[cole930]

Well here goes a "for what it's worth"

First, thanks to Keith we are looking at a topic that is rarely discussed and very misunderstood by most of us. I have been looking at timing for some time now as I think it happens to be a largely overlooked performance enhancement that is nearly free compared to some of the mods we do.
As we start here remember that the word death is actually spelled "detonation" and you need to know how to avoid it because it will destroy an engine in a millisecond. So before you even think about screwing with timing make sure you have considered the following preventative measures. Never run pump gas go find the highest fuel you can get and use it religiously, install a larger intercooler, definetly have a system to monitor AFR's and know what your afr's are always, make sure you have a good free-flow exhaust or header system, consider running one range cooler plugs, and don't screw with the timing without knowing what your doing.

I am aiming this at all us poor bastards that can't afford to destroy a motor
and go buy another tomorrow and run the standard bolt on type mods. Our cars call for around 0 - 4 degrees at idle and 26 - 29 degrees at 4000 rpm. A couple little tid bits: you can actually experience detonation in the 800 -2500 rpm range if you advance initial timing too far. At higher RPM's we don't need excessive timing because our engines are relatively low compression and excessive timing increases the chance of detonation, cools exhaust temps, and creates power loss. Excessive retarded timing at higher RPM's will create excessive heat in the heads and cylinders and loss of power.

From what I have gleaned from a lot of reading is it's good to add about 6 - 12 degrees of initial timing as this will improve low end performance, but once you reach about 2 psi of boost you need to start retarding timing and end up at the 24-26 degree at 4000 rpm. There are several ways to do this. I have a MSD6AL and a MSD Boost Retard in the "Old Sled" which makes it pretty easy. There are also ways to replumb the distributor pot to retard timing when intake pressure becomes positive at boost. Also the distributor can be recurved by changing springs and weights.

Hopfully someone smarter than me will tell me I'm full of s--- and we can get this thread moving.

Untill then this is my story and I'm sticking to it.


Cole