Spitting fire definately sound like a timing issue, either wires off, distributor off, distrib set in 180 degrees off i.e. dropped in at TDC but on exhaust stroke, not compression(easy to check with a compression guage on #1 cyl. , slowly hand crank the engine until you see TDC on the flywheel pointer. Then look at gauge, is pressure increasing or doing nothing, should be going up if compression stroke. Next pull cap and see where the rotor is pointing. Should be on number one. This may be obvious to you or not , so I'm posting just in case it helps, otherwise, maybe some of the other stuff mentioned above.