60 degrees of initial advance??

[65Poncho]

Getting my car running after years of sitting. Rebuilt the carb. Set idle. Set floats. Went for shakedown run. She idles fine. Not great throttle response, but pushes you back in your seat through the gears. Surges a little at cruising constant throttle.

Then I checked the timing. With vacuum advance disconnected and plugged, she showed 60 degrees advanced at idle! Huh? No pinging. Easy to restart even when it's hot.

I am hooked up to #1 and the wires are in the correct order on the cap. (and remember, she idles well and runs good!)

Used a different timing light. Same thing. Neither are dialback units.

I turned the distributor to take out some advance. It immediately ran worse. Couldn't get down to the teens or it would die. I raised RPMs. It added only another 5-10 degrees. But who cares what the curve and total advance is when initial is 60 and the engine likes it!. Hmm...

Got a piston stop out and confirmed the dampner hasn't shifted. TDC on the timing tape is TDC for #1 piston.

What am I missing?

65 GTO with 400. 6X heads. 770cfm Holley. Pertronix HEI. MSD. Only 1,000 miles on the build, but she has sat for years at a time - 14 years total.

[andrewb70]

Getting my car running after years of sitting. Rebuilt the carb. Set idle. Set floats. Went for shakedown run. She idles fine. Not great throttle response, but pushes you back in your seat through the gears. Surges a little at cruising constant throttle.

Then I checked the timing. With vacuum advance disconnected and plugged, she showed 60 degrees advanced at idle! Huh? No pinging. Easy to restart even when it's hot.

I am hooked up to #1 and the wires are in the correct order on the cap. (and remember, she idles well and runs good!)

Used a different timing light. Same thing. Neither are dialback units.

I turned the distributor to take out some advance. It immediately ran worse. Couldn't get down to the teens or it would die. I raised RPMs. It added only another 5-10 degrees. But who cares what the curve and total advance is when initial is 60 and the engine likes it!. Hmm...

Got a piston stop out and confirmed the dampner hasn't shifted. TDC on the timing tape is TDC for #1 piston.

What am I missing?

65 GTO with 400. 6X heads. 770cfm Holley. Pertronix HEI. MSD. Only 1,000 miles on the build, but she has sat for years at a time - 14 years total.

Hmmmmm...if the cam has a lot of overlap, it may like a lot of timing at idle. I have a LS engine and my timing at idle is 30 degrees, which everyone says is crazy, but it runs great. What's your overlap? What's the static compression ratio?

Andrew

[ccmc]

Your pointer may be off. I think you should verify top dead center and see if your timing mark is at 0.