I just replaced the head and gasket. Head was warped 0.020" after an overheat event . Now, Car won't start. Cranks OK. Has good compression, strong spark. I tried starting fluid. then I poured gas in the throttle body. No start. no backfire. Once I got a couple rumbles like it was firing.
Tonight I pulled the timing chain cover and the timing marks line up OK. That was my last hope. what else should I check???

could u have the wires mixed up? i recently did mine and it wouldnt do anything til i got those right

Wires are OK - I checked them after reading the string you had. That pictures sure helped. I was thinking that could be it since a previous mechanic replaced the plugs and wires thinking that was all that was wrong.

Is it possible to have spark but the wrong timing? I know may GM engines (like 3800) will 'guess' at the spark timing if the crank or cam sensors are bad. I guess I'll check them ohms of the sensors tonight.

hey just letting you kno i looked at the pics of the coils and got the numbers and figured out the firing order and even when i did that and switched around my plug wires it still ran like crap i finally did find a good combo

So is the picture wrong? Mine has the numbers in the same order.