okay im going to finally try and time my car with a light so i bring my rpms up untill the timing quits advancing? then lock it in see what i got for intialat idle is this correct?what should i shoot to lock my engine in at also should i block of my vaccum advance i plugged it last year and it seemed to make no diffrence.

my engine is a 440 bored 30 10.1 comp dual plane elderbrock intake comp 484 cam holley 750 double pumper mp ignition with stock springs in dist what is a good reccomed for spring to put in? the car is a 65 sport fury 4 speed car with 3.23 gear at the moment

Disconnect and plug the vacuum line to the distributer and srt the timing at an idle to about 10*. Then rev the engine to see if timing goes to about 35 before it stops moving.That will be a good starting spot. You can then advance the timing a couple of degrees at idle until it's happy and doesn't detonate (rattle on acceleration)under load.

I would just set the inital timing at idle with the vaccum advance disconnected and plugged. 10 degrees is a good starting point. Without a degreed balancer or timing tape on it, you can't set total timing. I wouldn't go much beyond 34-36 degrees with stock heads. Springs can be swapped to have all the timing in by 2000-2400 rpm.

You could mark the balancer at 34 degrees by using a fabric tape, measure the circumfernce, divide by 360 x 34. If the circumference is 22", 34 degrees will be 2" from TDC. This way you can see what your total timing is (your new mark on the balancer should line up at the TDC mark on the timing cover at 2000-3000 rpm.)

First off, are you using a regular light or a dial back style?

The electronic MP distributors have a slow curve (at least the ones I've taken apart do) just like a stock dizzy. The new ones may be different, I dont know. Anyway what you should do is go to summit racing and get the Mr. Gasket spring kit. Disassemble your distributor and take out the heavier spring that most likely has one side slotted. Replace it with one of the Mr. Gasket springs.

On the flat peice covering the weights and springs on the dizzy shaft where the slots are located will be a number indicating how many degrees of mechanical advance are built in. This number is relative to the camshaft, which spins at half of the crankshafts speed. So multiply that number by 2 for the total advance. Then subtract it from 34, and start with that for your initial advance. Take it for a blast. Then add two degrees more. If it likes it, try two degrees more.

So if the number in the dizzy is 12 you multiply it by 2 to get 24. 34-24=10, so start with 10 degrees of initial timing.

Here is the Mr. Gasket kit. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/MRG-925B/

One of these springs with the stock lighter spring in the dizzy should put your advance all in around 2000-2500 rpm. Let us know what you find in your dizzy.

After you find what the car likes for total advance, you can go back and try to bring in the advance curve sooner, but start out with the one stock and one mr gasket spring.

If you don't have a dial back light and don't want to re curve the distributor I still recommend dis-assembly to find your advance built into the distributor so that you can determine what to set your initial at.

If you have a dialback then all you have to do is determine have someone rev the engine until the timing stop advancing (which may be really high with a stock distributor). Set it to 34-38 degrees when it stops advancing.

And once your done plug in the vacuum advance, the engine will be much more responsive at part throttle, just make sure it doesn't ping!