Ok I know about the 2 piece balancer I have been working on chevys all my life praticaly I have never seen one slip.I have never seen one come apart unless someone was using a puller and it seperated.

As for getting the distributor bolt unlose get one of thos special distrib wrenches thats shaped like an L with hex head for the bolt,works every time.

Heres a thread from another forum that might help you.
http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/sh...php?tid/82788/

The guy in that thread has the exact opposite issue that I have. He has problems when the timing advance wire is plugged in. I have issues when its unplugged, plus some minor issues when its plugged in.

I replaced the IAC (I broke the old one while cleaning it... whoops) and dealt with the oil leak today, and I can say its running a bit better. The idle settles down more than it did before, and the lack of oil running out of the underside of the engine is a plus. I'll see about getting a better timing light tomorrow hopefully, and seeing if I still have issues with it. I'll see about getting that wrench too, and try playing with the timing, see if adjusting it either way smooths out the rough running when that wire is unplugged.

Well, I tried the ALDL cable schematic that WinALDL provides... It doesn't work. I'm going to try one of the MAX232 circuits.

I got a working timing light and I checked the timing. Its at 2 degrees advanced when the wire is unplugged. Once I plug the wire in, it jumps to almost 20 degrees advance, which makes me think that the timing mark is not accurate at all, and that the timing is currently retarded quite a lot? Any guesses why the computer would push the timing so far in advance?

As a mentioned a couple of times already the knock sensor.