Hey everyone, this is a stumper for me. My 89 GT will not fire up or stay running unless the base timing is set to ~30 degrees. With the timing light reading 12 degrees the car will crank but not start. While someone is cranking I turn the distributor to 30 degrees it will fire up and run alright but definitely has some hesitation. I am definitely hooked up to #1. I replaced the balancer thinking that it spun, but no difference. I swapped in a different distributor, cap, and rotor that I had laying around but no difference. What could it be? My theory is that the timing chain skipped a tooth and now the valves aren't closed until later in the rotation of the crank. Could this be right? Would a compression test let me figure that out?