you got a crx like me.
1. warm up the engine
2. shut the engine off
2. hook up the timing light (the pick-up thingie goes on #1 spark plug wire, the wire closest to your timing belt cover, furthest from your distributor). the pos. and neg. wires get clamped to your battery terminals.
3. find the yellow covered plug by your driver side fender. its got a yellowcap on it. take off the cap, and place a wire or paper clip across the two wires inside. this prevents the ecu from automatically adjusting the timing.
4. start the engine. let the idle stabilize.
5. grab the timing gun, pull the trigger and aim it at the timing pointers on your timing belt cover. they are little triangular pieces jutting out from the plastic. \/ get the marks aligned in your sight, like this: \/|\/.
6. now, look at the crankshaft pulley (while pulling the trigger), and see where the marks on the pulley are in comparison to the pointers. there are 3 visible marks that look like this: | | | when the timing is to spec, the middle mark will line up with the pointers. the other two marks are +2 degrees and -2 degrees.
7. with engine stil running, loosen the three distributor adjusting bolts (you wil need a 12mm socket wrench with an extension, and a 12mm hand wrench for the top bolt). now, you need to rotate the distributor either towards the interior (advance) or towards the bumper (retard). you may need to tap the dist. lightly to get it loose.
(in your case, it sounds like its too advanced, so i would retard it.)
rotating it 1/16" will change it about 1 or 2 degrees. when you think it might be close...tighten the top bolt and go check the marks with the timing gun. your engine is running this whole time. keep adjusting till the marks line up.
if you want to set it to 2 degrees advanced, line it up to the mark closest to your front bumper.
8. once its set, retighten the bolts and then recheck to make sure it hasnt moved while you retightened.
9. shut off the engine, remove the jumper paper-clip or wire from the 2P connector, and replace the yellow cap.
10. test drive.