It's a Jasper rebuild out of a B250 van. The seller said it had about 1500 miles on the clock when pulled and the internals were spotless so I believe him. I am guessing Jasper installed the cam straight up for one, and a 73 B-body isn't your mother's Dart. Secondly I thought that retarding it a couple degrees would help minimize any detonation from scavenging and extend my top end on what is really probably a grind for towing.

I don't have the motor in the car but from what I have been reading they top out way before 5k. Torque is peaking at 1600, well before the stall on the converter. So my thought process was to retard it a few degrees and move my top end past 5000 while timing the torque curve to match the converter and avoid the detonation. Am I on the right track?