My friend has an 89 Formula that is now carbed and is trying to figure out how to set his total advance. He has a balancer cover and knows how to CHECK total timing but can't figure out how to change it. He has approx. 11 degrees of base timing and the timing cover shows about 17 degrees of total advance. He changed the springs in the distributor and the total advance DROPPED. He said something about the total advance needing to be approx. 34 degrees but can't figure out how to change that. Please help.

 

getting the curve perfect on a stock HEI is VERY hard but can be done, you need to get a curve kit and play around with the diffrent springs and weights, i got mine perfect on the 80' with the stock weights and 1 medium 1 light spring but every car is diffrent, you need to revv the engine to about 3,000 RPM's and theres were the total will be, and he's right it should be around 32-34 for best performance curve, right now sounds like a stock more economy curve.

 

He's aware of the 3,000 RPMs.. that's how we checked it today when he got 17'. The HEI isn't exactly stock. It has a 50,000 volt coil and he has an MSD 6al ignition box hooked up as well. The engine is a 360 with an edelbrock 600cfm carb.

Now you are supposed to unhook the vacuum advance and plug the vaccuum ports when you check total advance correct??

 

11 base and 17 total isn't correct, economy setting or not. Your distributer isn't working correctly if that is all the mechanical advance you are getting. The distributer is sticking, weights aren't big enough, and/or the springs are too strong.


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350 with stealth intake, holley carb, 470 lift cam. 700r4 with .5 boost valve, vette servo, tci lock-up kit, B&M megashifter. Richmond 3.73 gears, powertrax locker, timkin bearings, synthetic lube. Custom 3 inch single into 2 2.5 pipes. 1 1/2 drop springs, 1 5/16 solid front sway bar, 1 inch rear bar, custom subframe connectors, custom LCA relocation brackets. Kobel ground FX, currant red metallic paint. Lots of other stuff...
82camaro

 

Actually he found out the problem. We were reving the car to 3000 and checking it. He's getting all his advance at about 2600 so we rechecked it and it was at about 31 total advance (12 base)... he changed a bushing and got it up to 33 which is where it currently sits now.

 

There is nothing wrong with getting all of your advance in by 2600 rpm. Should feel really responsive by now.