A pop and a little puff of smoke...

[riverdale21]

Alrighty then. Purchased an E30 that was missing a distributor. Installed the distributor following the Haynes manual's instructions. Once we attempted to crank the car there was a pop and then a little puff of smoke from around the intake manifold area. Now nothing electrical works. What the hell did I do?

[joecoolinatl]

were the wires in the correct order?

what part of atl?

[riverdale21]

yes, they were in correct firing sequence, everything was at top dead center as well.

north of Atl about 30 min.

[kowalski]

sounds like you backfired, adjust the timing, as far as electrical nto really sure what you did cause a backfire wouldn't cause that...

[riverdale21]

the pop came from the engine bay, not the tailpipe. after the pop nothing electrical worked in the car.

[Brew]

My auto tech teacher has a little saying something like, "Wires work great until you let the smoke out."
You let the smoke out.

Check all the power and ground wires in the area of the smoke. I'm guessing that you crossed some wires and caused a short.

[kowalski]

oo yeah prolly smoked all your fuses or your relays or everything:) sounds like lotsa fun

[roomiedale21]

Yeah, lots of fun.

could it be the main connector from the battery to the starter shorted, considering that the starter is in that area. just wondering because repalcing one wire, instead of all of them would be nice.

[cthulu703]

Is there a main fusible link on these cars? If so I would check that first.

[Rob]

on my carb'd 911, a pop and smoke meant WOT :P

[kowalski]

hehe yeah good ol carbs...

anyways umm i duno if they had a fuseable main wire they stopped doing it in some cars didn't they i forget what year... could be... that would be better then replacing everything.