ok. I’ll try to explain…going down the road engine started to lose power and there was a big backfire (kinda like 30-30) and when i shut it off it dieseled. Then I tried to start it and it started so I continued to my destination. I got there no problem. When I left I was almost home and the engine lost power again and again the loud backfire out the exhaust. This time it didn’t start. As far as compression goes, the cylinders are in the 115 to 120 psi range. I checked that. there are no unusual sounds when the engine is being cranked over but there was no spark at the coil or spark plug. A new coil has been installed with no change. I used a manual to check the timing gear replacement. As I said the manual uses #4 cylinder to make sure the oil and cam gears and the timing chain gears are set in the right place and this has been verified several times. But my question is after this procedure is copmplete where should the rotor be pointing to under the distributor cap, #1 or #4? Could it be the distributor is bad of the cam gear driving it? Haven’t pulled the distributor yet, but I’m thinking maybe that’s the next step. Thanx for your input.