i've done everything and still no go ;( help please

[lostcause]

firstly hello i'm new and i need help a friend told me to come visit you guys
I've got an 8v 1990 digi gti
it ran lovely till last week i was having problems with my distributor and replaced it with a new one from vw along with a new cap rotor arm ht leads spark plugs a 75Ah battery I'm getting good fuel spark and the airflow meter if working fine. the compression in is 8 bar in number 1 9 bar in 2 3 and 4 is this ok? i had a machanic look at the car he said the head gasket had gone? another machanic did the timing through the hole in the top of the gear box but when it started it didnt sound right and smoke alot of white smoke it never ever smoked before, do you guys have any ideas?
thanks in advance
vince

[Conker]

Excessive white smoke can be one of the symptoms of head gasket failure. Keep an eye on your coolant level - if it drops rapidly over the next few days this will be a strong sign. Also, one bar difference between the cylinders is not a good result IIRC. 

You didn't actually say what was wrong with the car exactly - is it stutttering, or back firing etc. ??

[lostcause]

The car won't start at all, the machanic said the timeing was done it started but ran rough half hour later it won't start at all. I still feel the timing wasn't done right, I have been Reading the guide in this section of digi timing he never took the cover off the cam belt side how does that come off anyways? Would it smoke if it was set to tdc instead of the 6degrees mark?

[rubjonny]

if the guy wasnt holding the revs at 2.25k rpm it wasn't done right, not many mechanics know how to do this!  It should still run if set at TDC though, just slow n crap!  1st thing I'd do is buy a new blue temp sender from VW, this can cause the non-starting issues you mention and could make it smoke a bit I guess if the readings were far enough out to make the mixture really bad!

Generally VWs dont just blow the head gasket for no reason, if the car was allowed to overheat that would do it though.

[lostcause]

thanks for your replies  got the car running after only 2 hours of following rubjonny's set up. its running well but still smoking, i found the distributor to be on a full 180 degrees out once that was sorted the car fired up first time and did again this morning which is always nice  as i said its still smoking not so bad but seeing tho it never smoked before i feel i need to sort it so any further help would be cool.
cheers