I have an '84 GSL-SE. Just put a used engine in it with unknown past. Compression with regular compression gauge minus the schrader valve appears to be ~95 at each peak and fairly even between housings.

When starting it seems to fire against the starter nearly stalling the starter a few times but it does start and run. Driving it seems OK other than pinging on high load w/low RPM (lugging). You don't have to try to make it happen.

I set the timing with a light but it still seems to fire against the starter. I verified TDC with a Dial indicator in the leading hole against the rotor just to make sure the pulley marks were correct.

I disconnected the leading and trailing advances and plugged them. Still rough start and pings.

Ideas?

I'm going to recheck the compression again since it has run a little.

 

I have not checked compression but I did disconnect the trailing coil secondary wire and the hard start and ping is gone.

I tried to disconnect the primary lead wire(so the coil wouldn't arc somewhere) expecting it to run without a tach reading but it did not fire???

I tried another distributor (spares are great) but same issue

Any suggestions now???
Coil, ignitor (doubtful since second dist had same result), other?

Any ideas appreciated...

 

Bad Cap?
Bad Rotor?
Plug Wires Crossed?

Also Welcome to the Club

I am Chuck, Helper of ALL

 

[QUOTE=Rx7_Nut13B;8522165]Bad Cap?
Bad Rotor?
Plug Wires Crossed?

Chuck, thanks for welcome and the feedback. I just swapped cap, rotor, and wires from my race car.
It still fires against the starter and pings under load.

I'll check the compression as I was going to do before.
If that still looks good I think I'll remove the UIM and check for leaks?