Well I recently went to a super ram with a cc 501 grind. right Now My timing is set to 8 degree advance. I'm told by some that I should be around 30 advance. alot of the people telling me are alot more famalier with carb setups.

 

The confusion may be that the 8 degrees is at idle. You want the timing curve to hit 30 degrees by 2,800rpm. Ideally, your timing would hit 30 degrees at 2,800 and continue to climb to about 38 degrees total timing. The trouble you will have is with your vehicle's EST system. It can make it hard to monitor actual full load advance. With a non EST distributor we would simply disconnect the vacuum line and set timing at 2,800 rpm. Start by setting base timing at about 12 degrees. If you have access to a scan tool, use it to monitor full throttle timing as the engine accelerates. Watch for 30 degrees at 2,800 and adjust timing til you get there.

An old school method that I've used many times is to simply increase the timing from the 12 degree starting point until you start to hear pinging, then back it off 2 degrees. Set the timing as advanced as you can without any pinging. Your ESC(knock sensor) will pull back timing when it picks up detonation so you will only hear pinging for a second. The scanner will show you ESC retard. Be sure that there is no ESC retard at your final setting. ESC retard pulls out timing beyond where the pinging actually started. You get the most power right before the pinging starts. Before the ESC starts to retard timing.

 

Typically, it's recommend 10 to 12 degrees of initial timing when the duration of the camshaft is less than 220-degrees @ 0.050” of valve lift

14 to 16 degrees of initial timing with a camshaft duration of less than 240-degrees @ 0.050”

18 to 20 degrees of initial timing when the camshaft duration is less than 260-degrees @ 0.050” of valve lift.

When you bump up your initial/base timing, you also increase your total so you need to have the timing recurved to bring it back to where the engine likes the best total timing while maintaining that base timing.

 

im kinda in a simalier situation today, 91 L98 with a crane 2032 cam, the spec on timing is 6 BTDC at 400 rpm idling in drive. well the car wont idle at 400, i can get it to idle if i set it to 800 but what should the timing be then?

 

Just about all engines are designed to idle somewhere between 600 and 850. Trying to get it to idle at 400 doesn't accomplish anything. 500-550 is about the lowest any engine should idle.

The trouble with long duration cams is that they need more base timing which will also increase the idle rpm a bit. My engine usually idles at 1000-1200 rpm but it also has 280* at .050 duration. It's a race engine and my timing is locked out at full advance. The timing gets retarded a few degrees when cranking the engine over to help it start easier with the use of a start retard.

Use the above reference to set a base timing based on the cam grind. You'll have to adjust a lot more stuff after that to get everything set up properly such as idle mixture, idle speed, total timing etc. Once the base timing is set, it shouldn't need to be changed unless you do a cam swap. If you need more or less total timing, you'll have to find other ways to achieve that without changing the base timing.