mopar1962

hey jeff, ill give it a whirl. First off ya need an adjustable timing light. have someone sit in the car and rev the engine until the balancer stops moving, note the rpm.attach the light and have a friend hit the pedal at the rpm the balancer stops moving while you adjust the knob to this rpm.Its ok to rev it a lil higher to make sure total is all in, not ok to set total if advance is not all in.look at the number on the light, this is where total is coming in at,lets say ya want 36 degrees as an example,you want total timing, 36 degrees, to be all in at by 2000 rpm for a dual purpose car and around 1000 to 1200 in a race car. there shouldnt be any need to remove the springs,its time to test and tune the distributor by using lighter springs and stop buttons in your case. if ya dont have the buttons or springs give jegs a call and they will deliver next day. running the msd you should be able to get away with .060 gap on the plugs. engine should respond nicely, hope this helps.

dparker

On locking your distributor. Pull the cap. Take the dist. out of your engine. Take the spring and weights off the dist..Take the dist. gear off. Loosen the nut under the weights. Then lift center part of the dist. and turn it 180 deg. Put it back in and tighten the nut again. You should be able to see that the plate where the rotor goes no longer has play. Reinstall the gear and put the dist. back in and you've locked your advance. Unless you've got a ton of compression you shouldn't have to run a timing retard at start up. I'm sure they work great but my engine starts great without one, with the timing set at 38 deg.

JEFF69Z28

MOPAR,
IF I UNDERSTAND YOU YOUR SAYING TOTAL TIMING BY 2000 RPM.RIGHT NOW I HAVE BEEN REVING MY MOTOR TO 3000 RPM AND SETTING THE TIMING AT 36 DEGREES,I SHOULD BE REVING TO 2000 RPM AND SETTING MY MOTOR AT 36.AS YOU CAN TELL IM KINDA NEW AT THIS. :?:

mopar1962

naw jeff,if ya just set total at 2000 or 3000 rpm ya still dont know when total is coming in. first you need to know what exactly you have to start. Lets use 36 degrees total by 1200 rpm as an example. set the light to 36 degrees and basic time the engine,now have a friend sit in the seat and watch the tach while you keep the light on the damper. slowly increase the rpms until the balancer appears to have stopped moving,take it over 5000 rpm just to be sure you dont have a slow curve. Now note the rpm that the damper appears to have stopped moving ,this is TOTAL timing.you want to shoot for 36 degrees by 1200 to 2000 rpm depending on the application. once ya do it a few times its really simple and this assumes your not running a vacuum line from distributor to carb. hope this helps because its free hp,take care