I got this protege from a friend knowing it didn't start. The day I got I took it home and tried to fill the radiator with water, when I poured the water it came pouring out near the passenger tire, which led me to believe the water pump was shot. I changed it and redid the timing, but when I went to start it I had a backfire sound then a puff of smoke came from the intake. It did have a sort of gas smell to it not a burnt wire smell to it. Am I missing something? All the belts are new, plugs, core packs, tensioner all new. Any help would be appreciated ....

 

Without actually being there and looking at it there's not much I could tell you outside the fact that I know when I did my timing on my Protege5 for the first time I found out that it wasn't as easy as it seemed. I thought the timing was correct and it went in double-checking it it was off by a couple of teeth. The crankshaft pulley moved just enough as I was putting the belt onto the cams. Didn't realize it until after I started it and had a similar problem it started but it was rough and had a puff of smoke that smelt like fuel I went back over and made sure the timing was correct and then it was fine everything was okay. Like I said without actually looking at your car and seeing if the timing is correct or not it's hard to tell you what's going on.