I started up my 355 for the first time since the camshaft break in last fall. MAN this thing sounds wild. 4" exhaust sounds great, a little loud but great. Also I couldn't set my total timing because my vacumm advance wasn't working so I'm buying a new canister tonight for my converted points style dizzy. I noticed one thing though when I checked for spark the first time I noticed it was more of a yellow. Does that indicate weak spark? I'm running the stock tbi coil w/ the electronic conversion on the dizzy. Do you guys think that the coil is weak, or is this normal. It ran great, reved it up to 4 grand and sounded good. I just hope maybe its the coil.

Zach

 

Anybody have any input? I'm starting to dought the capabilities of the stock coil.

 

Converted POINTS style coil?!? Like from a 1973 or earlier car???
With a TBI coil? What a weird combo...
Yea, yellow spark means it's somewhat weak, and or the gap is too far open. I imagine with that ginormos cam you've got a large compression ratio? 10:1 right? You'll probably need to lower your gap to run the stock ignition. Or you can get a hotter coil and module and open it back up. Cooler plugs in there too right?

 

The dizzy is a stock dizzy out of a 71 Chevelle. No more points, this conversion kit takes place of the points and it comes with a rev limiter. I am still running my tbi coil, not to weird of a combo I thought. So your saying maybe get a hotter coil? The plug gap is .040, normal. I forget what plugs.

Zach

 

Anyone else?

 

Yellow spark is bad. Should be big fat snapping purple-white. Yes, try another coil. Get the right kind: the HEI coil isn't the right thing for the Pertronix conversion, or any other points conversion (that I know of anyway). It won't work right no matter what.

Vacuum advance isn't part of "total" timing. "Total" timing = static (what you set by twiddling the dist housing) + centrifugal (RPM related, via springs & weights). "Total" is what you get at WOT, and should be right around 36° for virtually any street-driven SBC. Vac adv does not occur at WOT, and is on top of "total". Usually something around 12 - 15° depending on gear, engine size, car weight, and various other things that affect the load the engine sees.

 

What would the right coil be for my application, stock the car was tbi and thats the wiring I'm using for the coil. Would this work? http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku

 

No; that's a HEI coil. Just a replacement one. But, the same design, wrong for the circuitry you're using to drive it.

You need one more like this. http://store.summitracing.com/partde...rt=PNX%2D40111