Hi I'm just trying to see what everyone would recommend for the base and total timing of the engine I'm putting together.

355 sbc 10:1 (a little higher like the 10.2)

Comp Cams Xtreme Energy Hydraulic Roller 288/294 236/242 @.050 .520/.540 110LSA 2500-6000

1.5 Roller Rockers

Profiller 23 Degree Aluminum 195cc 64cc 2.02/1.6

Weiand Xcelerator Intake 2000-6500

Holley 750 Double Pumper

MSD HEI Street Fire

 

"Total" should be the same as any other gasoline motor; 36° ± 2° or so.

"Static" should probably be around 18-20°, with the centrifugal adv starting just off idle (1200 or so) and "all in" by around 2800.

Then about 15° of vac adv on top of that.

Probably run better if vac adv is hooked to manifold vac rather than ported, but experiment and see which works better for you.

"MSD", "Holley", etc. make no difference to any of this.

Verify the accuracy of your timing mark BEFORE you put the heads on. That way your next 52 posts won't be the usual drivel about "I set my timing to {fill in the blank} but it runs like crap" and when people ask you if your timing mark is right you tell us all about how "it ought to be" but you didn't check, and then lo and behold you've got a 12:00 damper and a 1:30 tab or something goofy like that. NO WONDER it runs like crap.

 

Listen to everything he said. Especially the part about double checking tdc! A lot of the cars I work on are off. I just had a guy with a brand new engine with a brand new balancer and the balancer was off by 9 degrees!

One other thing. The hei style distributors are not really good for these applications because you can not control the total mechanical advance. Just the curve. The msd hei has 22 degrees of mechanical advance. So when you set your total to 34 degrees you only have 12 at idle. That's really low for a engine with your cam in it and there is no way to properly fix this without altering the mechanism. Also the springs that come in the dist are set to give total timing at 4000. Buy the spring and weight kit and use the light springs. This should also give you a little more timing at idle and have it all in by 3000 rpm.

Also I'm 99% sure profiler doesn't make cast iron heads. http://www.profilerperformance.com/

And i wouldn't use that intake. Go with a performer rpm air gap or a regular rpm. Those Weiand Xcelerators are really old designs like torquer II's.
This video explains it a lot better than I can

 

Ok that makes sense. Thanks for explaining everything. And yeah you're right about the profiller heads (I'm stupid haha). I'm just wondering what my dynamic or base timing should be when the engine is idling? Because isn't static when the engine is off? Sorry I'm pretty new to timing.

 

"Static" = the place that the dist is bolted into the engine

At idle, the mech adv should not be active, and you can unplug the vac line to disable it so you can be sure it's not having any effect.

In theory, you could observe the "static" setting under either condition. It's much harder to accurately measure it with the engine motionless though, there being no spark to make a light blink, so we customarily set it at idle. You can line up the dist somewhat close at least by hand with it not running.

 

Static and dynamic are terms used for compression not timing

Timing is initial or base and total.

Sofa all ready told you. You should have around 18-20 at idle with the vacuum an disconnected. And around 34 to 38 total all in by 2800 or under 3000.

What kind of heads do you actually have?

 

Yeah that's what I thought about static and dynamic and thank you. And I've been trying to do a lot of research before I make any big purchases and I just found out about blue print engines and how they have a 383 stroker roller cam and aluminum 195 heads for like 3700. It has a 30 month/50,000 mile warranty so I am probably just going to buy that and bolt the little stuff on.

http://blueprintengines.com/index.ph...ecs-bp38313ct1