I FINALLY, after 1 year of building, got my carbd 383 in the car. Cranked it up tonight, messed with the dizzy, and she fired up with a little help. We had to move the dizzy around a good bit to get her to "idle", but the timing still didnt sound right. I happened to look at the dizzy cap and noticed that when we started, everything was a TDC, rotor facing the #1 piston, #1 piston at TDC on the compression stroke (yes, I checked it with the valves all closed on #1). Well, when we were all said and done, the #1 plug wire on the dizzy was facing the #3 cylinder! That just seems like a lot of advance, or does this sound normal?

Some specs on the motor

forged 383 w/ flat tops
10.75:1 CC
comp xe274 (230/236 @ .050 490" 110LSA)
vortec heads
MSD 6A
Blaster II coil
Gutted HEI (Not by me. NO advance, mechanical or vaccum, at all!)

I was thinking of moving all the plug wires over one to the left, kinda centering the cap again, but that way I can advance it more if I need to without the cap looking crooked. It still doenst sound like its advanced enough. Ill check the timing tomorrow when the neighbors arent sleeping

BTW: Whats a good starting initial timing? 14 BTDC? This dizzy has no advance at all. Guy I bought it from took it all out. Ill eventually get mechanical advance back in, but for now I just wanna deal with the bast timing so I can break my cam in. Thanks guys!

 

If you need more advance just pull the dizzy and set it in one or 2 more teeth advanced.

For my timing i also run a locked out HEI on a 350. Im not sure of the exact degree but the line is just a hair to the drivers side from being @ 12 o'clock, seems to work best for my setup.

Its going to have to be trial and error, just set the timing and see how your bottom end is and take it up to 5500RPM and see if you get any pinging from too much advance. Eventually youll find a descent spot where you have nice pull at low RPM and no pinging up into 5k RPM

 

well is locking out the timing mainly for drag racing only, so theres one less variable to worry about?

And can anyone make any suggestions as to a good bast timing to start with? I just need something to go by so I can break the cam in, and to also adjust the carb. Then I was gonna tune the timing.

 

14* initial should be good for a base.

Yes locking it out is pretty much a drag thig as you will kill your gas mileage and plugs fairly fast on the street. but my motor likes so much advance down at the bottom i had to lock it or else i would knock hardcore in the upper RPM.

 

so when im breaking it in, seeing as how it has to be aorund 2kRPMS for 30 mins or so, what should the total timing be? still 14, or should it be more like 20-30 degrees?

 

You would have to try it to know what it likes, i would set it @ 14* and fire it up. Then bring it to 2k RPM and advance the timing till it runs smooth, that should get you good enough for the break in. It will probably be around 20-25* at 2k RPM

Then just experiment with the timing after its all broke in and hopefully not broken

 

Thanks for the confidence bro

 

Your welcome

Nothings worse than the infamous clunking at first startup lol

 

I dont think I got any clunking. Its hard to hear that over str8 shorties though

I readjusted the valves after it got warmed up, cuz I know I heard a few of them loose. And I also hand tightened the collector adaptors, so they were rumblin too.