New 302 swap problems

So i noticed this guys #1 wire is one space over from where mine is. I cannot remember from past experience nor had time to use a timing gun yesterday to see how close I was, but would it help me if I went TDC again and repositioned the rotor button one space to the right to give me more wiggle room? I cant remember which way advanced is.

I do know that when I did turn dist to the left it was harder to start....yet all the way right made me run out of room because of vac advance hitting the intake but it did run for a few seconds before it died. I am running the .1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8 firing order. Is it possible that sliding everything over one notch might help me?

In the pic my #1 is where the green dot is vs #1 in this pic with red dot.

First thing is still to get that possible coil wire issue resolved.

 

I would just start over connecting the ignition wires. Starting with terminal 1 and procede counter-clockwise.

 

I sure will. But do you see my line of thinking? Or am I confused on the placement vs room to adjust?

 

Why dont you post a pic of your engine so we can see the wiring on it ? You had me going for a bit.

https://www.google.com/search?q=small+block+ford+firing+order&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=knDH52QL1Ebk2M%3A%2Czzk0OeQF0F7OWM%2C_&vet=1&us

Well I was just trying to get the Ford small block one but this works

 

Here's what mine looks like.

 

I would re-stab the distributor so that the vacuum can is pointing more toward the center of the car. As it is, there is no room to back off the advance, and it may even be severely retarded. Starting in the middle gives you room to advance or retard as necessary.

 

Well the firing order looks good, when you put the engine at top dead center and pull the cap where is the rotor pointing ? If it is pointing where you have #1 wire right now (or close ) you are good. Do like you talked about and just move all the wires one post counter clockwise and that will be in the right area, turn your distributor until it points where #1 is now that will give you the adjustment you need. . Hopefully you wont have to pull distributor and move it.

You got it figured out just need a little support to back you up .

 

Ok good. I'm kinda relearning here. So help me remember....turning the dist counter clockwise with engine running...is that advance or retard?

All I can say for sure is that when I tried to turn dist clockwise it seemed harder to get it to fire off at all. Turing it counterclockwise is where it at least tried to halfway run before it died....but at that point I was out of room to turn it more. Hopefully it was almost where it needed to be and maybe will be now if I move everything 1 post counter as mentioned.

 

Clockwise to advance counterclockwise to retard