Just got a 1990 HB auto and have some ?'s

[SlideSociety]

the car is a 1990 240sx Hatchback, auto witha KA24E. Only paid $350 for her!!! w00t! Just got her yesturday. went through hell, towed her for about 120miles with a car dolly, on a wet rainy pouring down day...with a 3.0 ford ranger..wahaha. was pretty fun. anyways, I have a couple of questions for you

I did a search for the firing order on the disributor. and everywhere i checked said it was

1........23........4

but mine is backwards.

4.......32.......1

Is this correct? Also, the sparkplugs are like pitch black on the ends.

Also, I think it may be a bad oil pump and a bad crank bearing, but...when I fire the car up, it sounds like its knocking from the head. It was dry on oil lastnight before i fired it up, so i put in 3 and 3/4 quarts, and it is reading over full and very very dark black. and after I let it idle to where the engine is warm, the oil level doesnt change at all. has a very rough idle and if i rev the car up about 1.5k rpm quickly, the knock gets more violent. It also has a little bit of a problem cranking over. I have done some searches, But I wasnt all too sure what to search for and what I did find wasnt what I was looking for. Any help or advice would be handy. My friend says that it sounds like a car out of time. I'm not too sure what it is, sounds like something deeper then a car out of time. Thanks



OK. I just changed the oil. I wanted to check for metal flakes and all of that fun stuff....and guess what. when i went to fire it up. the oil light came on and the motor was shaking like a mofo. and it sounded like a choo-choo train!!! anyone have any ideas? i know its not a good thing. lol
Modified by wishin4car at 3:26 PM 4/23/2006

[Aznboi64]

The firing order is actually 1-3-4-2.