jbravo688

Hello all. I bought a 69 Corvette that has a 383 small block stroker installed. Never been raced and has less than 5000 street miles. I have a parts list for the engine. It's rated at 538hp by the manufacturer (Speed-O-Motive) West Covina CA.

I can't seem to get a hold of the them and need the initial timing spec and the total timing specs. It has Dart Pro 1 215/64 AP heads, compression rated at 11.0 to 1, MSD6A ignition, MSD ProBillet Dist (no vacuum advance), it has a Comp Cams CS294S 10 solid lifter cam. I have an Edelbrock Performer 800 CFM Carb on an Edelbrock RPM airgap manifold.

I'm new to the board and would appreciate any help. Thanks

cv67

Send your distributor to Bob Jennings in North Hills Ca.
He will take that MSD apart and make it right they have their flaws and put the perfect curve on it. I couldnt make any of those bushings and springs make it anywhere near right. It would not time the way it read. Maybe I typed that wrong.
Conservative curve that comes in late works well. No need for locking them out and all that.

Had QMP racing in Chatsworth do a neat oiling mod for the gear, optional
Maybe you could do this yourself

lars

With 11:1 compression, you're obviously not running pump gas, since no available pump gas will support that comp ratio. So assuming this is not a street car, and you're running 100-octane race gas, you should be running about 34 degrees total timing with those heads, and initial timing in the 20 degree range with that cam. Bring it all-in at about 2500 rpm.

Lars

jbravo688

Thanks for your response Lars. I Only drive it to the local car show. Five miles each way. I'm using 91 octane and an octane booster in the tank. The car has a 3:70 rear end and though it came with the original 4 speed, it has a 5 speed Richmond installed. A bit low geared for my comfort, fifth gear is one to one.

My question now is, if I set the initial timing at 20 degrees advanced and see more or less than 34 degrees at 2700 rpm, what should I do about that?

lars

Install the correct advance stop bushing in the distributor to produce the curve length you need. Also, you don't set initial and hope for correct total. You set the total, and see if the initial is in an acceptable range.
Lars

jbravo688

That begs the question, what would be an acceptable initial range in your view?

MelWff

See if you can find a local dealer who sells Sunoco 100 unleaded or any of the other leaded fuels such as 112. As Lars stated above that engine will not run correctly with 91 octane and a booster. I have a 11.1 engine and switching to Sunoco 100 made an amazing difference.

http://www.racegas.com/fuelfinder

jbravo688

Thanks for the reply. I think there's a Sunoco dealer in El Cajon CA just a few miles away.

MelWff

No, it's not any Sunoco dealer, use the link I provided above. It may even be another brand but they buy race gas from Sunoco.

Super6

That's a nice clean oiling trick. I did something similar, without taking the distributor gear off. I took a Dremel with a cutoff wheel and put a groove on the outside of the same rings in the distributor housing. I positioned the groove so it squirts at the spot where the distributor gear and cam gear mesh when the distributor is in place. If I had thought of it, I would have removed the distributor gear and drilled the hole as was done on yours. Nice job.

Super6

This falls under the "any help" catagory. If that distributor has vacuum advance, you should hook it up to full vacuum. If due to your compression, you have to run reduced advance (intial plus mechanical), say at 34 instead of 36 or 38, you can hook up the vacuum for some more timing at idle and at cruise for a cleaner/cooler running engine at idle and cooling running engine at cruise. If the engine surges at part throttle reduce the vacuum advance a little. There's no effect at WOT, as the vacuum goes away as the throttles open.

jbravo688

Want to thank everyone for the great responses. New problem:

In attempting to set the total timing I noticed as the engine RPMs are increased the timing does not advance under the timing light. I shut the engine down and took off the distributor cap (MSD Pro Billet) and noticed I can move the rotor a good half inch in both directions. Usually the rotor is solid. I wonder what might be wrong before I pull the distributor out of the engine? I wonder if I've sheared a pin holding the distributor gear?