So I was working on my car trying to put on a cool mod that iI thought of, and once I finish, the car started weird and there was a knocking sound so I turned it off immediately. the second time I tried to start it, it wouldn't turn over. i was freaking out.
i thought it was the timing belt so i checked and:
the belt was fine. so i checked for spark and no spark. then checked for spark coming from the coil and there was spark. so i decided to open the distributor:


I checked the distributor cap.



the contacts seemed to be fine. so i took a quick glance at the rotor and i noticed something was weird.




the striker was all eaten up. i took it off and checked to see how bad the gap was and


it was pretty bad.
now knowing what is wrong, soon ill replace the distributor cap and the rotor. hopefully it will be sorted out.

 

Wow that's the worst one I have seen!

 

So I got the new cap and rotor,


and the car wouldnt start for the first five minutes.
so i took one of the spark plugs off to check it

it didnt look so bad, so i tried starting again.
it sputtered for a bit, tried to keep going and stopped.
tried again. and kept it going for a bit
it sputtered again and slowly the rpms climbed to an idle. lots of smoke out the back. im guessing the engine was flooded.
my question now is; its still smoking a little bit. what should i try now?

 

Wow has this car ever had a tune up?
Those plugs are shot and most likely why it was running crappy because that looks like a huge gap due to the fact that it has burned a large gap from not being changed often enough.

You should have much better fuel mileage after as well.

 

Oh and change those wires as well because they are original oe.

 

original wires are the best, i wouldnt be so quick to change them unless they are bad.
you could definately use some new plugs though. like yesterday.

 

the tuneup is getting done as we speak actually. but what bothers me is that it was running like a champ the day before all of this started :/ im definitely going to get new spark plugs. any recomendation on brands?

 

NGK Iridiums in the stock heat range i think its BKR5EIX-11, expensive but will last a seriously long time on a stock engine and resists fouling. if you want cheaper coppers than its BKR5E-11

 

Check the resistance then but chances are they are out of spec and whilt oe wires are very good the best replacement wire would be ngk's.

 

If you still have stock valve cover gaskets, I would bet money then when you pulled a plug, oil seeped in. It will smoke for quite a while (20 minutes for me) and run bad for a BIT, but should go back to normal. Those plugs look BAD though. Do that car some good and change the plugs and be SURE your timing is right.

 

Changed the plugs with these:

and while changing the plugs i couldnt help but notice this:


is all this nasty buildup normal? after i changed the plugs, i gave the car a complete seafoam treatment and its running good.

 

yes thats normal. your plugs looked like ****. how could you say they weren't that bad? as long as you have the im torn off, it would behoove you to go ahead and do the vc gasket. it's stupid not to, and probably why you started running like **** to begin with.

 

it does look much worse on the pic. im doing the vc gasket along with the timing belt next.