Help with timing

[BillHilly]

Apologies, as I have never heard of that before. So, I take the timing cover and all that off, and bump the starter until the crank timing mark is at TDC, and then check the top cam gear? I know for sure it's 180 degrees out because i had to flip the plug wires to get it to fire up, and I'm certain it's a tooth or so off cause it runs at higher rpms just fine, but backfires and misses at lower rpm, and I have my distro I believe advanced all the way.

SO, I put the crank to TDC, and if my cam isn't at the right mark can I take the belt off and just take a ratchet, I think clockwise, and turn the cam until the mark lines up and slip the belt on, and take the distro out and line up the dimple on it and slip it in? I've never timed a vehicle but all the hillbilly mechanics around here don't wanna touch anything that says "Mitsubishi."

[SubGothius]

Note the difference between valve timing vs. ignition timing! Your valve timing may be just fine, but your ignition timing could be way off if the dizzy wasn't reassembled or inserted properly.

I have my distro I believe advanced all the way.

This reminded me of something I discovered with my 2.6 (4G54 / G54B), tho' I'm not sure if this applies to the 2.4 (4G64):

When I disassembled and rebuilt my distributor, after inserting it into the head, I soon found I couldn't advance the ignition timing enough to get it in spec, as I reached the end of the slot in the distributor body for the timing adjustment stud.

Well okay, so the distributor drive gear must be a tooth off, right? No problem, I pulled the distributor out slightly, reinserted it one tooth over, and tried again. Waitaminit... now I couldn't retard the timing enough, reaching the other end of the slot and still way too much advance. What in tarnation...?

Took me a bit of puzzling before I realized the distributor drive gear has an odd number of teeth, whereas the other end of the distributor shaft has two opposing posts coupling it to the centrifugal-advance mechanism -- meaning, if you reassemble the distributor with the advance mechanism riding those two posts the wrong way around, your ignition timing will wind up, at best, effectively a "half-tooth" off one way or the other.

So I took apart the distributor again, reassembled it with the advance mechanism rotated 180° around, and was finally able to get my ignition timing in spec!