Ignition Timing Weirdness and Meyhem Options

[JDM-IS-THE-NEW-R...]

Hey Mangs,

This is my first post here.

I've owned a few 6th gen Celicas in the past. I've been building Del Sols and CRXs the last six / seven years so I've been out of the Toyota loop for a while. A few months ago, I picked up a 91 Celica GT for dirt cheap. Had a few cosmetic issues but ran like a top..and I'm not kidding when I say dirt cheap. It was ridiculous. I beat on it all summer and plan on beating on it all winter. Of course, I'd rather it was a 6th gen..but I couldn't pass this up. All I did to it was change the oil, coolant, buy new plugs and verify the ignition timing, etc.

Anyway, the trusty 5SFE's dizzy oil seal started going and I was getting dizzy caps full of oil as well as the misfires that come along with that. I really didn't want to take the dizzy apart and change the seal when I knew that was the original distributor..so I ordered a whole new dizzy and threw it on yesterday. I snagged a set of igniton wires as well..so it has new plugs, wires, dizzy..the only thing from the ignition system that hasn't been replaced is the ignition coil on the firewall.

After throwing the dizzy and wires on, I jumped the connector and got the timing gun out to set the ignition timing. This is where the weirdness begins. I set the dizzy "roughly" where it was at when it sat at 10* BTDC prior to all of this. After the engine warmed up, I hit it with the gun and it read UNDER 0*. So I went over and cranked the dizzy..and with it maxed out completely, it's sitting about 0* - 2* BTDC. The car runs okay. Smooth. But lacks the torque it had.

My only conclusion is that while I was driving it this past week before swapping the dizzy out, it jumped a tooth and is running a tooth or more retarded which isn't allowing me to advance the timing any higher.

QUESTION - Is there anything that could cause this with a '91 5SFE that I'm forgetting? I don't think so...but I thought I'd ask the guys that are fresh on these motors.

Here are the facts -
*Ignition timing was set to 10* by me prior to this.
*It was capable of being advanced to 15* and beyond..so there was plenty of room
*Car did, however, seem to lack a little torque in the days coming up to swapping out the dizzy..however, I thought it was the oil saturating it and causing ignition issues.
*The only changes to the engine recently have been the plugs and wires.
*The power steering pump was leaking and dumping fluid in the timing belt area.
*I know this is a 6th gen forum and my car is a 5th gen..but it's essentially the same motor and I know this forum is probably more active.

So...Jumped a tooth? I don't see any other answer.

Thanks in advance.

[JDM-IS-THE-NEW-R...]

This was moved from Engine/Transmission/Maintenance to off-topic.

[Bitter]

Aftermarket distributors are known to be junk pretty often, replace the seal inside the factory one and reinstall it or just reinstall it as is to check how it works with it.

[JDM-IS-THE-NEW-R...]

Yeah, I can do that.
I once got a distributor that was keyed 180* out from the factory. Of course, the car didn't run at all.
If this was 180* out, it wouldn't start. I don't know what else inside these dizzys could cause the timing to read so low.

I'm gonna throw that dizzy in tonight and see what happens.