[Spridgets] Racer guys Engine help

[Mike Rambour]

  40 years ago when I was a stupid teenager who knew it all, I spent 2 
days trying to get a engine to fire, it kept spitting back through the 
carbs and not running.  On the second day I was going through everything 
and checking valve clearances...Following the firing order 1,3,4,2   
then my girlfriend said "if 3 comes after 1, why did 4 intake valve open 
?" or something like that.   40 years and I still hear about it from her 
(married 36 years now).

  Some idiot has put in a new cam that had a different firing order,  
1,2,4,3 is what the cam was, I have no idea where that cam came from it 
was in the boxes with the block and other motor parts when I bought the 
basket case and I never checked it just assumed it was right.   So check 
your firing order !   take off the valve cover, set motor at TDC and 
double check valve timing, then rotate motor watching both valves and 
rotor on distributor (I think you said it was electronic so oops if it 
is).   This will take 5 minutes to do and eliminate a 1,000 possible 
things wrong and you will now be able to diagnose from a known starting 
point.  And keep your gf away or she might fix it and remind you for 
decades.

  I personally can't imagine how a carb could cause backfiring through 
the carbs unless you forgot to put parts in or like that. So for fire to 
get to the carb it has to be valve timing is way off or ignition timing 
is way off.  Yeah, I suppose really really bad valve clearances could 
cause the symptoms you are seeing but that would be the last thing I 
would check.

   Mike