The more timing you have on the crank (initial) and the less you have mechanically to achieve your total, is the best way to go for pulling or coming out of the hole especially in a heavy vehicle. My bbc in a C1500 has 36 total 26° on the crank (initial) and 10° mechanically in the distributor. It's snappy down low street driving, and pulls like hell down low. You have it backwards my friend.
@@NathanielHatley No but that's what everybody asks because that's what they read everywhere, but it's not with my setup, I have a gear reduction mini starter and have no problems at all. Simply recurve your distributor and try it, if it doesn't work with your setup you can always go back. Before I recurved my distributor to get 26° on the crank my setup liked 18° on the crank anyways, with 20° in the distributor.
Well that gear reduction starter must be doing it’s thang because my C10 454 won’t even think about turning over with 18 degrees initial......I run 38 total, my HEI mechanical gives me 20, that leaves me at 18 initial....which is a no start! Had to add in an MSD 8984 starter retard box set at 10 degrees of start retard.....starts like a champ...... When you give advice remember most people don’t have your high dollar starter and are not going to buy one!
Base timing isn't as important as total timing set that first and as long as it starts well and doesn't have any issues even if it's at ten dg what's the difference ? Who yeah I know besides the engineers at gm says it's got to idle at 4 deg btdc. I've always been taught to set timing to total and just go from that point back if it has trouble starting find out why is it a bad cable that's common starter perhaps a smog type engine which is most of what I worked on over the years loves advance fast early and in big numbers and won't have any adverse effects from detonation due to the low compression as the compression goes up the advance curve has to be brought back and go by engine rpm and octane in the fuel so it's a game of find the right combo that works for your application of course the ecm does it now and all that but check the curve on two different engines and you'll get two different results there are a lot of variables octane being the biggest high octane I can have high compression and quick advance and high performance but as I said before set total come back to initial start it see where your at it may only be 6 dg or so which is fine even 10 is fine 12 eh is ok too if it starts well it's good
Really low initial with vacuum advance connected to ported is for smog engines with air injection in the exhaust manifolds. If you remove the air injection, then you can hook the vacuum advance to manifold vacuum and probably bring the initial up to 8-12°. I've got a smog 454 that I'm going to recurve the distributor on, right now it only has ~14° of mechanical advance. I don't want to go past 12° initial, so I only get 26° total right now. I removed the air pump and manifolds, so I don't have to worry about any of that stuff anymore.
Do all Distributors need Springs and weights I bought a brand new distributor but did not have the springs and weights on it and neither did my original is that okay?
@@bz710 long time since your post but- about 80-81 the distributors did not have weights/springs = computers were added that control timing advance etc. all the distributors did was FIRE when the computer told it to do so…
Is your initial timing set so low because there is no vacuum at idle? then when you start to take off the vacuum advance module starts to kick in? I'm catching Hell with reading both ways. Some say they hook it to have vacuum at idle(fully advanced) and then it decreases as the rpms go up.
You want manifold vacuum which gives full advance at idle which makes it run smoother! Only idiots say otherwise and there’s a whole lot of them out there!
any reason not to shave the weight at the point of contact? thought being, easier to remove the weight shave, replace and test instead of pulling distributor. good video.
I've since gone to an LS swap. I put a 2007 6.0 engine into the 1983 K20. Best decision i ever made. No more messing with carburetors and mechanical distributors.
The more timing you have on the crank (initial) and the less you have mechanically to achieve your total, is the best way to go for pulling or coming out of the hole especially in a heavy vehicle. My bbc in a C1500 has 36 total 26° on the crank (initial) and 10° mechanically in the distributor. It's snappy down low street driving, and pulls like hell down low. You have it backwards my friend.
Isn't it difficult to start with that much initial advance, especially on a hot day?
@@NathanielHatley No but that's what everybody asks because that's what they read everywhere, but it's not with my setup, I have a gear reduction mini starter and have no problems at all. Simply recurve your distributor and try it, if it doesn't work with your setup you can always go back. Before I recurved my distributor to get 26° on the crank my setup liked 18° on the crank anyways, with 20° in the distributor.
Well that gear reduction starter must be doing it’s thang because my C10 454 won’t even think about turning over with 18 degrees initial......I run 38 total, my HEI mechanical gives me 20, that leaves me at 18 initial....which is a no start! Had to add in an MSD 8984 starter retard box set at 10 degrees of start retard.....starts like a champ...... When you give advice remember most people don’t have your high dollar starter and are not going to buy one!
Base timing isn't as important as total timing set that first and as long as it starts well and doesn't have any issues even if it's at ten dg what's the difference ? Who yeah I know besides the engineers at gm says it's got to idle at 4 deg btdc. I've always been taught to set timing to total and just go from that point back if it has trouble starting find out why is it a bad cable that's common starter perhaps a smog type engine which is most of what I worked on over the years loves advance fast early and in big numbers and won't have any adverse effects from detonation due to the low compression as the compression goes up the advance curve has to be brought back and go by engine rpm and octane in the fuel so it's a game of find the right combo that works for your application of course the ecm does it now and all that but check the curve on two different engines and you'll get two different results there are a lot of variables octane being the biggest high octane I can have high compression and quick advance and high performance but as I said before set total come back to initial start it see where your at it may only be 6 dg or so which is fine even 10 is fine 12 eh is ok too if it starts well it's good
Really low initial with vacuum advance connected to ported is for smog engines with air injection in the exhaust manifolds. If you remove the air injection, then you can hook the vacuum advance to manifold vacuum and probably bring the initial up to 8-12°.
I've got a smog 454 that I'm going to recurve the distributor on, right now it only has ~14° of mechanical advance. I don't want to go past 12° initial, so I only get 26° total right now. I removed the air pump and manifolds, so I don't have to worry about any of that stuff anymore.
@@NathanielHatley 454’s like 36-38 total
Do all Distributors need Springs and weights I bought a brand new distributor but did not have the springs and weights on it and neither did my original is that okay?
What kind of distributor is it?
@@27dtrost it's a distributor for a 84 Oldsmobile without vacuum advance
@@bz710 long time since your post but- about 80-81 the distributors did not have weights/springs = computers were added that control timing advance etc. all the distributors did was FIRE when the computer told it to do so…
Is your initial timing set so low because there is no vacuum at idle? then when you start to take off the vacuum advance module starts to kick in? I'm catching Hell with reading both ways. Some say they hook it to have vacuum at idle(fully advanced) and then it decreases as the rpms go up.
You want manifold vacuum which gives full advance at idle which makes it run smoother! Only idiots say otherwise and there’s a whole lot of them out there!
any reason not to shave the weight at the point of contact? thought being, easier to remove the weight shave, replace and test instead of pulling distributor. good video.
I've since gone to an LS swap. I put a 2007 6.0 engine into the 1983 K20. Best decision i ever made. No more messing with carburetors and mechanical distributors.
Thanks! I thought there were springs and a bunch of doo dads to mess with in there?
How did it perform, did you get the needed timing?
Kylmit79 yes i now have 28 degrees of advance