dodge ram magnum 360 no spark

The smoking ground also worries me.

To test 67Dart273's theory, grab a set of jumper cables, and ground the engine to the frame and to the negative post on battery.

Regarding 64DartGT's post, it must be a hit or miss thing.
I put a 5.9 into my 97 Ram, and only changed the engine and flywheel. The 5.2 computer has been running the truck for 9 months with no problems whatsoever.

How did you time the motor? On Magnum motors, the distributor placement only gives the computer a camshaft position. Timing is completely under control of the computer. If you pulled distributor and re-installed, you could have issues there as well.