I was wiring up a tachometer for my 91 Suburban 1500 (350 small block, TBI) and made a bit of an error, partly because the damn wires are all the same color, partly because I make poor choices I guess.

Ended up tying the ignition module signal wire to a hot line. Tried starting it a few times to no avail. Then redid the wiring so that the tachometer is nice and hooked up and the signal wire is damn far away from anything hot.

Regardless, it won't start up, sounds like it's got some timing issues....I thought it could be flooded (can TBI engines flood?) and I'm letting it sit for a little while. Engine sounds like it wants to start, but ends up "skipping" almost, pulsing all over the place, and won't quite catch. I'm wondering if I ended up frying something in the ignition module or distributor and whether I need to pick up another one. Have air, have fuel, it's almost definitely spark-related.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

 

Update:

Dropped in a junkyard ignition module. Sounds a little less stumbly, but still refuses to start. I also bought a junkyard coil, I'm going to put that in next, but can't do that until tomorrow. I've also considered the possibility that the module is bad, so I got two of them to try out both. Still a no-go. Only got one coil, unfortunately, so I'm hoping that one will work.

If anyone has a way of pinpointing what else could be wrong, or a procedure to test continuity somewhere to see just where the issue is coming from, I'm all ears.

Thanks!!