Timing Chain Jumped?

["Sokoloff, Jim" <Jim-Sokoloff@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>I have an '85 Spider Veloce with about 120,000 miles and one night it
stalled
>just after start up and after I had let out the clutch and went about five
>feet (no romping ... just a regular easy start). The engine seemed to be
>running perfectly before it died. There were not any funny sounds which
came
>from the engine as it died. Anyway, to make a long story short, I did some
>troubleshooting and figured out that the timing is way off. When the #1
>cylinder is at TDC, the rotor contact is pointing at the #4 spark plug
contact
>point or 1/4 revolution of the distributor from where the #1 spark plug
>contact point is. Is it a reasonable assumption to say the timing chain
jumped
>a gear (or broke)? Any other possibilities? Any suggestions on a fix?

My '86 (mechanically identical to yours) recently destroyed its distributor,
causing an instant death. My case was the distributor bushings wore to the
point of allowing WAY excessive runout on the rotor drive. Eventually, the
planets lined up just right and the rotor impacted the cap (which is
mechanically soundly fastened) and destroyed the inside of the cap, the
rotor, and blew apart the "key" that makes the rotor only go on one way.