i have a 355 with an edelbrock 750 carb. has hei ignition. for some reason it will only run at 50* advanced or more. once i get it running and get the light on it, i slowly retard my timing. i can get to like 40* adv. then i have to up my idle. when i do that i can get to 35* then i will only stay running if im on the throttle. i set my idle at 1100. when i put the trans in gear it wants to die. i have a 3500 stall. so i raised my idle up to 2000, then put it in gear, it dropped to 1000. what would cause this? im sure timing is an issue and possibly the carb

 

I'd start looking for a vacuum leak.

 

yeah - spray some WD-40 or equivilant into the carb. If it revs, you have a leak. If it tries to die, you can eliminate vacuum leak. Probably a silly question... but you have your advance disconnected right?

 

its not disconnected but the set screw is all the way in.

 

Either you have a vac leak, timing chain jumped a tooth or two or your distributor isn't in right. If this just started happening all the sudden then I would guess vac leak or the timing chain jumped.

 

I'd be wondering if the elastic in the balancer had failed and the ring had slipped around the hub. Probably a silly question, but you're sure you have the timing light pickup on #1, right?

 

it is a brand new balancer, so thats prolly not the case. the pickup is on #1. i sprayed carb cleaner in the carb while it was idleing @ 2000. it wanted to die. so that means vac leak is out out. its beyond me. but thanks for your help

 

Is your timing tab on the timing chain cover at 12 o'clock or at 2 o'clock?

The balancer has to be marked to correspond with either the 2 o'clock tab or the 12 o'clock tab.

Do a search on timing tabs for more info.

jms

 

the tab is at 2 not 12

 

A little help w/diag. !st, remove drivers side valve cover and rotate the engine clockwise untill #1 cyl. intake valve starts to close (second rocker arm). Watch for timing mark on the balancer untill it comes up to 0*. pull dist. cap and make sure the rotor button is pointing to the #1 tower. If not, re-do sparks plug wires. Being that you know that the engine wants to run at 50*adv. tells me that you have an adj. timing light. Make sure that it's zeroed when checking base timing. Perhaps your timing light is bad (not unheared of) Adj. timing lights go bad sometimes.
Could use more info like, How did it run before? When did the problem start?

 

id like to leave some input but i need to know the cam specs and manifold u r running.That would help alot n is the carb new?

 

well i just did a cam swap today. i had 3 lobes that were messed up. the cam i put in is a .235 @ .05 and .472 lift on both int. and ex. im running a performer rpm manifold. its a dual plane high rise.