I just bought an 84z with a 350 crate motor, shorties headers, edelbrock intake and 1406 carb, and a cam. The timing was obviously off, and the carb needs adjusting but the car is fast and runs great. I checked the timing and couldn't even find the timing mark on the pulley. I adjusted it to 15 degrees before TDC and obviously didn't make anything better. The car now idles great but has about half the power. I popped the hood and saw the headers starting to glow and immediately cut the engine off. Talked to a few people, some saying to advance the timing, some saying retard it, some saying its running lean, some saying rich.....some saying I should be as much as 40degrees before TDC......I have no idea what the cam is, just know the guy said it was a "comp performance cam". Suggestions please!!! I don't want to mess the motor up trying to tune it.

 

You may have a mismatch between the damper TDC mark and your timing tab. If the damper came from the original engine, most likely it's marked for TDC at about 12 o'clock. If your timing tab is at 2 o'clock, which is the "typical" location for SBCs, your timing will be way off.

I'd suggest you get a "piston stop" and find the true TDC. If you need that explained, we can do that.

 

When your headers glow it means your timing is retarded. They are glowing because some of the combustion is still taking place when the exhaust valve opens and heating the headers.

Do what five said because your timing marker is probably not correct.

If you can't get a piston stop to find tdc for a while you can just keep advancing it until it starts to ping under wot then turn it back like 4 degrees for now until you can find the true tdc. That will be safe and pretty close to where it should be.

 

Thanks guys, will try to get a piston stop or make one and go from there. I'm hoping to get this thing dialed in this week and move back to my other 84 project car, changing out the oil pan on a 2.8 V6.

 

Used a makeshift piston stop to find TDC, car runs best about 30BTDC, dies if I retard it to 14BTDC, car has lost power though, before I adjusted the timing it ran rough until you accelerated hard, now it runs a bit smoother but lost 4secs 0-60? If I retard it just a bit, choke starts engaging and loses more power. Feel like I'm going backwards, suggestions? What should I try next? I'm sure Ill need to rebuild the carb at some point, but want to have the timing right before I do.

 

Retarded it slightly, sounds okay now, only doing about 10 sec 0-60 was doing 7.2 but 2yrs ago the guy I bought it from was running verified 5.8's ..... I'd like to get it into the mid 6's again, guess its time to order a carb kit? Car surges pretty bad, idle increase significantly as engine warms, perhaps it's more of a carb issue than a timing issue? Wouldn't have thought trying to get the timing right would slow the car 3secs though, so may have done more harm than good.....