There is no vacuum advance. The distributor is electronic advance from the MSD.

The rpms do go down by about 300rpms at idle when the A/C is on. I will set the timing with it off.

 

upper valve train noise sounds is what detonation can sound like. raspy rattling kinda. also, when you adjust base timing its automatically adjusting total timing. lets say you started at 6 and ended at 36 if you started at 8 you'd be ending at 38. i dunno what your final actually is, because its based on how much mechanical advance your distributor has but that shows you how one effects the other.

btw you should be setting the timing at the lowest rpm possible to ensure the mechanical advance is not throwing off your readings. if that means turning on your a/c than so be it.

good lucka nd keep us informed of your progress.

 

So confusing. Timing with A/C on. Timing with A/C off. I am going to get the wife in the car tomorrow and see what the total advance is at say 3000 rpm. Maybe that will help move me in the right direction and take some guess work out of it. I will post more tomorrow.

 

i had a really good article on timing that i had found before but i'll be damned if i can locate it.[:@]

 

I still have not gotten the wife to sit still long enough to test the total advance. I am heading over to Soaring's house Saturday to do some timing testing. I did some data collecting today after a drive home.

Inital Timing with A/C 5.6adv at 770rpm
Inital Timing without A/C 8.2adv at 1000rpm

Anyone know how much total timing the ignition shouldbe at say 3000rpm? At what rpm level does the advance curve flatten out, or does it?

 

The first thing we are going to figure out on Saturday morning is do you have enough cooling equipment to handle that beast. Once that is corrected if anything is missing or needs to be updated we will tackle the timing issue. I just really can't believe that a few degrees of timing is going to drastically change the way that engine over heats. If any of you central Texas guys are free Saturday morning meet us at my house and help.

 

I have done a lot of reading reguarding cooling and radiators. I looked last night to see what size radiator I have in there now. Unfortunately, the cooling level was too high to see the cores, so I do not know about that. I do know it is a standard copper radiator. It is 24" wide and about 3" deep. I have a 6 blade flex fan that is possitioned correctly. After my flywheel/clutch project, maybe I need to replace the radiator with a nice aluminum one.