won't start Options

[plost]

My 1.7 914 ran good for 5 years now it won't even fire.I have a 009 distributor with pertronix, no points. I do have a hopped up engine so the guy told me. He could not remember precisely but larger pistons and the heads are not stock. The car was running fine but steadily got harder to start until it wouldn't. The compression is min 120 max 130. The carbs IDF 44 have new kits in and have been soaked. I checked the static timing with an ohm meter, turned distributor clockwise (neg battery and neg coil) until it registered voltage then dropped it, then counter clockwise until voltage registered again so I think I'm close. Spark plug wires are 1-4-3-2. checked em 50 times. Have good spark. Set the valves too TDC .006. What the heck am I missing, spent three days on this and i'm not getting anywhere. Can anybody help me, it's gettin very frustrating.

[swl]

hey Tom. Here's something I stumbled on that might help to see if you have something grossly wrong with the timing.

Take out the spark plug for #1 cylinder remove the Distributor cap and have someone crank it. You will hear when #1 is on the way up - no compression so the engine kinda surges. It will do it twice of course - once on the exhaust stroke and once on the compression. You really can't tell which without looking at the valves but it will tell you if you have the right starting point for the rotation. The rotor should be pointing toward the front left of the distributor when the engine surges - there is a score mark on the rim of the distributor. As long as that is where you are surging and that wire goes back to #1 you know that you are at least close. I found that the car will start anywhere between 0 and almost 30degrees tdc. If it looks ok try stopping it at #1 then pull the rocker cover off and confirm the valve are both closed on #1. Give it another kick over to the next surge and either the exhaust or the intake should be open depending on exactly where the engine stopped.