ykp53

okay guys, i went to the track last year and ran a 1/4 mile at 14.6. my wife was telling one of the guys she works with that about it. he said my 454 should do better than that, and that i should start by trying to adjust the timming, and see if i cant do any better. well i came home from work and she had bought me a adj. timming light, and had a schedule of when the track was open. she told me if i have a vette it should run like one and not be beat by a z28. ( i think she was racing people but i know not to ask questions). so this leads to the questions. how do i set/check the timing? can i do this if i have never done it before? i looked at lars paper in the corvettefaq but i didnt know if it is the same between traditional point systems and hei systems. i have a 454 crate motor with a edelbrock #1910 carb. headers duel exhaust, no cats, and a great wife. so guys help me. tell me what to do.

thanks

ykp53

okay guys someone has had to have tuned their car before.....

1979toy

I wasn't clear on weather you have points or HEI.
In any case, if you have points set them to the factory specs and follow the Lars timing methoad.
You will want to get a set of lightweight mechanical advance springs and install them at the start. The factory springs will not reach full advance soon enough for performance use.
Be sure that your vacuum advance hose is disconnected and pluged before setting the timing.
Connect your timing light to the left front plug wire (#1 cylinder) and the positive stud at the back of the alternator and a ground.
Mark your Top Dead Center point on your harmonic balancer, it will say 0. Chalk works.
Start the engine and warm it up, when warm, tune the timing light to match your timing marks, rev the engine while watching the marks. When they have gone as far apart as they will tune the light to match the timing mark on the balancer with the 0 point. Read the number on the light. That is your full advance timing. Adjust the distrubtor to move the full advance. You should be looking for about 34 to 36 degrees.
I find it easier to have my wife rev the engine from the cockpit. That way she can read the RPM that the advance is full at.
Good luck with it.

lars

Yes, you can, and should, set up your HEI as outlined in the Timing Paper. On the HEI, you cannot remove the springs entirely to easily check total timing. Rather, install a random set of very soft springs to maintain some amount of spring tension on the advance weights. With this done, you can disconnect your vac advance, set your timing light to 36 degrees, start the engine and rev it up a bit. As you rev the engine, you will see the timing line moving and advancing as the rpm comes up. Rev the engine until it stops advancing and does not move further. At this point, you should have 36 degrees total timing as indicated by the timing line on your balancer lining up with the "0" mark on the tab (with your timing light set at 36). Once you have achieved 36 degrees total, timing, you can play around with various springs to make this total timing occur at or about 2500-3000 rpm. Once you're all done, hook up your vac advance again, and go racing! Contact me with any questions.