holy ballistic backfire, batman...

[macncheese]

in my frustration with this beast, i pulled all the plugs to check the compression, and make sure that's why i'm not making power. (150 across the board, no variation AT ALL...not bad for my first rebuild, eh?) plugs 1 and 4 were clean with a tint of red. plugs 2 and 3 were sticky and black. some of you may recall that when i pulled the head to change the turbo, the car wouldn't start back up. backfired a lot, but it wouldn't start until i ran the firing order backwards. that's right, i had to turn the dist. 180* just to make the thing run, but it started right up that way. made no sense to me, since i set the timing before trying to start it. well, after checking the plugs, and losing track of which was which, and then putting them back in, it wouldn't start all over again. i reversed the dist back to the way it's supposed to be, and it started right up. back to today. after cleaning them, i put plugs 2 and 3 in holes 1 and 4, and vice versa, to see if they would foul quickly. surprise surprise, no start. on the third go round, i got an almighty backfire. it even scared me this time. my friend ryan was down the street and he said an old man out for his walk grabbed his heart and thought he was going to die. my dad was a marine for twelve years, and we've gone to the gun range a lot, and let me tell you, it was louder than his .45. all right, back to the tech. after double checking that i didn't mess up the firing order, i put the plugs back where i got em from, and she started right up. i've also been dealing with a bit of a high idle, thinking that i should worry about the cam timing and the overboosting first (adj sprocket and g-valve both done today). on my way home from the auto store, i forced the engine below 2,000 rpm by using high gears, and it sounded like it wanted to stall out. lots of huff huff huff. i'm going to check all the wires with my ohm meter. is there a way to check plugs besides plug them in and see if they spark? how about the coil, is there a way to check that? should i look at my logic module? any feedback at all would be helpful at this point. i'm about ready to scrap this heap and buy a mustang.
thanks.
tony

[Turbodave]

Is it running on all four cylinders? a quick way to check is to with the engine idling, unhook one plug wire at a time, if the engine speed drops that cyl is firing, if the engine speed stays the same then you've got a dead cylinder. Since you've got compression that would leave fuel and spark as possible problems. check the obvious stuff, like wires on cyl 2and 3 switched (did that one before, oops..) or even just a bad set of plugs.

[macncheese]

will check that today right before work. easy enough. i just put in a fresh set of plugs and my popping through the intake is back with a vengeance. i got an adj cam sprocket and had it set with the old plugs, popping went away. put in new plugs and now its back and worse than before.
thanks.
tony

[macncheese]

since 2 and 3 were both fouled, i just switched the wires for two and three. firing order now 1243 in clockwise rotation. smooth idle, but very high. wheel spinnage in third gear @about 9psi. holy ****. read the whole story here...

http://www.turbododge.com/showthread...168#post129168

any clue?
thanks
tony