

Two things. Either you have the crank wobble problem and thus ur crank is chewed up and needs more timing to run anything. But the thing is that it falls off completely before not being able to run. Try what i did. I bought my car with full advance timing, sounded like popcorn above 4k. Set stock timing and it ran like crap and plus started cutting out and choking. Turned out to be a cracked finger in the distributor under the cap. It was a tiny crack but that did it!

 

Tell me more about the crank wobble problem

My crank is leaking oil from the main bearing and it does appear to wobble slightly.

What I don't understand is that it went alright, then went like crap again????

My next step was to pull the dizzy apart, but i would rather make sure it is the problem beofre i start pulling things apart. My end up stuffing the dizzy up when its fine (knowng me...)

Thanks