1996 Geo Tracker hesitation upon quick acceleration

[gorkyb]

So I took the suspected distributor with the gear backwards out. Looked closely and compared it to the one that originally came with the Tracker. The pin that secures the gear is very different, one is a spring pin (the one that came with the car) and the other one it's a solid pin that looks pressed in. Since I don't have a press at home, I decided to give the distributor a try again. I pointed the middle of the rotor to the middle of the HV post and the set it in which made it land pretty close to where #1 wire plugs into. Started the car with the torx bolt in the middle of the slot and it barely stayed running, I moved it all the way to the left of the slot (looking at the torx bolt face to torx head) and it ran a lot better, however still not on zero degrees or 5 degrees advanced at it should, it looked like 10 degrees retarted. So I took it out again and moved the rotor counter clockwise one tooth before setting the distributor in. Started the car again with torx bolt in the middle of the slot and car ran a lot better. All this time the RPM's had been at or very close to 800 and in proper operating temperature. I then tuned it with the strobe light and moving the distributor so the torx bolt is "almost" all the way to the right (looking at the torx bolt face to torx head) I was able to get a steady 5 degrees BTDC.

Car ran smooth for an hour, took it to the gas station and to the autoparts to get a new battery and it ran perfectly. No bogs, hesitation or misfires. No codes stored. I also put brand new NGK spark plug wires.

The only thing left I have now is an oil leak which I'll post in a separate thread.

Thanks for all the help. Hopefully this time it will stay running for a while.