I'm getting ready to do a small tune up on my 83 Z28. I've got wires, new ac delco plugs, and an accel coil to install. It's a carb'd 305 non CCC (I removed all of that) and no egr. It's been a while since I set the timing on a gasoline engine (been playing with 6.2L diesels) and I was wondering what would be a good starting point for my timing?

 

6 btdc is a good starting point. If I recall, I set mine at that.

 

Awesome! Thanks! For some reason I was thinking of starting at 10 or 12, but I'll see how she runs at 6 first. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to do a distributor swap. I have (just found buried in my shop) a mallory unilite distributor with the promaster coil that I'm trying to decide if I want to use. I originally had it on a 350 (still have the engine) and it's set up for that engine...IIRC I had to mess around with the adjustment in the vacuum advance canister. I'm using the car as my commuter and am trying to get it running as well as I possibly can.

 

yeah, several years ago we had an 82 z28, and the computer carb was shot, so we took all the computer crap off and went with a Holley Street Avenger carb, Street Dominator intake and a HEI distributor. We used a non-adjustable vacuum advance on that and put a curve kit in it. I believe we ended up starting at 6 and finally tweaked it till it was about 12 to 15 with 37 degrees total timing, all in at about 2800. It ran like a scalded ape, but we ended up dialing it back because we just couldn't get it through emissions testing with that much timing in it.