I have a project car i have been tinkering on in my freetime, it is a '71 ford maverick (my first car) that i got back when i was 15, it has since been stripped of its 170 6cylinder and the shock towers have been shaved and modified to fit a 351w in the 350-400hp range....so says the machine shop.
he motor is not stock, it has a shaved crank, 10.1 flat tops, balanced, i will call summit tomorrow to find out what cam is in it that will probably help, i think it is a comp cams and it has the 351w firing order for sure, it is supposed to have torqued rocker arms so i dont know if the adjusting them is gonna work to well, im afraid that they will just move out of adjustment, it has the stock cast iron 5/16 head rockers on it and stock pushrods, with stock heads and gasket porting.
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well i have been having nothing but fits breathing life into this thing and blew a head gasket on initial break-in, i got ahead of myself and didnt bleed the block, it was my fault i should have noticed it only took 2gallons of water. got the gasket replaced and fired it up again, it ran rough at first, i revved it a couple times and it made a tink and smoothed out perfect.

ive got over $3000.00 into this motor and the tink sound i heard was making me nevous, i pulled the valve covers to find that i had bent the #2 cylinder intake pushrod. i replaced fired up again, ran rough, revved and same noise, frustrated i pulled the cover off again to find a broken rocker arm on the same valve, i figured it was something to do with my EBAY heads i got for it. i pulled it and took it to the machine shop, they said the valve was slightly bent and binding, new valve, valve guide and off i went, re-installed and still could not get it right, adjusted the rockers, in frustration i had set the torque wrench too high and stripped 2 studs.

I went and bought a new head from the parts store, installed and ran worse than before, changed plugs,wires,cap,rotor and coil and swapped carbs and a new dizzy, still nothing it would run, but not smooth and would backfire on revving. pulled the plugs and noticed 2 of the cylinders were full of gas well i stuck the plugs back in and fired it up to the same thing, i figured i better check the firing order AGAIN, well i couldnt find my Haynes manual, and found an old chiltons instead, well it appears that 3 of the wires were out of place, i fired it up and it ran WAYYY smoother, i revved it a couple times and it backfired and popped, i have always timed by ear and all the sudden BOOM the loudest backfire i have ever heard, i was assuming the 2 plugs mentioned before being soaked with gas finally sparking.

well after that it was not running smooth again, i have replaced all the plugs to no avail. i stuck a compression tester and am not getting equal compression out of all of them ranging from 130-180psi, but playing around with the rockers will make it lose copression or gain a bit more. i am starting to think i may have toasted my cam during break-in?

Sorry for the long read, but i figured to get an accurate answer the whole story needed to be out there

PS-the Haynes manual is going in the garbage, i have since found it and it has mis-typed the firing order in the book
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sounds like your distributor is 180* off

 

It wouldn't run at all if the distributor was 180° out.

Just to double check, the firing order is 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8, with the cylinders numbered 1-4 passenger side front to back, 5-8 front to back drivers side and the distributor turns counter clockwise. I'm not insulting your intelligence, just want to make sure the simple things are correct...

 

It will run 180 degrees off. Ive done it. twice. I'm what they call a "slow learner"

 

now you can add "thread miner" to the names you are called!!

 

If you move the distributor enough or have some wires out of order, then maybe so. Otherwise, the fire is just going to go right out the intake or exhaust valves while they are open at the end of the exhaust stroke, beginning of the intake stroke instead of pushing the piston downward.

 

"It wouldn't run at all if the distributor was 180° out."

I have also run an engine with the distributor 180° out of time. This was in a four cylinder car, and I actually drove it down a long driveway, but it had almost no power and couldn't make it back up. When I finally figured out the problem, I was amazed that it ran at all.