1988 1.8L EFI $1000 college car backfires...need help!

My son decelerated to a stop light and then according to him, when he tried
to accelerate the engine started missing and would not go at all. When I
towed it home, I removed the r/h timing belt cover to find a shredded belt
which I replaced along with the other side. The motor behaved to the best of
my recollection, about the same as it did the night we towed it home. Had a
mechanic friend come over and we did compression checks (ok), timing
re-checks (ok), all of the things one would normally think of (ok). The
distributor was a little loose so I replaced that with no change at all. The
symptoms are:

a.. rough idle
b.. starts up as though it's flooded
c.. vacuum oscillates wildly at any speed (it uses the full gauge) except
when fully loaded and then it's at near zero
d.. backfires through the carb. at all times except when fully opened up
Does this sound like a blown head gasket and if so, how does one diagnose
that? (the compression check showed between 120-140 on all cylinders.

Thanks in advance,

Peter

peterf wrote:
> My son decelerated to a stop light and then according to him, when he tried
> to accelerate the engine started missing and would not go at all. When I
> towed it home, I removed the r/h timing belt cover to find a shredded belt
> which I replaced along with the other side. The motor behaved to the best of
> my recollection, about the same as it did the night we towed it home. Had a
> mechanic friend come over and we did compression checks (ok), timing
> re-checks (ok), all of the things one would normally think of (ok). The
> distributor was a little loose so I replaced that with no change at all. The
> symptoms are:
>
> a.. rough idle
> b.. starts up as though it's flooded
> c.. vacuum oscillates wildly at any speed (it uses the full gauge) except
> when fully loaded and then it's at near zero
> d.. backfires through the carb. at all times except when fully opened up
> Does this sound like a blown head gasket and if so, how does one diagnose
> that? (the compression check showed between 120-140 on all cylinders.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Peter
>
>

It certainly still seems as if the timing is wrong. From reading, it is
easy to be confused with the various marks on the pulleys, happens to a
lot of folks. If no one here has more help for you, try the forums at
www.usmb.net , those guys are experts on older soobs.

Carl


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