Bad timing.....

[280zwitha383]

After burning a hole through the welding on one of my headers I figured I better get my timing figured out because the welder said there shouldn't be any way I burned through it without my timing being way too far advanced. So I went and bought a timing light hooked it up and I was at 6 degrees initial timing which I set by ear so I thought that was pretty good and I left it at that. Come to find out after reading some more and using the light at higher rpm with the vacuum advance that my total timing was 50 degrees which I know is very bad (atleast I think I know) and with my initial timing at 10 degrees my mechanical timing is right at 36 degrees which I thought was awesome. So here's where I run out of knowledge: I know I should end up with 34 or 36 degrees total timing which I do at WOT because there is no longer any vacuum at WOT with a ported vacuum (right?) so what's the easiest/most effective way to get the mid-throttle advance down? I've heard about a limiter plate on a distributor but I haven't looked to see if that's stock or if that's some sort of aftermarket feature. Any help would be appreciated.

 

BTW this is a stock (to my knowledge) HEI distributor that came on a computer controlled timing engine ('85 silverado)but it is or atleast should be bypassed since two of the wires have been spliced together.

 

Thanks a ton.

[dmanzo57]

I bought a adjustable vacuum advance kit made by Crane Cams. The kit allows you to tune the vacuum advance curve. It came with a limiter plate, but it didn't fit my MSD distributor. I ended up making a limiter plate out of sheet aluminum.

 

Don