Pinging, Timing, & a Couple of Other Questions
 

My car generally pretty good but most of my driving is to & from work (20 miles on the freeway).

I took a trip last weekend & after driving for a couple of hours, my car started "pinging" on acceleration. My car never pings! Could this be due to timing or bad gas? The only thing that I did differently was I poured in a can of injector cleaner before I left.

I know that my timing is not perfect. I have an issue with my distributor where the vaccum port hits the fan shroud & prevents me from getting the timing perfect (gonna figure that one out soon).

Also, after driving on the highway for 3 1/2 hours (at around 80), when I came to a stop light, the car died. It started right back up but wouldn't hold an idle. On a daily basis, it idles fine but ususally a little high at around 1200.

Next Question: If I'm supposed to have the timing set at 7.5deg (at 850rpm) but I can only get to about 12 - would my timing be too advanced? or retarded? Just wondering.

I have a 1974 1.8 L-Jet and I'm using a Petronics pointless system.

Any Advice would be appreciated?

since you can't position your dizzy at the correct timing mark, i think you have to reposition the dizzy timing shaft. see haynes manual but the slot in the shaft is supposed to be at 12 degrees to the engine case seam at TDC. that should allow proper timing. that's my guess.

Your timing is advanced by about 5 degrees. This is probably a part of the cause of the pinging. Pull the distributor drive shaft out and reposition it.

--DD