Congratulations -- sounds good. Yeah, lots of oil smoke the first time an engine is started. A little scary but fun at the same time!

I got the motor running today. I put the leads on with plug 1 being the one pointing towards the oil pump (as recommended) and it tool me half a day to work out that the timing was actually 180deg out when set that way.

I kept trying and trying to start it and it sounded like it was spinning really easy, there was fuel at the mouth of the carbs but it kept pissing the fuel back out and occassionaly it would smoke out the carbs.

After realising that the ignition timing was 180deg out of phase I turned the key and it went nuts and shot round past 4000RPM. It's the first time I've ever had it running - seeing as it was in bits when I got it.

Smoke and crap went everywhere. I'd heard that first time startups were pretty messy. It was actually rather funny albeit a little scarry.

the firing order is 1 - 3 - 4 - 2.

get the motor on TDC - and then look which plug lead the rotor is facing to. Then you will see which way it rotates and put your plug leads on from there.
If its pointing to number one cyl the rotor button should be facing in the oil filter direction - if not turn the motor over another 360 dgrees

Can someone confirm the firing order of the A12 motor?

Is it 1,4,2,3?

Does anyone have a pic showing orientation of the cap etc in relation to the plugs.

Sadly I seem to be lacking the ability to work out how to guess where to put the leads on the motor I've just put together.