Help!!! CRX Head swap didn't go right!!

Alright guys, I have a major problem here and I can't seem to figure out what's going on. I bought this 88' CRX DX off of a friend. He stripped some spark plugs off in the head so he replaced the head w/ a 90' CRX DX head. He never could get the thing to start though. So I bought it off of him for 200 bucks. Now it's my problem. Here's what's going on. After he swapped the head, w/ the number 1 piston at Top Dead center on the compression stroke the distributor rotor is 180 degrees off of pointing at the number 1 spark plug wire whenever the cam gear sprocket is set right (saying "up" at the "up" position". Now in order to get the Distributor rotor to point at the number one spark plug wire the number 1 piston is at top dead center however the "up" on the cam gear sprocket is down at the bottom. I dont know how this could be.. What is going on?? Please help me!! thanks guys -matt-

try this:

set #1 to tdc

set cam to tdc

put on plug wires accordingly

#1 Piston is TDC, and the Cam Gear says "up" and is up.. however the rotor doesn't point toward the #1 spark plug wire. I thought the bottom end could be off.. but even if i adjust it 180 degrees i'm still going to be off w/ my cam gear and dist. rotor. whenever i turn my cam gear.. the rotor turns with it. there is no adjusting the cam gear or dist. rotor either. done tried that.. wtf is going on guys??

Eh take the dizzy off and adjust it sepeartely. If its off by 180 degrees you could allways just switch the sparkplug wires to the one directly opposite of it.

Eh take the dizzy off and adjust it sepeartely. If its off by 180 degrees you could allways just switch the sparkplug wires to the one directly opposite of it.

Hey what's the "dizzy" and if i switched those wires around will that still work??

dizzy- abreviation used around here for distributor. If it is 180 degrees off, switching the wires with the one directly across from it will fix the problem, might confuse the next person who works on the car, but it will fix the problem.

make sure you oriented the tabs into the cam correctly. I just went and tested and it will fit the wrong way (180* off) by bolting it on. It should slip all the way flush with the head with only hand pressure.

mine won't even go in the wrong way..odd

distributor cannot be 180 degrees off... Make sure the line on the dizzy is alligned and then put it on at TDC on the camshaft!

No but the rotor can be put on 180 off especially if its from autozone. Check its happend twice to two different people around here.

timing can be 180* off, expecially if hes had the dizzy off and the shaft got spun while it was off. And like Cjz said, its happend to several people on these forums recently.