Help, my engine won't start after rebuild...

I just finished reassembling my Discovery 1 3.9 litre v8i tonight after replacing the head gaskets.

I cranked it without the coil attached first, and it turned over fine. No problems as expected.

Then I reconnected the coil and tried to start her up. As soon as I turned the key the engine turned, and there was a bit of a bang and some smoke in the engine bay - which seemed to come from the right side around the spark plugs & exhaust manifold.

I stopped everything, and looked for the source of the smoke, but could not see anything that looked like the source of the problem.

Now it'll crank, but will not fire, and it seems that I have no spark (I connected a timing gun and turned her over, but no flashes...so no spark...?)

I have checked the ignition leads, they're connected correctly, but could this have been caused be an severe timing mis-adjustment? :doh:

I am sure that one of you has seen something like this before...so if you have any suggestions, fire away....

dont have an answer but new to site how do i post a question

back to basics;
No flashes means no spark, yes; but did you have the strobe connected well & propoerly earthed, and was the bulb OK?
Seen more than one instance of an ignition being pulled to pieces becouse of a strobe with a broke bulb or connector!
Pull the plug to check sparks, use strobe to check timing!
While plug out, look at whether its wet or not; dry cranking will probably have 'wetted' them, or 'flooded' the engine, meaning no sparks at plug.
would also give big smoky bang if one did manage tyo set a slow fire!
Check the timing; again, and make sure you haven't got the dizzy 180 about.
Did you squib oil in the bores before cranking to lube the rings?
In which case can take a bit more than a couple of turns to work the XS oil off.
But start with checking for spark at the plug, and working from there, back thru the ignition.
Mistiming SHOULDN'T have done anything to the lectrics, but faffing about with the heads, you could have dislodged any number of connections.
Have you got a good earth strap between block and battery?

Thanks Teflon - I will take your questions with me when I go out there tomorrow to see if I can get this thing going.

To answer some of your questions:

1. Yes, I put a small amount of oil into the cylinder bores, and only on the right side (the side with the smoke).
2. Not sure about the earth strap block to battery - I know I did not disconnect one, so I am relying on whatever was there before (when it used to run).

I did have the dizzie out, but I was pretty careful with marking and replacing. I am pretty sure that I am not 180 degrees out, but will check tomorrow.

All sorted now - took a while, but I finally got it started.

I thought the dizzie was 180 out, but I was looking at the wrong stroke, after some dancing around the engine bay - with absolutely no sign of starting - it finally caught and away she went.

Happy, happy, happy.