drce500

i bought a 66 off a buddy who owned the car since 90.he doesnt remember much of the engine he put in it then except its a ford motorsport 302 with ford aluminum carb manifold.he thinks its basicly a 5.0 roller crate engine.he bought new at ford.he also put on an oem ford serpentine belt drive.my problem,it has an alum timing cover with cast in timing pointer on drivers side,4 bolt balancer.car will not run set at the 10 deg mark but has an added mark at about 70 deg where it runs great,starts good,etc.and on this mark with vac hooked up my gun shows correct total timing.could the balancer be off something with a pass. side pointer and remarked for the drivers side?my buddy is in 70s and doesnt remember the story!im just trying to keep from pulling plugs and figuring true tdc on balancer.this is my first ford so a little puzzled.

groho

you have no choice but to pull the plug and find TDC. Originally, I'm not a ford guy, but I believe SBF runs a couple of different firing orders which would explain for the balancer. This is something the die-hard-blue are gonna have to answer.

2+2GT

TDC is easy to find on these engines. Remove the center bolt on the balancer, so you can see the key slot. When the slot is exactly on the top, The engine is at TDC. Ford timing marks are 45° offset, either left or right, depending on year and model.